American Graffiti (1973)

Watching American Graffiti, a nominee for Best Picture of 1973, is like catching up with an old friend. I've seen this film several times in my life, and getting to see it again is a chance to relive some very fond memories. I wasn't even born yet in 1962, the year in which the movie is set, but the story and the characters are really timeless. Almost everyone has had a night like the one this movie depicts, that night when all of the decisions you have make in life seem to coalesce.

The plot is pretty paper-thin, in many ways. Two recent high school graduates spend their last night in a small town before going off to college. Ron Howard and Richard Dreyfus play the leads, and the bulk of the movie is what happens on a "typical" night to them and their friends. They hang out at the local diner, and they cruise up and down the streets of the town. They meet new people and talk with old friends. Nothing more serious than that happens...well, except that both young men come to realize what they want out of life.

I've always empathized with Charles Martin Smith's Toad. Here's a guy who just can't seem to catch a break, yet he's always upbeat. He usually drives a scooter, but he gets to drive his friend's car for this one night and he makes the most of it, picking up a girl and buying liquor and making out at the lake and getting the car stolen--it's quite a full evening for him. In some ways, Toad is the archetypal "nerd" character that became such a staple of films in the following decades.

Then again, I also feel a kinship with Dreyfuss' Curt. He's the smart kid who's always second-guessing himself. He knows he's destined to go to college; he just has to convince himself of it first. And when an opportunity for love presents itself in the guise of a blonde in a white Thunderbird, he almost throws away his future for it. Perhaps that's why this film has such resonance (no, not blondes in T-birds); we all can see someone like ourselves in it.

Overall, this is a jewel. Not a bad performance or a wrong moment in it. And how can you resist that music? There's a reason why the 1950s made a comeback in the 1970s, and that reason is American Graffiti. I owned the soundtrack for many years on vinyl (yes, I am that old), and I wasn't the only one. Even those of us who didn't grow up during that decade can still feel a nostalgic twinge whenever "Rock Around the Clock" comes on the radio (which, granted, isn't that often unless you're listening to the oldies station anyway, but still...).

I feel intense sadness at the end of the movie when we're told what happened to the key characters later in life. It's almost a cliche in films now to end with this device, but American Graffiti uses it to great effect. Certainly, not all of their stories end unhappily. The opposite is true in several cases. But it's as if someone managed to find out what happened to all of your childhood friends; you can't help feeling a sense of nostalgia and regret. Perhaps that's another reason for why this movie retains its appeal after all these years.

The French Connection (1971)

The winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1971, The French Connection is a very taut, suspenseful movie. It fairly crackles with intensity. I found it to be one of the most compelling movies I'd ever seen. Everything about this movie is first-rate. I'm only sorry that I'd never managed to see it before now.

Two cops, played by Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, sort of stumble upon a huge drug smuggling operation (with a connection to a French smuggler, as the title suggests), all due to their stake-out of a tiny candy store run by suspected drug dealers. The movie tracks the attempts by the cops to find how the drugs are coming into New York and who is responsible for the shipment. There's an amazing car chase sequence involving the elevated trains of the city (quite a spectacular series of images) and a "tailing" of a suspect that goes on for quite some time, building in intensity as the viewer wonders if the cops can keep up with the suspect. The film also features several "interrogation" sequences, including one in a bar populated by African Americans that results in Scheider's Buddy being beaten up. A lot of what happens is the result of the instincts that Hackman's cop has developed throughout many years in the city, and of course, those same instincts are repeatedly questioned by his superiors. He's been too much of a rebellious part of the force to be trusted fully.

Hackman is amazing, a tough guy cop with an aggression that you can see verging out of control almost all the time. Scheider has the quieter role, certainly, but he acts as fine counterpoint to Hackman's Popeye Doyle. Both men are unusual choices for lead roles--you'd think Hollywood would have kept them forever in supporting or character parts--but they truly shine here.

I won't talk about the final sequence, in case you haven't yet seen the movie. But it's a doozy. All of the movies about cops and dope smugglers and crime-ridden areas owe The French Connection an enormous debt. This is one of the best movies of the 1970s, an era that attempted to bring a sense of realism back to film.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

The Philadelphia Story was nominated for Best Picture of 1940. It's a witty movie with three great lead performances from Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant (he's making a lot of appearances on this blog, isn't he?). Allegedly, it marked Hepburn's return to prominence as an actor after several years of being labeled "box office poison." She's very charming here, as are her two male co-stars.

It's a love story. Hepburn's Tracy Lord is about to be married when her ex-husband C.K. Dexter Haven (Grant) shows up with a tabloid reporter, Macauley Connor (Stewart). Tracy soon realizes that she is in love, to varying degrees, of course, with three men. The film charts the dilemma she faces and the method she uses to make her choice. There's a lot of smart verbal sparring here, and even members of the excellent supporting cast (my favorite being Ruth Hussey as the photographer Liz Imbrie) have a chance to get a good zinger in every now and then.

I wish I could say that I loved this film. It's always listed as one of the best romantic comedies ever made, and it's on many people's lists of favorite films of all time. I do like it, certainly. It has a sharp script and strong acting. It just seems a bit cold or distant to me. Perhaps it's because it deals with such old-money types (although I've certainly enjoyed other movies about the idle rich). Or maybe it's because the chemistry seems "off" a bit between Hepburn and her co-stars, despite their considerable acting talents. I don't know. Everyone seems so smart and clever in this movie, and yet it all seems so artificial in some way. I realize this assessment will likely mean that I'm forced to watch Dances with Wolves until I change my mind, and perhaps subsequent viewings of The Philadelphia Story will cure me instead, but at this point, this isn't one of the best films that I've managed to see since starting this project.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

The other Christmas movie to be nominated for Best Picture of 1947, Miracle on 34th Street is rightly a classic. It takes a rather odd premise--the court must decided if an old fellow who claims to be Santa Claus is truly who he says he is--and makes it work despite some incredible leaps of faith demanded from the viewer. I watched it again this year after many years of avoiding it ("who needs to see that again?"), and I was charmed all over again by how it restores your faith in your fellow human beings.

Edmund Gwenn is delightful as the would-be Santa Claus. He certainly makes you want to believe again in your childhood fantasy that a man in red from the North Pole will bring you lots of presents and make sure that you get what you ask for, too. John Payne does a nice turn as the lawyer who agrees to defend Kris Kringle, and Maureen O'Hara is great, as always, as the no-nonsense business executive who doesn't want her daughter to believe in fairy tales like those about Santa. Of course, watching Natalie Wood give one of the best performances by a child ever in the movies is a highlight. She's remarkable in her ability to convey how her emotions change throughout the story. She and O'Hara have a conversation late in the movie about the need to believe in Santa Claus, and it's one of the most touching mother-daughter moments I've ever witnessed.

In years past, I always kind of looked at this movie as a two-hour-long commercial for Macy's department stores. While the store certainly plays a central role in the film (much to their delight, I'm sure), it didn't seem quite as overwhelming this year as it had in the past. That might have a lot to do with the fact that all of the competitors mentioned in the film are no more, and only Macy's remains standing. It is fun to watch how the annual Thanksgiving Day parade looked back in the 1940s, quite different from the elaborate spectacle staged for television today.

Just as an aside, don't watch the remake from 1994. Richard Attenborough is a pale substitute for Gwenn as Kris Kringle. Attenborough is actually much better as the "entrepreneur" in the Jurassic Park movies. And Mara Wilson is no Natalie Wood either. She's charming in her own way, but Wood was already so talented as such a young age. Fox Movie Channel alternates screenings of these two versions on Christmas Eve, but hold out for the original. It's worth the wait.

Quiz Show (1994)

Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford, was nominated for Best Picture of 1994. It tells the story of the scandals involving the quiz show 21 in the 1950s. Allegations of answers being provided to certain contestants in order to improve the show's ratings led to significant changes in the television industry at the time (and greater regulation of it by the federal government). The story is a fascinating inquiry into our nation's obsession with wealth and celebrity, as well as our long-term privileging of whiteness and Christianity. The movie raises a lot of questions that, hopefully, members of the audience discuss after watching it. I remember after seeing it the first time back in 1994 having quite a few debates with friends over which characters had done the right things.

This is another film with almost everyone in Hollywood making an appearance. Rob Morrow, who had been starring on Northern Exposure on television at the time, plays the "lead" role of the attorney investigating the quiz shows on behalf of a Congressional committee; he's probably the weakest part of the film, given that he is expected to speak with a Boston accent and his success with it is spotty at best. Ralph Fiennes plays the young, dashing contestant who comes from a famous literary family. As soon as he appears in the offices of the quiz show, the producers make him a star, and you can see just how tempted he becomes by fame, how enraptured he is by the attention that he (and not his famous father or famous uncle) is finally receiving.

John Turturro is fascinating as a less than likable hero; he's the one whose loss sets into motion the events that lead to the show's downfall. And the fact of his character's Jewishness is raised as a/the potential reason for his being "replaced" by the WASPish Fiennes. Paul Scofield plays Fiennes' father with tremendous gravity and class. He's incredible to watch; you have a sense of a lifetime of acting at work whenever he's on the screen. There's also Hank Azaria and David Paymer as less-than-scrupulous television executives, and Christopher McDonald is hilarious as Jack Barry, the host of the show always worrying about the way that he looks. If you watch carefully, you'll see cameo appearances by a very young Callista Flockhart and a brief appearance by Ethan Hawke, as well as Ileana Douglas as a guest at a book party and Barry Levinson doing an interesting take on Today Show host Dave Garroway (with that stupid chimp they had on the show at the time).

There's much to recommend about this movie. It's one of those films about "important" issues, but it does manage to make the story interesting to anyone, even those who have never heard of the quiz show scandal. You get to feel the torment that these people feel as they struggle to decide their courses of action, and you get a sense of frustration with the dishonesty that seems to characterize so many people portrayed in this film. When a Southern Congressman at one of the hearings asks why Fiennes' character should be praised for finally telling the truth (albeit in a very eloquent way), the applause that rings through the chamber is both shocking and honest. What Redford's film manages to accomplish is a clear dissection into one incident that has numerous consequences, and that's quite a feat. We still are too willing to accept television that is packed for us in the guise of "reality," and what Quiz Show manages to do is make us think, at least for a moment, about the honesty, the integrity of that approach and our own culpability in it.

The Good Earth (1937)

Nominated for Best Picture of 1937, The Good Earth is the story of a family of Chinese peasants and their struggles to survive and even flourish. It's based upon the prize-winning novel by Pearl S. Buck, and it tells a story of perseverance and hard work. This family faces drought, hunger, long migrations, political revolutions, a series of tests of their endurance. It's a relatively quiet film overall, a study in patience, with just two exceptions of note: a plague of locusts and a night of rioting during one of the revolutions in China.

The sequence involving the plague of locusts is pretty spectacular. The amount of effort it must have taken in 1937 is staggering to imagine. And the dozens of actors necessary to make the battle against these insects convincing? Well, these are the days long before CGI took care of crowds. The same holds true for the scenes of the revolution. Watching Luise Rainer being trampled as she tries to get her share of the treasures in the home of the wealthy landowners (a home where she once was a slave) is cringe-inducing in its suspense. Those are actual people tearing the structure down around her.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the most controversial aspect of this movie: its casting. The lead roles are played by European actors. Paul Muni, an Austrian, plays Wang Lung, the peasant farmer who learns to love the woman he has been arranged to marry (although with one significant misstep along the way, a woman named Lotus). Rainer, who was born in Germany, plays O-Lan, the servant girl who leaves the big house for a harsh life as the wife of a poor farmer. Only their sons are played by Asian actors, the best of them being Keye Luke as the older boy. He's very good; it's a shame that there was really no place in the industry at the time for him to achieve a career as a leading man. Understandably, Hollywood in those days didn't turn over leading parts to non-white actors, and while Muni and Rainer are both good, they are never truly convincing as Chinese peasants.

This was the last film that the "boy wonder" of MGM, Irving Thalberg, worked on. There's a tribute to him at the beginning of the film, and it's fitting that a big budget literary adaptation should be his final contribution to the industry.

The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)

The first sequel to be nominated for Best Picture, The Bells of St. Mary's was released in 1945, just one year after Bing Crosby originated the role of Father O'Malley in Going My Way (the winner for Best Picture that year). I haven't yet watched Going My Way, but The Bells of St. Mary's doesn't seem to add up to a cohesive film to me. It's mostly just a series of sometimes unrelated, sometimes interrelated incidents that occur over the course of a year. It's a fun movie in many ways, but it's a rather inconsequential film to have been nominated for Best Picture during the last year of World War II.

As the film opens, Crosby's priest has just been transferred to St. Mary's, a parochial school that has been deteriorating rapidly. The school is in very bad shape, particularly the classrooms, and the Catholic Church has been considering closing the school and selling the property. Almost immediately upon his arrival, Father O'Malley clashes with the head of the school, Sister Mary Benedict, played by Ingrid Bergman, who wants to maintain order and discipline. He is a pretty lax disciplinarian, while she and the other nuns are more traditional (i.e., strict). But don't watch this film expecting to learn about any serious rifts within the Catholic Church over differing approaches to education. Their "fights" are all rather harmless in nature; nothing too serious is going to be debated or resolved here. For example, Father O'Malley is so filled with excitement at his new job that he lets the children have the first day off. Sister Benedict wonders what will happen to the children since their parents are at work. That's pretty much the depth of conflict for most of the film.

Well, that's not completely accurate. The primary dramatic tension revolves around whether or not the adjacent building being constructed by Henry Travers' millionaire businessman, Horace P. Bogardus, will be donated to the school, something Sister Benedict and the other nuns have been praying for. There are several scenes sprinkled throughout the film where Father O'Malley and Sister Benedict separately bring up the subject of the building to Bogardus. He wants to buy St. Mary's in order to tear it down and build a parking lot. He also has, perhaps unsurprisingly, a series of health problems brought about by the stress of dealing with architects and contractors and workers. You know that in a film like this he's going to relent and give his building to the nuns. However, so much of the film is devoted to other stories that even this plotline seems no more important or significant than the rest.

For me, the most entertaining scenes involve Sister Benedict teaching a young boy how to defend himself. Father O'Malley has broken up a fight between two boys, Eddie and Tommy. The priest seems especially proud of how good a fighter Tommy is, but the nun fears that praising the boys for fighting might influence them to continue with this inappropriate behavior. After she correctly guesses that O'Malley is trying to suggest that women like herself wouldn't understand--it's the old fear of the female influence turning boys into sissies that movies of this era were obsessed with--she buys a book on boxing at a sporting goods story (cute scene, by the way) and begins tutoring Eddie every day in her office. The kid even knocks her out during one of their practices. When he inevitably bests Tommy in a schoolyard fight, Sister Benedict glows with pride.

The most intriguing sequence in the film is also the most enigmatic. A young girl named Patsy (well, Patricia) Gallagher is enrolled at St. Mary's by her mother (played by Martha Sleeper). The mother had married a musician, and you know how unreliable those types can be. Just watch Crosby's face when the mother explains about the itinerant life of a musician; it's a clever inside joke. Anyway, the father abandoned his wife for a job in Cincinnati, not knowing she was pregnant with Patsy (played very well by Joan Carroll), and so the mother had to "do things" to support her child. We are never told what those "things" are in the movie. We only know that Mrs. Gallagher thinks Patsy would be better off if she weren't around her mother. The priest takes a personal interest in seeing Patsy succeed, sometimes to the frustration of her teacher, Sister Benedict, but you know that both of them have the girl's interests at heart. The father eventually returns, thanks to the intervention of Father O'Malley, but it's a difficult, awkward transition for the Gallaghers to feel like a true family.

There's also an interesting series of scenes involving Sister Benedict's health. She has, it turns out, tuberculosis in its early stages. What I found odd is that the doctor tells Father O'Malley but not Sister Benedict about this diagnosis. He also conspires with the priest to have the nun sent away to some place with a more arid climate so that she can regain her health. The doctor doesn't want her to know about the serious nature of her health problems, and he wants her to be secreted off to Arizona or somewhere without letting her even know why? To me, it seems almost like malpractice not to share this information with the patient. It also smacks of misogyny to think that a man can handle the news of an illness like this, but not a woman--even if it's her own health that is at risk. That's still shocking to me.

You might also have a moment of surprise when the students in the school recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The phrase "one nation under God" doesn't appear in this pledge. That's because those words were added in the 1950s during the era when the government was trying to find Communists in every arena of American life. The added words became a sort of loyalty oath, if you will. Since this film was completed in 1945, today's audiences will quickly notice that absence when the pledge begins. Just don't get riled up about some leftist Hollywood plot; know your history first.

Lest you think it's all serious subject matter, the movie also has a couple of charming moments. One of the most delightful is the play put on by the first graders. It's a retelling of the birth of Jesus, and it's a riot. Those kids seem to have a rather vague sense of what happens in the Biblical story, but they don't let such pesky issues as accuracy interfere with their play. A close second would be the early scenes where a kitten stumbles into Father O'Malley's hat while he's trying to deliver a serious speech to the nuns in his new parish. The nuns, though, can't pay attention to him and start to giggle and laugh. Even he has to acknowledge the humor of the situation when he learns the cause of their outburst.

I know what you're still thinking: Bing Crosby as a priest and Ingrid Bergman as a nun? Indeed. Bergman has the most glowing make-up of any nun I've ever seen, and Crosby's Father O'Malley behaves in decidedly un-priestlike fashion. Crosby wasn't really an actor, as this film clearly shows. He was just a guy who could sing well (he gets several opportunities here to demonstrate his crooning ability) and who could act very naturally on camera. He acquits himself nicely. Bergman, however, was one of the best actors of her era. She does get to show that she too can play a comic part--and she is funny--but this is a far cry from her work in Casablanca or Anastasia. Neither of these performers seems to have been challenged by the material. In fact, the entire movie feels as if it were rushed into production to capitalize on the success of the earlier film. Regardless, it's relatively harmless entertainment, nothing that couldn't be seen by audience members of any age.

Oscar Win: Sound Recording

Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director, Actor (Crosby), Actress (Bergman), Film Editing, Dramatic or Comedy Score, and Original Song ("Aren't You Glad You're You")

Libeled Lady (1936)

A 1936 nominee for Best Picture, Libeled Lady features four of the best movie stars of the 1930s in its lead roles: Spencer Tracy, Jean Harlow, William Powell, and Myrna Loy. Powell and Loy had already begun the Thin Man series of movies two years earlier, and this film carries on that tradition of sly verbal sparring. Tracy and Harlow (especially Harlow) display a talent for comedy equal to that of Powell and Loy. They all contribute to this being an entertaining movie.

Tracy plays a newspaperman who keeps putting off his wedding to Harlow's desperate-to-wed society girl; she even shows up at his office in a wedding dress when he stands her up at the altar one time. When his paper faces a multi-million dollar lawsuit over an article calling Loy's heiress a homewrecker, Tracy gets the bright idea to marry Harlow off to one of his writers, played by Powell. The goal is to have Powell then charm Loy into breaking up the marriage of convenience, thereby proving that the original story accurately characterized Loy and proving that she was not libeled in the newspaper article. I don't think I could make the plot sound any sillier than it is, but with performers like these, you can accept that it's all meant in fun. They deliver their lines with such style that it's tough not to be swept along.

My favorite scene (probably almost everyone's favorite scene) involves Powell trying to demonstrate proper fly fishing technique, something he's only just learned by reading an authoritative guide to the sport. But in order to charm Loy and her father, who is an avid fisherman himself, Powell must carry out what is one of the best slapstick routines on film from that decade. He's in and out of the water often in his quest to snag a trout.

Harlow is a delight. If you've never seen one of her movies, you've missed one of the great comic actors of all time. She is loud and brassy here, as she often was in the movies, but when she slowly seems to be falling in love with Powell's newspaperman, you also get a glimpse of gentleness beneath all of her bluster. The scene at the end of the movie where all four principals show up to have one rowdy argument demonstrates the passion with which Harlow acted. Her death a year after this film's release was a tremendous loss to the industry and to our culture.

The Bishop's Wife (1947)

Sometimes when you watch a movie that's grounded in fantasy, or perhaps just any movie, you have to set aside your critical thinking skills so that you can just be swept up in the joy that the movie presents. Such is the case with The Bishop's Wife, which was nominated for Best Picture in 1947. It's a Christmas movie, actually one of two Christmas movies nominated that year, the other being the classic Miracle on 34th Street. I'm not usually fond of Christmas movies (or even Christmas music, as you can read on my other blog), but this one has such charm that you can't help but smile as you watch it.

The main reason for the movie's success is Cary Grant. He plays an angel named Dudley who comes to Earth to answer people's prayers. An Episcopal bishop, played by David Niven, thinks Dudley is there to help him build his new cathedral. Dudley, however, quickly seems more interested in helping the minister's wife, played by Loretta Young. The bishop's wife (hence the title) has been feeling increasingly distant from her husband, whose thoughts of late seem to be too focused on raising money for "his" glorious cathedral. For the next hour or so, Dudley makes remarkable things happen, bringing happiness to almost everyone he encounters, save (of course) for the bishop, who begins to suspect that his wife is becoming too enamored of Dudley.

Grant, of course, makes it easy to see why even the maids and cabdrivers and everyone else feel better around him. He displays such optimism, such a sense of vitality, that you couldn't help but feel happier when Dudley talks to you. He can make Christmas trees light up on command, he can make a bottle of sherry continue to refill itself, and he even can make a group of boys who'd rather be outside playing all show up for choir rehearsal. Grant...well, Dudley can apparently do anything. I was never that fond of Loretta Young as an actress, to be honest, and I didn't think she was particularly attractive either. But even she glows here, undoubtedly because for the first time in a while, someone is paying attention to her, just her, and it doesn't hurt that the someone is Cary Grant. Watch the two of them (well, the three of them if you include their cabbie) ice skating, and you'll see what I mean. It's one of the most magical sequences in this enchanting movie.

The supporting cast is great too. Elsa Lanchester plays one of the maids, and she's terrific, so warm and funny, a far cry from The Bride of Frankenstein. Monty Woolley plays a professor who's an old friend of the bishop's family, and in my opinion, he does as good a job in this movie as he did when he starred in The Man Who Came to Dinner. Gladys Cooper steals almost every scene she's in as a rich widow who's trying to assuage a guilty conscience by dedicating a chapel in the new cathedral for the husband she never truly loved. And James Gleason, who plays Sylvester the cabdriver, brightens up the screen whenever he's on; you look forward to each of his brief appearances.

It would be easy to be cynical about movies like this. Of course, they are completely unrealistic, and no one ever truly behaves this way, and it's stretching the bounds of possibility to even think that such stuff could happen, etc. Yet I found myself completely immersed in what happened to these characters. It isn't cloying or sappy or any of the other things often associated with Christmas movies. It also isn't heavy-handed about religion despite its focus on bishops and cathedrals and angels. It's just pleasant fun. That's one of the signs of a great film. If it can make you forget for a couple of hours almost everything else going on in the world, you know you have a winner.

Cries and Whispers (1973)

Nominated for Best Picture of 1973, Cries and Whispers is one of the rare foreign language films to be nominated for the top prize. It's one of Ingmar Bergman's most powerful movies. The story is relatively simple to summarize, I suppose. Two sisters, Karin and Maria, come to their family home to watch over their dying sister Agnes. However, the film is about much more than that simple plot description might suggest. This is an intensely painful film to watch, and it moves at a glacial pace, but it is very much worth the time and the energy.

It starts in a rather audacious way: a series of images, including several clocks. Almost 10 minutes pass before any character speaks, but the concept of the passage of time has already been prioritized. A series of flashbacks, usually signaled by a close-up of the face of one of the actresses, reveal defining moments in their past. And each moment is heartwrenching. The one that everyone focuses upon, of course, is Karin's self-mutilation. I don't really know that I could explain why she does it, except perhaps as a way to feel something, anything, in the sterile environment in which she has become trapped. So rarely does she express emotions that it almost seems like a relief to her to feel such pain. It's a powerful, uncomfortable scene, but the movie is filled with such discomfort. That's not to suggest that it isn't also a fascinating movie; it is quite spellbinding. You are drawn into the lives of these women, and you try to understand the source of such enormous pain felt by them all.

This is a film about guilt and shame. It's about regrets and reconciliations. It's about the ways that we treat each other, both good and bad. It's about the responsibilities that we have to each other and the resentments we often have about those responsibilities. It's about isolation and about community. It requires...no, demands (as do many Bergman films) your attention.

I was particularly intrigued by his use of the color red throughout the film. It's there in Karin's blood, of course, but it's also the color of the walls in several rooms of the house. And rather than fades to black or white, scene changes are often indicated by fades to red. Perhaps he's trying to suggest something about the links we share through our blood lines, about the genetics we have in common. Perhaps it's a commentary on the anger which too often fills our lives, red being the color most often associated with that emotion. I suppose that is one of the treasures of a Bergman film, that ability to discuss what it all means. It was one of his greatest talents as a filmmaker.

I also think this film is a statement about women and the emotions they must carry. All of the male characters are minor, and none of them are particularly appealing. You wonder why these women married or fell in love with such unattractive people. Perhaps it was Bergman's way of placing the emphasis instead on female bonds. Certainly, the women are more complex and more interesting. And the performances, though at times enigmatic (just as the script might have dictated), are all stellar. Kari Sylwan gives an almost silent performance as Anna, the maid. In fact, much of the movie is built upon silences, and she conveys a great deal of emotion with merely her face or the way she carries her body. Liv Ullman plays Maria, and she brings her usual craftsmanship to the part; as in several other Bergman films, she shares screen time with equally talented women (think Persona, for example) and more than holds her own. Harriet Andersson plays Agnes with such a level of ferocity that it's difficult to watch her writhe in pain, but it's equally difficult to turn away from her at those same moments. The standout for me, though, is Ingrid Thulin as Karin. She brings such a depth to the range of emotions she must convey, and she is able to do so with such tiny gestures or facial expressions. It's a stunning performance from an actress apparently little known outside of Europe.

Kings Row (1942)

Kings Row was a nominee for Best Picture of 1942. Ostensibly, it's a film about five children in a small town whose lives have taken some remarkably different paths as they grow up. However, the main focus is on two of those children, the ones played as adults by Robert Cummings and Ronald Reagan (yes, the two men). Cummings plays a man named Parris studying to become a doctor with a specialization in psychiatry; he is, perhaps unsurprisingly, in love with the daughter of the specialist he studies with (played by Claude Raines with his usual gusto) in his home town. Reagan is a sort of playboy, a guy named Drake who dates a lot of different women while waiting for his full inheritance so he can become a businessman.

Much of the plot is about the interactions of these two characters with three women in the town, all of them women the men have known since childhood. One is, of course, the daughter of the strange psychiatrist, and she's locked away in her father's mansion for most of the movie without a full explanation as to the reasons for her confinement. (There's always something suspicious going on when a girl has to be locked away, isn't there? Too bad we never quite know what it is in this case.) Another is a girl who loses her virginity to Reagan's bad boy; her father is the local quack doctor (hold that thought for just a moment). The third is a girl from the "wrong side of the tracks" (no, quite literally, in this case). After Drake is forced to take a menial job on the railroad, the two of them fall in love, and she stands by him even after a work-related injury leads to the doctor (yes, that one) amputating both of his legs, perhaps out of anger for Drake's treatment of his daughter years before. Sounds a bit like a potboiler, doesn't it? However, thankfully, Parris returns after studying psychiatry in Vienna (where else does one study psychiatry around 1900 if not in the hometown of Sigmund Freud?) to help everyone begin the healing process. It plays much better than I've made it sound here.

I want to single out Reagan's performance, in particular, as one of the best things about this movie. He's quite charming during his earlier scenes, and after tragedy befalls him, he manages to make the audience feel the depth of his suffering. This was probably his best role, and it's credited as being the one that made him a star. The look on his face when he realizes that he has been swindled out of his fortune demonstrates that he was indeed a good actor. And his scenes at the end of the film reveal just how emotionally and not just physically wounded Drake is. I was never that fond of Reagan's politics, but you can see in a film like Kings Row why he was so popular even as a politician. He has a likable quality to him that seems genuine.

JFK (1991)

Nominated for Best Picture of 1991, JFK is a dizzying film in many ways. I've never managed to sit through the entire movie until I started this project. As happy as I am that I've managed to do so, I'm also pretty glad I will never be obligated to watch it again. It's an amazingly muddled film, difficult to follow at times, yet dazzling in its technique. I'm not sure that any of it is really based upon what happened back in the 1960s, but that's not really the point. What the director/co-writer, Oliver Stone, seems to be saying is that we are only given fragments of historical events anyway, bits and pieces from lots of different sources, and we are thus obligated to put all of this together to develop our own sense of what happened. I certainly appreciate that idea; having earned a bachelor's degree in history, I do understand how we reconstruct past events. But while Stone's approach makes for an interesting film, I don't think I'd want to read a history book composed in that way.

At the center of the story is Jim Garrison, a district attorney in New Orleans who begins to develop his own theory as to what happened in Dallas that November day in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated. He launches his own investigation, and the movie attempts to follow all of the bizarre twists and turns through speculations about the Mafia, the FBI, Cuba, the Soviet Union, the Vietnam War, homosexuality, the Warren Commission, the reverse vampires (or was that an episode of The Simpsons?), well, you get the idea. Unfortunately, Stone selected Kevin Costner to play the part of Garrison, and he makes for an incredibly boring hero. At so many points during this movie, I wanted to turn it off because I just couldn't believe Garrison was going on another tangent (and I really wasn't interested in following him one more time). While the frustration created by the film certainly mirrors our national frustration with getting the truth about Kennedy's assassination, picking a different person as your primary focus, perhaps someone with a bit more personality, would have made the story more intriguing.

Technically, the film is a marvel. The editing is certainly worthy of praise, the use of a variety of film stocks is a genius move, and with the exception of Costner, the cast is first-rate. It seems as if almost everyone in Hollywood had a role in this film. Watching the entire movie almost becomes a game of "Isn't that...?" However, you can't watch this film and just be intrigued by the editing or the cinematography or the acting or any other of its components individually. You have to return to the story and grapple with what it forces you to consider. I don't turn to the movies for history lessons. In fact, I've even given my students assignments that have asked them to determine how the historical record and the movie version of an event or a person's life are vastly different from each other. So I'm not enraged by what Stone has done or even what he suggests by this film. We will likely never find out the "truth" of who was involved in the assassination, but hopefully, most people will not turn to this film and accept it as an answer. It's really more of a question, and perhaps it's an appropriate question to ask.

Several years ago, I visited my brother for Thanksgiving. He lives near Ft. Worth, so we took a day to drive to Dallas to see the plaza and go to the book depository, which includes among its exhibits a discussion of the various conspiracy theories that have gained prominence in the past 44 years. It was interesting to see just how much of our understanding of Kennedy's death is intertwined with our notions of who might have been involved and the reasons for their involvement. To that end, Stone's movie does justice to one of our nation's lingering obsessions. Just don't ask me to see it again. I might feel compelled to begin my own investigation.

All the King's Men (1949)

Winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1949, All the King's Men charts the rise to power of Willie Stark, a working class guy who manages to struggle his way from being a "nobody" to a position of great authority and influence: governor. It's loosely based upon the career of Huey Long, who served as governor and later senator of Louisiana, but the key word here would be "loosely." In fact, it's not even clear where the movie is set; it could truly be anywhere in the United States. The novel from which the story is drawn was written by Robert Penn Warren, and it's still a classic study of the ways that even those who have good intentions can be corrupted by political machinery.

This version of the film stars Broderick Crawford. He makes the most of the part, particularly in the scenes where he is giving public speeches to the people who will eventually elect him. He berates them as "hicks" who have too often let slick government officials take advantage of them. It's pretty stirring stuff despite the gruffness with which Willie attacks these common people. You can see why his populist approach makes him so appealing to them. He's one of them, a "little guy" who's been the victim too often of corruption, and he speaks their language. Even when he himself is later caught engaging in corrupt activities (and he is caught several times), he always turns to "the people" and manages to get them on his side through his skills at public persuasion.

One of the intriguing aspects of the story is how Stark first gets the political bug. He's actually denied something he wants by a county official. So incensed is he by this refusal that he decides to run for public office. His thirst for power seems to grow with each office that he's able to win, and his concern for his family and the people who elected him becomes weaker and more distant. It's as if the need for power consumes what is left of his soul. The film presents quite a picture of how intoxicating politics and power can be. You can see just how caught up Willie becomes in the quest for more and more control.

I've not seen the recent remake with Sean Penn in the lead role. I'm certain that it attempts to make a statement about the influential role of politics in our time. I don't think you need to update the story at all. The original version does an admirable job of showing the consequences of power, and its rawness still manages to resonate even today.

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

This is the 1978 version of Heaven Can Wait, although three versions of this story (one of them entitled Here Comes Mr. Jordan) have been nominated for Best Picture. Warren Beatty plays Rams football star Joe Pendleton, who is accidentally killed before he is scheduled to die, thanks to the interference of an overly eager angel. Once he gets to heaven, the situation becomes even worse because his original body has been cremated, so the angels (in the guise of Buck Henry and James Mason) attempt to find him another body to occupy. They choose the body of a millionaire who has just been murdered, and Joe assumes his new identity as Leo Farnsworth.

So overwhelming is his desire to play in the Super Bowl, however, that it isn't long before he's bought his old team and convinced his former coach Max, played with great mugging by Jack Warden, that he's the reincarnation of his old quarterback self. They begin training him for a return to football, despite his being significantly older than a football player should be.

The supporting cast is all top-notch, particularly Dyan Cannon and Charles Grodin as the would-be murderers (the old man's wife and his accountant, respectively). I remember seeing this movie when it was released in theaters--I was 15 years old then--and enjoying it immensely. It was one of the first "grown-up" movies I was taken to see, and I felt like I had been admitted to an exclusive society when I got all of the jokes. Even at that age (which was a younger 15 than it is today), I understood that Cannon's and Grodin's characters were having an affair, and I thus thoroughly enjoyed the scene where Leo bursts into the bedroom (all done up in a single print fabric) and announces that he wants a divorce.

My fondest memories, though, were of Beatty's co-star (and one of his many former lovers): Julie Christie. I don't recall having ever seen anyone as beautiful as she on a movie screen. I was entranced from the moment I saw her. And Beatty, serving as one of the directors, has shot her to be luminous. Each time she appears on the screen, you want Leo (and anyone else) to fall in love with her, to do whatever she asks. Of course, she wants the impossible, really, to have Mr. Farnsworth give up one of his money-making ventures because it endangers a small town she loves back in the U.K. Naturally, she persuades him, much to the surprise of his board of directors. But, honestly, could you deny Julie Christie anything? More than 40 years have passed since she first garnered worldwide attention in Darling, and she continues to dazzle audiences. She managed to take even a tiny part in the movie Troy and make it memorable, and I defy almost anyone not to cry when she is brought to tears near the end of Finding Neverland. She wasn't nominated in 1978 for Best Actress for Heaven Can Wait, but I hope she is on the short list again this year for Away from Her. She remains a marvel, and I'll always treasure Heaven Can Wait for introducing her to me almost 30 years ago.

Gosford Park (2001)

Gosford Park was the last film by Robert Altman to be nominated for Best Picture. A nominee in 2001, it features many of the traits of Altman's best films: a huge cast, lots of overlapping plots, and an overarching plot that ties everything (seemingly, allegedly) together. It's a great deal of fun to watch some of the best actors in Great Britain in these parts. How can you go wrong when you have Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, Clive Owen, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jeremy Northam, Eileen Atkins, Alan Bates, Derek Jacobi, Emily Watson, the list goes on. One of my favorites in this film is Stephen Fry, who plays perhaps the most inept inspector ever in the history of filmic detective work. The only misstep, sadly, is the use of Ryan Phillippe as an American actor trying to pass himself off as a Scottish butler. He just doesn't seem up to the task when placed in company such as this.

The film itself is very stylish. It's set during a weekend hunting party at a country house in England. All of the guests are wealthy (more or less), but all of them also have a grudge against the man who has invited them all to stay at his home. When he is found dead in his study, about halfway through the film, it changes from being a comedy of manners into a mystery. The transition is a bit awkward from my perspective, and I recall not enjoying it as much as everyone else did when it first played in theaters because it seemed like two movies had been sutured together somewhat haphazardly. (I also couldn't hear the dialogue clearly, a common problem in Altman films--and, yes, I know that is one of his signature marks. That doesn't make it any easier to hear it.) Each time I have seen it subsequently, I have eased up a bit on my initial assessment. I still don't think it's one of Altman's best, but it's certainly better than most of the films being made these days.

The parts of the film that I like the best are those involving the servants. They seem more real to me than the wealthy people. It's all very Upstairs, Downstairs, isn't it? But the servants have more honest moments of emotion than the guests at the party do. One of the best scenes is when the servants huddle around the various doors leading into one of the parlors. Ivor Novello, the great film star of the 1920s and 30s, is playing the piano and singing inside. The wealthy are best represented in this scene by Maggie Smith's Countess, who just seems annoyed that all of the noise is disrupting the card playing. The servants, however, are enraptured. They close their eyes and move in time with the music. Some even break into dance. It's one of those moments that reveals the true joy that popular entertainment can provide. They are the ones who are making Novello famous. It's quite a commentary from Altman on who the audience for films (and popular music) might be: the working classes with their need for escape now and then, not the stuffy upper classes who feel that the mass media are beneath them.

I must admit, though, that despite all of the pleasures found in watching the great performances by those in the roles of servants and butlers and maids and cooks, I love watching Smith as Countess Trentham. She's always been one of my favorite actresses, and I don't think she has ever been bad in any movie she's in. You know that even seeing her in a small role, like the one in the Harry Potter movies, will likely provide you with a chance to smile at the skill with which she performs. Here she's a woman who has always lived a life of leisure, a lifestyle that might have ended had not her host died before executing his plans to reduce the amount of her "allowance." Smith overpowers the rest of the cast in every scene she's in. And only she can deliver a simple line like "Difficult colour...green" and make you understand just what a cutting remark it is. I have sometimes wondered if they write dialogue with people like Maggie Smith in mind, and that's why she (and others like her) always gets such great lines. Or perhaps she just has an incomparable quality that makes her every line great, no matter how it was written to be delivered.

She Done Him Wrong (1932-33)

She Done Him Wrong stars Mae West as, well, a typical Mae West character. She's a saloon singer in the Bowery during the so-called Gay Nineties who's involved with several men, one of them a convict named Chick Clark (Owen Moore) who escapes from prison and is on his way to see her. She has, unsurprisingly, been less than faithful during his year-long absence and begins to fear what might happen upon his return when he discovers the other men she's been seeing. Another man she’s intrigued by is Serge Stanieff (Gilbert Roland), who’s working with criminals Gus Jordan (Noah Beery) and Russian Rita (Rafaela Ottiano) but who West sizes up when they meet just in case he might be material for later action. And then there’s Cary Grant (yes, Cary Grant!) as a missionary who keeps stopping by the saloon where West’s Lady Lou works and lives. You really didn’t expect that a Mae West film would only feature one love interest, did you?

Grant, in one of his first featured roles, actually plays the leader of a local temperance league, and West sets her sights on him as soon as she meets him. The mission’s in trouble, and Lou secretly does her best to make sure he’s able to keep his building, a very generous act for someone who’s clearly angling for him to pay attention to her. All of this is done with a bit of a sideways grin, and you can't take any of it too seriously. The film certainly has a brisk pace, clocking in at about 66 minutes long, reportedly making it the shortest film ever nominated for Best Picture.

Considering the brevity of the film, it’s quite surprising that West’s character doesn’t even show up until about nine minutes into the movie. We instead get a montage of the street, including an organ grinder’s monkey, horses and wagons, ladies walking, and a band playing. There’s even a shot involving some very huge glasses of beer. We even see her portrait, allegedly, above the bar in the saloon, a large nude rendition of her that doesn’t particularly look like her. She then rides up in a buggy to the chagrin of the women in town and waves from the men. She describes herself as “one of the finest women ever walked the streets.” Of course, she is.

What follows, plot-wise, is almost like a series of vignettes rather than a necessarily coherent narrative. We learn, for example, that Gus and Rita are running what a prostitution ring. When a young woman named Sally runs into the saloon and attempts to commit suicide, it’s Gus and Rita (and Serge) who promise to help her. Little does everyone realize that they’re going to force her into working as a prostitute. That’s not their only crime, naturally, but it’s the one that quickly gets the attention of Grant’s Captain Cummings. Since West was one of the co-writers of the screenplay, you can bet she knew the implications of that name.

Lou goes to visit her boyfriend Chick in prison, but he threatens to kill her if she’s been unfaithful. She calms him down by claiming that she’s been waiting for only him, which seems unlikely given that she knows every single convict in the prison. She even calls out two prisoners who seem, well, very close to each other, dubbing them “the Cherry Sisters.” Maybe that’s why it was called the “Gay Nineties.” Thinking she’s calmed Chick down, she returns to the saloon and to her incessant flirting with various men.

West sings a few songs during the movie, most notably "Frankie and Johnny," but her renditions of “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone” and “A Guy What Takes His Time” serve to amuse the audience in the saloon and those watching the film. She is also sewn into some pretty spectacular gowns and cinched very tight at the waist. There’s not a moment in the film when she isn’t sparkly or frilly or covered in diamonds and sequins – or sometimes all of those at once. Even her room upstairs in the saloon is fantastic. It’s filled with Victorian furniture and all kinds of knickknacks. The production designers and costume designers here did amazing work.

The best part of a Mae West film, though, is the dialog, especially the zingers. Almost every line she speaks is a double entendre. Actually, many of them aren’t even that; they’re too direct to be an entendre. I mean, when Grant’s Captain Cummings tries to put handcuffs on her, she reminds him that “hands aren’t everything.” This is also the film where she gets to deliver one of her most famous lines: "Why don't you come up some time and see me?" But she also shares this bit of folk wisdom: “Listen, when women go wrong, men go right after them.” When her maid Pearl (Louise Beavers) says that she wouldn’t want a police officer to catch her without a petticoat, Lou responds, “No policeman? What about a nice fireman?” And then there’s one of my favorites: “You know, it was a toss-up whether I go in for diamonds or sing in the choir. The choir lost.” You don’t get this many laughs in such a short period of time outside of a slapstick comedy.

All of the plotlines come to a head when Chick breaks out of jail and makes his way to the saloon. That’s when Russian Rita learns that Serge has given Lou a gift that was meant originally for her. Somehow Chick and another man to whom Lou is connected, Dan Flynn, wind up in her room while she’s performing, and Chick kills Dan. Grant shows up, reveals that he’s an undercover agent nicknamed “The Hawk,” and either arrests or shoots almost everyone on the screen. Instead of arresting Lou, Captain Cummings takes her away in a carriage and puts a ring on her finger. It’s a bit of a shock given how much he obviously knows about her past, but I suppose a happy ending is in order even for a comedy like this one.

Discovering that She Done Him Wrong was nominated for the Outstanding Production Oscar came as a bit of a shock. Perhaps the Academy nominated it in an attempt to snub the newly formed Catholic Legion of Decency, an organization that cited West and this film (with its hints of promiscuity, especially by a woman) as one of the reasons for its creation. It certainly wouldn't be the last time that the Academy sided with controversial films in its long history.

Oscar Nomination: Outstanding Production

Love Story (1970)

I will confess that I had never before seen Love Story, a nominee for Best Picture of 1970. I had, of course, heard lots about it, most of it bad. The rap on the movie is that it was nominated because of its financial success, hardly a surprising or even unusual move by Academy voters. I can't say after watching it that I feel it truly deserves its nomination, but it is an engrossing film, competently made and even effectively acted at times.

Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw play students at Harvard and Radcliffe, respectively. He's the wealthy one, the "golden boy" (was anyone better suited to play such a character than the young Ryan O'Neal?), while she's the scholarship girl from the poor background. Certainly, it's a cliche, and it was even in 1970. You know she's going to ridicule him at times about his family's riches--she calls him "preppy" all the time--and you know he's going to sacrifice it all for love, just to be with her. They're going to struggle financially, but their love will pull them through their money troubles. His father is stereotypically overbearing, trying to live out his ambitions through his son, trying to force his son into making all of the "right" decisions. Her father is saintly and accepting, as was her mother before the mother's untimely death. Her father doesn't even understand their plans to wed, but he willingly goes along with their unconventional ideas about marriage because...well, because he's the good father, don't you see? You get the picture.

Despite the formulaic plot, the scenes in the first half of the movie where these two meet and slowly fall in love are pretty magical. You get a real sense of the beginnings of a relationship, how people begin to care for each other. So good are some of the outdoor scenes that the snow becomes almost a third character. I realize that I'm setting myself up for ridicule in saying that the scenes of them playing football in a blizzard or making snow angels are effective, but these moments work, at least for me (and, apparently, many others). You can certainly understand why so many people went to see this film; it is almost a perfect date movie.

I say "almost" because of what happens in the second half of the film. It does indeed become overly melodramatic and maudlin after McGraw's character is diagnosed with what is apparently leukemia. By this time, you have invested emotionally in these characters' lives, and you could certainly sense the urgency of a young couple being torn apart by one's impending death. However, the film just doesn't maintain, for me, the intensity of the earlier scenes of them as their love grows and they begin a life of their own. You know she's going to die almost as soon as the diagnosis is made, so you really have no reason to continue hoping that their romance will survive. It can't; the movie has already said so. And the dialogue in the second half is groan-inducing far too often. One example: when her father tells O'Neal's character that he "wishes I hadn't told her that I would be strong for you." Just cry already, Dad. We know you want to; you have even earned the right to. Your young daughter is dying; it's acceptable to cry when that happens. Only a poor screenwriter would keep you from shedding tears.

McGraw, in particular, has been criticized for her performance in the film. She will never compete in the ranks of Meryl Streep or Katharine Hepburn, but for the most part, McGraw acquits herself nicely. It's only when she's given some rather overwrought dialogue (including one of the all-time worse lines: "Love means never having to say you're sorry") that she falls flat. When she and O'Neal are looking at each other or having a casual conversation rather than a "serious" discussion, she's fine. And her looks--she was a model before this film turned her career to acting--are certainly appealing; you can surely see why O'Neal's character was attracted to her.

I wish I could recommend that you watch only the first part of the movie, but then you won't truly get a sense of what O'Neal's character is trying to say in the opening scene. And you would miss Ray Milland's best scene as well; he plays O'Neal's father, and his visit to the hospital is almost enough to make you tear up (if you haven't already). It's one of the few instances of an actor overcoming the writing in the second half of the film. Even if you stay for the entire film, you'll still manage to see a movie that manages even after a quarter-century to draw out emotions, some of them honestly.

Dark Victory (1939)

Nominated for Best Picture of 1939 (losing to the inevitable winner, Gone with the Wind), Dark Victory is a prime example of what they used to call "women's pictures" or "weepies." Bette Davis, in one of her most sympathetic roles, plays a socialite who develops a brain tumor. She falls in love with the surgeon who operates on her (played by George Brent, who was in a lot of movies but never seemed to break out and become a star) and whom she eventually marries. The doctor and her best friend, played by a very young and pretty Geraldine Fitzgerald, attempt to keep secret the fact that the surgery has not been successful, but anyone who has ever watched a Bette Davis film knows that she is destined to find out. No one can outsmart Davis for long; you can always see the calculations of her mind.

This is classical Hollywood filmmaking. All of the elements are there for a successful film: the script, the performances, the sets and costumes, even the editing (watch carefully for the various wipes that move us from scene to scene). I have seen this film a couple of times before, and I've always been a fan of Bette Davis (naturally). It's a pleasure being reacquainted with it. Even though you can figure out pretty quickly what's going to happen, you still feel a measure of (misguided?) hope. However, when you get to the last sequence, where Davis is trying to get her husband packed for a trip and out of the house quickly, the suspense that the filmmakers are able to create is almost excruciating. Watching Geraldine Fitzgerald's face or the reaction of one of the bit players in the role of a maid only adds to the emotional impact.

I wonder how much different the film might have been had Ronald Reagan, who has a supporting part as one of Davis's drinking buddies, played the part of the doctor instead of George Brent. Brent was always a capable actor, but aside from surgical prowess, his character needs a measure of charisma as well, I think. Reagan, whose politics I never admired, at least had the charm and looks to keep your attention whenever he's on the screen. Brent tends to fade into the background too much. Of course, that was always one of the dangers of acting with Bette Davis.

The Awful Truth (1937)

What a delight this movie is. The Awful Truth stars Irene Dunne and Cary Grant as Lucy and Jerry Warriner, a couple going through a divorce after each suspects the other of adultery. This was back when divorce decrees were not necessarily instantaneous, when couples sometimes had to wait a period of time before the divorce became final (in this case, 90 days). Of course, they still love each other, and each one plots at various times to get the other back. There are, naturally, other love interests along the way, but the focus is always on our central couple, who just seem to be so right for each other. This film is one of the most well-known screwball comedies of that era, and it's probably the finest example that I've seen.

The chemistry between Dunne and Grant was so great that they would star in two more films together, My Favorite Wife (1940) and Penny Serenade (1941). They apparently improvised much of the dialogue on the set with the director, Leo McCarey, and both leads handle the witty, sarcastic dialogue with such ease. However, sometimes it’s not just the dialogue that makes a film funny; it’s the delivery. Watching their facial expressions as they deliver their lines makes the scenes even funnier.

Dunne is top billed, and her character has the enviable situation of being involved with three different men during the course of the narrative. Of course, Lucy remains in love with Jerry, but she cannot admit that since she is the one who files for divorce. She doesn’t particularly love her boyfriend, Dan Leeson (played with aw-shucks charm by Ralph Bellamy), but she does try to make the relationship work as best she can until Jerry interrupts it. She’s also suspected of having an affair with her music teacher, Armand Duvalle (Alexander D’Arcy), although from my perspective, he always seems to me like he’s more interested in Grant’s Jerry than in Lucy. This was the first film with Dunne I’d ever seen, and she’s quite a gifted comic and a talented singer, and she gets to wear some of the most incredible gowns ever create, courtesy of costume designer Robert Kalloch (often just known as “Kalloch”).

Grant is, as always, flawless. Was anyone more adept at reaction shots? He doesn't even need dialogue to make you laugh. Just watching him watch the other characters would make for an entertaining movie. The scene where he watches his soon-to-be-ex-wife dance with her new boyfriend, Bellamy's Dan, is amazing for the range of emotions that play across his face. He has the most revealing expressions of any actor of his time, and his style of acting seems just as natural today. Perhaps he was always just playing himself. Well, there are certainly far worse things to be than Cary Grant. Who wouldn't want to always be witty, charming, debonaire, urbane? No matter the situation, he always exudes style and sex appeal. If you don't believe me, watch until the final sequence and see what he does with an oversized nightshirt as his wardrobe. Or watch as he and the couple's dog "duet" at the piano. If you aren't in love with him by that point, well...

Actually, the dog, Mr. Smith, almost steals the picture at times. It's the same dog who played Asta in the Thin Man movies. Someone trained this dog well. Watching him play hide-and-seek with a dog-faced rubber ball or with someone's bowler hat (once even climbing behind a mirror attached to the wall) is hysterically funny. It's little wonder that the two of them fight over custody of Mr. Smith. His only animal competition is a cat that appears at the end of the film, and it’s an amazing feline. It apparently has the ability to hold a door closed!

I have several favorite moments in The Awful Truth. In the opening sequence, Jerry comes home with a basket of oranges to prove that he has been in Florida for two weeks. Of course, we've just seen him getting a tan from a heat lamp at his club. Lucy isn't home at the moment, having been stranded with her music teacher, Armand, after their car breaks down. Neither Jerry nor Lucy believes the other's story, leading them to divorce proceedings. The negotiations over who should file them is perhaps the most civil discussion ever held on the topic.

Near the end of the film, it's also a kick to watch Dunne first pull the knob off her car's radio, getting Jerry and her in trouble with a police officer. That same radio starts up again while they are driving to the country, and two motorcycle cops pull them over. Lucy wrecks the car and then asks the cops to give them a ride to her aunt's cabin. Watching Dunne use her butt to make the siren blare on the police motorcycle is one of the purest moments of joy in movie-watching.

Then there are the two performances of the song “My Dreams Are Gone with the Wind.” Jerry’s date, Dixie Belle Lee (the great Joyce Compton, a hoot in her brief time on screen), raises some eyebrows with her exuberant rendition at the nightclub where the Warriners wind up on separate dates. Later in the film, as a means to embarrass her ex-husband, Lucy does a “tamer” version of the song, but its suggestiveness still comes through – just as she intended. The song was written two years before the release of the film version of Margaret Mitchell’s novel, but the book was so well known that the connection had to be apparent to the audience for The Awful Truth.

The supporting cast is also first-rate. My favorite is the great Cecil Cunningham as Lucy’s Aunt Patsy. When Lucy is moping over her divorce, Patsy wants to go out and have fun. Cunningham can deliver a line like “They’re cleaning up in there” with acerbic wit or simply make a sideways look that speaks volumes. You might even wish there were a whole movie just about her.

The film is certainly not without its faults. As was typical at the time (and is still true a lot of the time today), it doesn’t give its actors of color much to do. There are only two roles in the film played by actors of color and both of them are servant roles. Kathryn Curry plays Celeste, the Warriners’ servant, but she has only a few moments of screen time. Miki Morita plays Duvalle’s servant who tries to keep Grant’s Jerry from interrupting a recital. He gets a few good moments of physical comedy, but his character doesn’t even have a name! Hollywood has a long, sad history of sticking actors of color into stereotypical roles. When most of the performers in a film are while – like this one – it makes it all the more eye-catching when a person of color appears on screen, especially when it is in roles like these.

I'm still a bit surprised that The Awful Truth was nominated by the Academy. Its members aren't exactly known for their respect of comedy as a genre, and relatively few "true" comedies have ever been nominated and it's extremely rare that one ever wins. This film, however, is a good example of just how good a funny movie can be when the elements work together. Perhaps that is due in part to director McCarey, who was awarded the Oscar for Best Director for this film. It does want us to reassess our relationships to ensure that we are with the right person, but it makes its message through laughter. As a result, The Awful Truth has become one of my favorite movies of all time thanks to this project.

Oscar Win: Best Director (Leo McCarey)

Other Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production, Best Actress (Irene Dunne), Best Supporting Actor (Ralph Bellamy), and Best Adaptation

A Star Is Born (1937)

Nominated for Best Picture of 1937, A Star Is Born presents what was probably not a "new" story even when it first premiered. It's the tale of an up-and-coming actress who falls in love with a movie star whose career is on the decline. As the film progresses, we see her career take off while his flounders. So popular was the story that it's been remade twice, first in 1954 with Judy Garland and James Mason (perhaps the definitive version) and then in 1976 with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson (not quite so definitive but also not without its own charms).

This version stars Janet Gaynor, who had won the first Academy Award for Best Actress. Almost a decade after that win, she plays the part of the naive farm girl who comes to Hollywood to make it big. Today this role is so stereotypical that the first mention of it would cause a groan to arise from an audience. Perhaps it was fresh then; every cliche must start somewhere. However, I was never quite convinced by Gaynor's performance. She seems so hopelessly naive, perhaps even foolish, when she comes to Hollywood, and it is pretty far into the film before she starts to acknowledge that all is not rosy. Gaynor has a sort of pixie-ish quality to her that I personally don't find all that appealing. She's supposed to be an overnight sensation, a hit with her very first movie, but I couldn't quite see what would make her so attractive to all those moviegoers of the 1930s. Much is made of her being a "nice girl." Was that truly so rare in those days?

The part of Norman Maine is played by Fredric March. March had already received an Oscar for playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and he would win another one a few years later playing a drunk in The Lost Weekend. He's a drunk here as well, but there are a few moments when you can see that his character was actually charming once. It's difficult, though, for the most part, to see why Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester (that's Gaynor's character) finds him attractive. Yes, when he temporarily cleans up his act, he is good and loving, even funny at times. But there is certainly a strong consistent pattern to his bad behavior. Norman is not a man to be trusted or even liked, and almost every character in the movie (save for Esther and her grandmother, who never meets him in person and bases her opinion of him upon one letter she received) repeatedly describes him this way.

As usual, it's a supporting player who gets most of my attention. This time around it's Adolph Menjou. Much like Claude Raines at Warner Brothers, Menjou appeared in hundreds of films, and it's always a treat when he shows up. Here he plays the head of the studio that employs Esther and Norman. He gets to demonstrate his comic timing in the first half of the film and his compassion in the second half; it's quite a part, and he makes the most of it. Menjou was a talented actor who was given a wide range of roles throughout his career, and he always seemed to make the most of a part, no matter how small it was.

Andy Devine appears in the film as an assistant director who's also pretty new to Hollywood. Devine would also appear in hundreds of movies, including many, many westerns, throughout his career, but those looks and that voice make you wonder if he was employed merely for the audience to have someone to ridicule. He never gets much to do here; I wondered why there wasn't a potential love story between him and Esther, just to give a bit more dramatic tension to the film. Perhaps he was too "comic" for an audience to take him seriously as a love interest.

As an aside, I must say that the print I watched was incredibly murky. I don't know if it was originally filmed to be so dark or if the print has deteriorated over the years, but there were times when I could barely make out who was on the screen. Perhaps it's meant to be somewhat metaphorical for the dark side of Hollywood, but I didn't detect a pattern to suggest it was a deliberate choice. Oddly enough, the film's cinematographer, W. Howard Greene, received an honorary Oscar for his color photography of this film. It was the second year in a row that he had received such an award.

There's also an intriguing framing device for this film. It begins and ends with the final shooting script for the movie itself. It opens to the page that describes the opening shot in order to start the action, and it closes with the description of Norma's speech: "Hello, everyone. This is Mrs. Norman Maine." I'm wondering if the director, William "Wild Bill" Wellman, wasn't trying to call attention to the artificiality of the entire film by using this method of bracketing the action. It makes us realize that it's all still a Hollywood movie after all, that most artificial of constructions.

I've seen all three versions of A Star Is Born now. I still prefer the 1954 one, and it probably has to do with Garland's performance more than the story itself. You get a greater sense of her awareness of both the good and bad aspects of fame, perhaps something she knew more about than Gaynor did. The 1937 film sets the parameters for each of the remakes, and as such, I admire how easily it can be adapted to fit the story of the rise of a musical film star (1954) and a rock-and-roll singer (1976).

Oscar Win: Original Story

Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director, Assistant Director, Actor (March), Actress (Gaynor), and Screenplay

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

A nominee for Best Picture in 1938, The Adventures of Robin Hood stars Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. I'd seen a few moments from this film over the years, mostly the fight sequences (and there are several that are just spectacular), but I've never had the chance to watch the entire movie until today. What a great couple of hours of entertainment. This is an action-filled film, with dozens of interesting characters and true suspense, honestly earned. I think almost anyone, regardless of their age or gender, would find something about this movie to enjoy.

I was particularly entranced by the performance of Basil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne. His face was so strikingly like a young Vincent Price's, but Rathbone has his own charms. He played a series of bad guys in the movies before taking on the role that would most define his career: Sherlock Holmes. Yet in The Adventures of Robin Hood, he's oddly attractive even though he's Prince John's primary henchman. You feel compelled to watch him; it's as if you're drawn to him despite his despicable ways. I can only imagine what he might have been like as a romantic lead.

I love Claude Rains. It's always a delight when he shows up in a film. And the part of Prince John gives him numerous opportunities to steal the movie. However, the hair and make-up people have given him a wig that makes him look like a red-haired Bettie Page. It's so distracting that you almost forget to enjoy his wickedly funny performance.

This is a somewhat early Technicolor film, and yet it is so incredibly vibrant. Many of the costumes are in greens and browns, in keeping with the "hiding in Sherwood Forest" motif. Yet these colors really "pop" on the screen. Someone has done a painstaking job of keeping the colors bright in this film.

At the center of the movie is, of course, Errol Flynn as Robin Hood. Flynn always seems to be enjoying himself in every movie he's in. He has a smile or grin on his face in every scene. Flynn was a true movie star and a capable actor, but he seems to relish the role of star most. There's certainly a chemistry between him and de Havilland (it was rumored that they were having an affair at the time), and you can understand why Warner Brothers kept putting the two of them in movies throughout the 1930s and 40s. She was never my favorite (in fact, I've always kind of resented her presence in Gone with the Wind), but she and Flynn work so well together here. Of course, I think most of the credit goes to Flynn. He makes the screen so much brighter with his presence that it can't help but affect those around him.

How It All Began

Earlier this year, in trying to find the answer to some Oscar-related trivia, I looked up the list of all of the films that have been nominated (and won) Best Picture. It's a pretty impressive list overall, with a few odd choices here and there. I decided that I would attempt to see all of the nominated films. It would certainly give a focus to my movie viewing for a while, and it would give me a chance to acquaint or reacquaint myself with some memorable films.

According to at least one "official" count, the Academy has nominated 458 films for Best Picture; eighty of those have won. In looking over the list today, I realized that I have already seen about 180 or so, including 57 of the winners. I've managed, for example to see everything nominated for the past five years. (The most recent nominee that I've not seen: In the Bedroom from 2001, but I have seen the other four nominees from that year). It doesn't seem quite as daunting to contemplate watching a bit more than half of the overall list.

Naturally, the largest number of movies that I've not yet seen are from the earlier years of the awards. Only one of them, The Patriot, a 1928-29 nominee--not the awful Mel Gibson movie of recent years--is lost to us. (Could someone try to ensure that we lose the Gibson movie by that name?) So that means only 457 to go, I suppose.

Since I first started this project, I have managed to catch quite a few movies. You might be surprised how many of them show up each week on television (and not just on Turner Classic Movies, which has the lion's share of them). While I realize that watching on the small screen is not the ideal situation, the odds are against me ever getting to see many of these the way they were intended to be shown.

I may "leave out" of this project some great movies that I've seen dozens of times (although I might just sit down and enjoy them again). The overall plan is for this blog to capture my reactions to the movies I watch. I don't expect that I'll be doing much analysis of them in the academic sense. Instead, I hope to discuss what I enjoyed about them, why I thought they might have been good choices for their time, or why I think the Academy made one of its somewhat frequent mistakes.

Enjoy.