Gandhi (1982)

Gandhi was the somewhat controversial winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1982. It beat out the public favorite, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and has been often cited as an example of how the Academy gets it wrong sometimes. I agree with the public that E.T. would have been a better choice for Best Picture, but watching Gandhi again here, I do think that second place or first alternate or runner-up is certainly appropriate. This is one of the best film biographies ever made, and once you allow yourself to adjust to its pacing, it's also one of the most powerful films in terms of its political agenda.

The story is, of course, the life of Mohandas Gandhi, a lawyer who devoted much of his life to ridding his country of British rule. The film begins and ends with Gandhi's assassination, so the rest of the film is a flashback to a sequence of major events that formed his political consciousness. That portion of the movie begins in South Africa, where Gandhi attempts to secure the rights of Indian nationals who were brought or came to Africa to work. He faces resistance there, just as he would time and time again in his home country. Through a series of episodes, we see how Gandhi and other leaders of various segments of the Indian population tried to hammer away at the British and their attempts to silence opposition.

I admired the performance of Ben Kingsley in the title role immensely. He does capture a sense of the patience and generosity of spirit that Gandhi had, yet he also allows us to see some of the leader's blind spots, particularly the way that his ego could sometimes interfere with the good work that he was doing. Kingsley gets some of the greatest dialogue, of course, because he gets to speak Gandhi's own words here.

The cast is enormous. Thousands of people are used in various scenes here, particularly for the large public demonstrations that often accompanied Gandhi's speeches. You have to admire director Richard Attenborough's gift for working with such crowds. And it seems that almost every actor working in the movies makes a cameo appearance here, from some great British actors like John Gielgud and John Mills to Americans like Martin Sheen and even Candice Bergen as Margaret Bourke-White. The real standouts, though, are the actors who portray the other Indian resistance leaders: Saeed Jeffrey, Alyque Padamsee, and Roshan Seth (my favorite) as Nehru. There are others, of course, but those three provide able support to Kingsley's performance. They represent different political perspectives in their characters, and each of these men is complex and fascinating and "real."

I know that E.T. is more of a crowd pleaser and that Gandhi takes much more patience. You're also going to learn a bit more about civil disobedience that you may remember from your history and social studies and political science classes. Still, this is a great movie, much better than you remember if you've seen it before, and worthy of the critical attention that it received. Even I grumbled about its multiple wins that year, but having had the chance to watch it a couple of times in the intervening twenty-six years, I have come to appreciate just how great a movie it really is. Give it another chance.

In the Name of the Father (1993)

In the Name of the Father, a nominee for Best Picture of 1993, is a gripping story of a man falsely accused of the bombing of a London pub in the 1970s. It's based upon the true story of Gerry Conlon, who spent fifteen years in prison after he was tortured and coerced into signing a false confession to the crime. Three other people also go to prison for the crime, and Gerry's father and several more are also imprisoned for their alleged complicity in carrying it out. The movie is set during a time when there was great tension between the English, particularly those in London, and the Irish, especially anyone suspected of being a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). What In the Name of the Father does expertly is capture those mutual feelings of distrust.

As Gerry Conlon, Daniel Day-Lewis gives another of his intense performances; he does love to burrow into his characters, and the more complex and complicated they are, the better he seems to like them. As his father, Guiseppe, Pete Postlethwait is a study in quiet dignity. The scenes in prison, where father and son share a cell, are particularly illuminating of the differences between these men. And Emma Thompson provides a couple of sharp moments as the attorney who has taken up the Conlons' case, especially in the courtroom scenes that end the movie.

This is a well-made film filled with a great deal of politically charged dialogue. You certainly get the Irish perspective on the events here, and with the exception of Thompson's lawyer, you get a strong sense that the English people are too filled with their hatred of the Irish and the IRA (and an inability to distinguish between the two) to provide justice. I had a powerful feeling of being manipulated throughout this film to take the side of the Conlons without question. Undoubtedly, they were innocent of the crimes with which they were charged, but the movie is a bit heavy-handed in its depictions of the English. Surely, there must have been some honest members of the British police, for example, or someone who would have taken up this cause before Thompson's attorney appears many years after they have begun their prison terms.

Still, such an approach is understandable, given the predominance of the English perspective in films on this issue. The English have always had a strained relationship with the Irish, particularly those in Northern Ireland, where the early scenes of this film are set. What In the Name of the Father captures, perhaps even more accurately than the events surrounding the Conlons, is the way that the Irish and the English coexisted, frequently with violence and almost always with distrust. It offers us a window into a time that we in the United States probably know too little about.

Rain Man (1988)

May I admit to having never been that impressed with Rain Man, which won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1988? It has always seemed far too slick a film, too certain of itself, too smug, to make me feel any true emotions about its characters and their situations. Even the much-lauded lead performance by Dustin Hoffman as an institutionalized autistic person who is taken out into the real world by his brother leaves me cold. I do understand that it's all well-made ("slickly produced," I'd suggest), but to me, it just doesn't have that much of a heart.

Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) is an importer of cars who's having some difficulty getting his latest purchases into the country when he hears of the death of his estranged father. He's left only two things in the will, the automobile he was never allowed to drive and the family rose bushes. The rest of his father's estate goes into a trust, a fact which infuriates Charlie, sending him in search of the lucky recipient of all of this wealth. By a series of rather unbelievable circumstances, he meets Raymond (Hoffman), his brother who has lived most of his adult life in an institution. Charlie decides to take Raymond to California with him, contest the trust, and use the money (or, at least, half of it) to solve his own financial problems.

What follows is a road movie that makes very little sense, frankly. If Charlie would listen even briefly to any one of the numerous health professionals who try to counsel him about Raymond, he would know better than to assume control of his brother's caretaking with so little preparation and understanding of autism. The reason they drive across America is even more astonishing; Raymond won't fly any airline that has ever crashed, leaving them only with Qantas, hardly a feasible option for getting from Ohio to California, at least directly. Time and again, Raymond's familiar patterns get interrupted, causing him to have some very violent and loud outbursts. You'd think Charlie would develop a sense that he isn't doing right by Raymond, but that never seems to happen.

I know what you're thinking. I've misunderstand. You see, this film is about the development of Charlie's conscience. He does indeed become a better man because of his contact with his long-lost brother. And they do build a relationship with each other. They just had to have the time to do it slowly so that Raymond could learn to adjust. Yeah, I got all of that. I'm still not buying it.

Perhaps the problem lies in Hoffman's performance most of all. I know he's considered one of the greatest actors of his generation, and he has certainly turned in any number of performances that I do like, but this isn't one of them. I just found it gimmicky. It's as if he learned one trait that is associated with autism and sticks with it for more than two hours of film time. There's no real sense that this is a person; it's a cardboard figure of someone with autism. And even the moments that are played for laughs--like the one about the airlines--are, to me, rather condescending to the struggles that real people with autism must endure.

Cruise, on the other hand, does what I consider to be some of his strongest early work. He seems to be at his best when he has to play shallow, self-centered characters, men who need to have something taken away from them so that they can begin to appreciate and understand life better. In Rain Man, he demonstrates a pretty remarkable range of emotions, and his performance rings truer for me than Hoffman's does.

I know my reaction to the film might strike some as odd. It's just that this film is a good example of the kind of movies that Hollywood started making around the middle of the 1980s. Actually, "making" might be the wrong word; "packaging" might be more accurate. Major stars? Check. Plot line sure to tug heart strings? Check. Serious topic being addressed with gravity? Check. Beautiful cinematography of the parts of the country that don't usually appear in movies? Check. A funny line every few minutes to break the monotony of seriousness with which we must handle the subject matter? Check. It's movie-making by committee, and it dominates too much of the product coming out of the studios these days. Rain Man just happens to be one of the first major examples of this trend, and I'm not a fan. Sorry about that.

Sergeant York (1941)

Sergeant York, nominated for Best Picture of 1941, probably earned its spot on the list thanks to the lead performance of Gary Cooper. Cooper was always best at roles that required some measure of restraint and quiet, and he found no better part than that of World War I hero Alvin York. The film itself is pretty standard for a biopic, with its attention to the major events of York's life, especially the difficulty that the poor face in trying to make a living or even perhaps get a chance at a better life.

York was a simple farmer from Tennessee who was drafted into military service. Having recently become a Christian after quite a few years of what my grandmother would have called "carousing," he holds fast to the principles that he has learned in church and from talks with his minister, Rosier Pile, played by Walter Brennan. After several attempts to get out of military service as a conscientious objector, York becomes a war hero by almost single-handedly capturing a troop of German soldiers. He uses the trick of gobbling like a turkey to pick off soldiers one by one, a trick he had demonstrated earlier in the movie in attempting to win the prize money at a turkey shoot.

Cooper plays York as an innocent, someone who is naive to the ways of the world. He seems to find almost everything new to be awe-inspiring and even miraculous. He also has incredible luck throughout the years he was in the military. Unlike back home in the hills, where he has been cheated out of some land by someone jealous over York's relationship with a pretty unmarried girl (Joan Leslie, affecting an unbelievably bad accent), in the Army and in Europe and even in New York after his service has ended, York is never taken advantage of and no one ever encourages him to do the wrong thing. I'm not sure that the real Alvin York was so lucky and/or--dare I suggest it--simple-minded as he is played here, but Cooper manages to show us that strength of character is the virtue most likely to keep you alive and successful.

This film is more overtly Christian in its tone than you might expect from a Hollywood film of its time, but it isn't "preachy." In fact, the conflict between York's patriotism and his religious faith is handled with intense seriousness. It's a further testament to Cooper's acting ability that he can show the difficulty that York faced in making the decision of which was to be more important to him: service to his country or the principles he learned in his church. Never during the course of the film did I feel manipulated, and that's probably a trait that has been lost in the art of moviemaking since Sergeant York was first released.

Romeo and Juliet (1936)

Almost everyone in this version of Romeo and Juliet, nominated for Best Picture of 1936, is miscast. Norma Shearer, who plays Juliet, was already 34 years old. Leslie Howard, playing Romeo, was 47. And John Barrymore, trying gamely to have some fun as Mercutio, was already 54 years old! Add to the mix Edna May Oliver, who is usually pretty good for comic relief, as the Nurse and Andy Devine (yes, that Andy Devine, of Westerns fame) as Peter, the Nurse's servant, and you've got a pretty surefire guarantee for disaster. Poor Oliver delivers her lines as if she must single-handedly save the cast from boredom, and Devine retains that distinctive and distracting twang/drawl of his.

I'm sure this version of Shakespeare's classic has its fans, but this is meant to be a story of young lovers, people in the throes of the first real passions of their lives. It's not meant to be a mid-life crisis for Romeo (Howard has wrinkles, for heaven's sake!), and it certainly isn't meant to make Juliet seem to be a desperate spinster whose family has been unable to marry her off until she's in her mid-30s. And I don't even want to start in on poor Barrymore and his attempts to wield a sword in the heat of battle.

I'm willing to accept the beauty of the set design and the costumes as evidence of the quality of this production. And, to be fair, Shearer and Howard do the best they can with the roles despite their obvious unsuitability. Both are talented actors; they just aren't able to make anyone believe they're young enough to behave in this way. I even enjoyed watching Basil Rathbone as Tybalt, but he was almost as old as Howard when this film was made. I suppose there's some comfort in knowing that all of the performers were at least of the same age.

There is, of course, another version of this play that was also nominated for Best Picture. That's the one from 1968 featuring two actual teenagers, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, in the lead roles. I can't wait to watch that one again. Maybe it will help me to erase the memory of this earlier, feebler attempt.

Best Picture of 1999

The Winner: American Beauty.

The Other Nominees: The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, The Insider, and The Sixth Sense.

My Choice: American Beauty. Three of the other nominees are worthy contenders; the exception is, of course, The Cider House Rules. I'd give a close second to The Sixth Sense, which is expertly crafted, but American Beauty is the greatest overall achievement in filmmaking among this group.

American Beauty (1999)

I don't know why I have waited so long to watch American Beauty, winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1999, again. I saw it in movie theaters when it was released and admired it. I purchased the DVD version not long after its release, yet it has collected dust on the shelf until now. Perhaps I thought it was the kind of film that doesn't grow richer upon repeated viewings. There was something precious about seeing it for the first time in a theater, a sense of surprise and admiration for what the filmmakers accomplished. Upon repeated viewing, however, I think I have a more mature response to the movie, and I've come to admire the performance of Kevin Spacey far more than I did the first time I saw it.

Spacey plays Lester Burnham, a middle-aged man who is unhappy with both his job and his family life. His wife Carolyn, played expertly by Annette Benning, has attempted to achieve perfection in all aspects of her life, but early in the film, you begin to realize that she is only able to maintain the appearance of perfection. Underneath, she and Lester both realize how much of a mess their suburban, upper-middle-class existence is. They are, in their own ways, very unhappy despite having all of the trappings that you would expect to make someone happy.

Lester loses his job (intentionally), begins buying pot from the kid next door, gets a job at the local burger joint, starts working out with the hopes of attracting the sexual attention of his daughter's friend (Mena Suvari)--quite a change from the depressing and depressed man he was before. He seems to want to relive his teenage years over again. Carolyn responds by having an affair with a fellow real estate agent, Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher), the "Real Estate King." (Just as an aside, I can't help laughing when she calls him "your majesty" in the middle of their first time together--hilarious.)

Simultaneously, the Burnhams' daughter Jane (Thora Birch) begins a relationship with the pot-selling kid next door, Ricky, who has been released recently from an institution and now spends a great deal of his time videotaping random people. He also films other moments of life, as well, including the famous plastic-bag-in-the-wind scene. Ricky's family life is pretty complicated too. His mother (Allison Janney, quite tamped down here) has apparently suffered a nervous breakdown, and his ex-military father (Chris Cooper, stunningly good as always) is something of a gun nut and quite a homophobe. His greatest fear, other than the possibility that his son is using drugs again, is that Ricky will turn out to be gay. His misinterpretation of what he sees through his window one night leads to some pretty shattering consequences at film's end.

This isn't the first film to delve into the underside of suburban existence and expose it for the falseness. However, American Beauty is expertly made and one of the best exposes of that life. There's a sense of tension throughout the story; you can never tell, for example, when Lester's hair trigger might go off. There are also moments of great humor as well, but it's the anger that Lester feels--and which Spacey conveys perfectly--that stands out for me. When he says, "You don't get to tell me what to do ever again," there's such malice and glee mixed together, I got a chill. His accidental discovery of his wife's affair while working the drive-through of a burger joint is one of the funniest scenes of the film, yet you get a very clear sense of just how much he's going to punish (silently) Carolyn for her indiscretion. Spacey's performance truly pulls the movie together for me, and I guess the rest of the cast seemed to overshadow him the first time that I saw it. Kudos to the Academy for paying closer attention than I did and giving him the prize for Best Actor. (I suppose that's ironic considering the tagline for the movie, "look closer.")

I suppose I could talk about the underlying theme in this film of how we respond to homosexuality. Two of the neighbors are a gay male couple, Jim and Jim (I know, but not that funny), who are accepted by most of the people in the area, but they spark an intense response from Col. Fitts (Cooper) when they show up on the doorstep to welcome him and his family to the neighborhood. There are several times that Spacey's Lester Burnham is "accidentally" thought to be gay. I suppose one could make a case that Cooper's reaction to the friendship that develops between Lester and his son Ricky prepares the viewers for what happens toward the end of the film--and I'd imagine several academics have done so, actually--but it remains shocking to me. I know that the film is trying to juggle numerous issues here, and perhaps I am paying too much attention to just one of the threads of the narrative, but certainly it seems that the ways that we see the world are directly revealed by the ways that we treats others who are different from us (or, oddly enough, just like us). And maybe that's what the film is trying to tell us with its repeated references to homosexuality. It's a mature film in its handling of this subject matter, and that's a testament to the talented writer, Alan Ball, who went on to more fame for writing and producing Six Feet Under on television.

An American in Paris (1951)

An American in Paris won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1951, beating such other classic films as A Place in the Sun and A Streetcar Named Desire. Despite its somewhat surprising victory, this musical about an American veteran of World War II who has decided to stay in Paris and become a painter is one of the best of the MGM song-and-dance fests. If it had been nominated in almost any other year, it would be seen as a very worthy choice as Best Picture. Too many people probably think it was chosen when the other “more serious” films split the vote, but to me, it represents a remarkable achievement in filmmaking on its own. It remains as charming and beautiful today as it was in the early 1950s when some were rejecting the gritty realism of post-war films for the lighter touch of romantic comedy and musicals. Thankfully, An American in Paris is one such masterpiece.

Gene Kelly plays the painter, Jerry Mulligan, and he's usually strapped for cash because he's not really very successful at his chosen profession. Like many aspiring artists, he copies more famous works or paints scenes that are the subject of countless paintings by amateurs. However, he does, apparently, demonstrate a level of skill at his art. He's “discovered” by a wealthy American woman who likes him perhaps a bit more than she likes his art, but she nevertheless begins work on helping him to establish a professional reputation. His patron (or would that more properly be “matron”?) is Milo Roberts, played by the elegant Nina Foch, who was almost always cast as this kind of patrician woman. She expects that if she pays attention to Jerry's career, he will pay attention to her.

Unfortunately for Milo, Mulligan meets by chance a beautiful young French girl, Lise, played by Leslie Caron in her first starring role. She, however, is engaged to Henri Baurel (Georges Guetary), a cabaret performer. To add even more complications to the mix, Henri and Jerry are friends, but neither knows about the other's attraction to Lise, so their conversations about the girls they love take on an added sense of the absurd. Only their mutual friend Adam, played by the deliciously wicked-tongued Oscar Levant, knows their secret. At least, he's the only one who knows for a while. Eventually, all must be revealed, and Lise must make a choice.

The plot is relatively simple. Boy (Jerry) meets girl (Lise). Boy loses girl (to her fiancé). Boy gets girl back. It's the stuff of countless movies. What makes An American in Paris stand out is the music, of course. It's all songs by George and Ira Gershwin, some of the greatest songs ever written, and each one blends seamlessly into the plot. My favorite may be the performance of "I Got Rhythm," in which Kelly and a dozen or so French children sing in English and French while Kelly jokes and dances. It's a charming number, sure to bring a smile. Another highlight is Guertary's performance of "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise,” which spectacularly uses a lighted staircase to full effect.

Most stunning, though, is the 17-minute ballet near the end of the film. All of the principals are attending a ball thrown by the art students of Paris. After a series of revelations and tentative decisions, Kelly's Mulligan begins to imagine himself in various settings around the city and as a part of various famous works of art as the score swells with the glorious “Rhapsody in Blue.” It's an astonishing set piece, one that momentarily makes you forget that you're watching a “realistic” film about a love quadrangle. Interestingly, as authentically French as the sequence seems to be, it was all filmed on the MGM backlot; they had real talent for production design in those days, conjuring up any place, real or imagined. The dancing by Kelly in this sequence is among the best he ever did, and given just how remarkable a dancer he was, that's saying something. There’s such a sense of masculinity to his movements. He and Caron are both at the top of their game here, making for quite a sultry pair during the moments when some of the more-familiar strains of “Rhapsody in Blue” emerge.

(As a side note, Kelly was not nominated for his acting or his choreography for An American in Paris. Instead, the Academy’s Board of Governors gave him an Honorary Oscar “in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.” I suppose you could count this award as part of the total number of Academy Awards that the film received.)

It would be tough to describe all that happens during the magnificent ballet; it's just that inspired and inspiring. You can't quite believe your eyes at times. The film does end, of course, back in the “realistic” setting of the ball, allowing Jerry and Lise to be reunited and leave everyone happy. I keep putting the word “realistic” in quotation marks because none of the great MGM musicals are truly realistic. That's one of the reasons that they are so spectacular. You're able to lose yourself for a couple of hours in one of these movies. Arthur Freed, who produced most of the best of them, and Vincente Minnelli, who directed this one, were always committed to quality, and An American in Paris certainly has all of the hallmarks of what they were capable of doing.

Years ago, I showed this film in a class I was teaching, and it was the ballet that most confounded students. As much as they (reluctantly) admitted that it was visually spectacular and that the dancing was intriguing, they couldn't fathom why it took up so much time near the end of the film when you know or, at least, expect that the two leads will come together. Once I pointed out that it lasts about the appropriate amount of time for a brief but important cab ride (you understand if you've seen the film yourself), they started to appreciate it a bit more. I'm not sure I converted anyone to become a lover of MGM musicals, but I like to think that I might have moved them ever-so-slightly in that direction.

Two other points I'd like to make: Levant, who plays a pianist and composer here, was never really a movie star. However, no one could toss off a line better than he could. In the voice-over that introduces him, he says that he's a concert pianist: “That's a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed at the moment.” He's like that throughout the movie. There's an undercurrent of bitterness and acidity to Levant's Adam that is well suited to this bright, sunny film. His comments keep it pretty well grounded. Levant is just one of those performers you always enjoy seeing in a film even if the part is relatively small.

The other point: An American in Paris came out a year before Singin' in the Rain, universally considered the greatest movie musical of all time. I wouldn't challenge that designation at all, but if you're looking for the second greatest, you might consider An American in Paris. Great music by arguably America's greatest composers, strong performances from some of the best actors at MGM, remarkable dancing by two of the best in the business, a lively sense of romance throughout—in the words of one of the Gershwin songs here, “who could ask for anything more?”

Oscar Wins: Best Picture, Best Story and Screenplay, Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Color Costume Design, and Best Scoring of a Musical Picture

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Director and Best Film Editing

The Sting (1973)

I've always considered The Sting, winner for Best Picture of 1973, to be just about perfect. It has just about all you could ever want in a good movie: great actors at the top of their game, an engrossing plot, moral complexity in terms of what and who are good and bad, and a great musical score. What's not to love about this film? I've been a fan since I saw it at the tender age of 10. Yes, my mother took me to see movies like this when I was 10. Perhaps she's more responsible for my love of movies than even she could fathom. (She also took me to see Funny Lady in 1975 when I was only 12, so perhaps she also bears some responsibility for my love of Barbra Streisand, but that's a post for another day--and another site.)

The Sting is about the attempts by Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) to exact revenge on Doyle Lonnigan (Robert Shaw, two years before Jaws yet just as crusty) for having his friend and fellow grifter Luther (Robert Earl Jones--yes, HIS father) murdered for having lifted some money that was Lonnigan's. Well, it wasn't really Lonnigan's because he's a crook too, just like almost everyone in this film. And that is what makes Lonnigan's and then Hooker's desire for revenge all the more powerful.

Hooker joins forces with Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman), who's known for his ability to play what's known as "the long con," a kind of elaborate scam that takes time to set up and time to pull off successfully. They decide to con Lonnigan over bets for horse races, and their methods for getting him "on the hook" are some of the most entertaining parts of the film, particularly the sequence involving a card game aboard a train.

You've already seen two names that should bring a smile to your face: Newman and Redford, reunited here after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They're both charming, just the kind of complicated and beautiful leading men that the 1970s movies seemed to specialize in. They're obviously bad guys, what with the con games and all, but who wouldn't want these two in your corner? Who wouldn't be taken in by those smiles?

The supporting cast is all first-rate. In addition to Shaw and Jones, you have Charles Durning as an inept, crooked cop, Ray Walston and Harold Gould and a dozen more as the supporting players for the con, and Eileen Brennan, who does more with a sideways glance than you can imagine, as a madam who is Gondorff's lover and business "partner."

I love the intertitles throughout the film. They hearken back to the days of silent movies, but they're so lovingly rendered in sepia tones reminiscent of the style of the decade of the 1930s that serves as the setting for the film. And who can't recall that music? Scott Joplin's rags fit the tone of the film perfectly. I once owned a cassette tape on which someone had recorded the album for me. I wore it out from constant playing, so enamored of this film I was at the time. I think I might have to order the CD of the music if it's available, just to continue my reminiscences.

This is the kind of movie that gets it all correct: the performances, the story, the costumes, the music--you name it. You should take the time some day to shut off the telephones and lock the doors. Turn out the lights, and turn on The Sting. It's like visiting with an old friend, a welcome return to a warm feeling that you once had.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

You can't watch The Sixth Sense, nominated for Best Picture of 1999, the same way the second time that you did the first time. Once you know the "twist," it's impossible to be as surprised as you were the first time you saw it (unless, of course, someone ruined the surprise for you, and if they did, shame on them). However, I have to say that I actually admired the film much more this second time. I appreciated more just how carefully and artfully constructed it is. Because I knew the ending, I could concentrate more on how the film was put together. And it's quite a marvel to behold, a triumph of editing.

Bruce Willis plays a child psychologist, Malcolm Crowe, who's been feeling out of sorts since he and his wife encountered a very unhappy former patient of his (Donnie Wahlberg, in a surprising cameo appearance). Crowe is shot by Wahlberg's Vincent and, after the passage of some time, attempts to overcome what he considers his failure to help his patients by working with clients again. He takes on the case of Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a young boy whose parents have divorced and who has been "acting out" in school.

After Cole reveals to Malcolm that he "sees dead people" (a line that has become such a cliche by now), the good doctor starts devoting tremendous amounts of time to helping his new patient, neglecting to spend as much time with his wife although he slowly begins to realize that he should (cue the new "boyfriend"). Cole's mom, played by Toni Collette, is similarly frustrated when she fails to see any progress in her son's odd behavior. As fiercely as she protects him at times, she also finds him to be a tremendous puzzle.

Obviously, there's a lot going on in this film about redemption and doing the right thing and attempting to expiate one's guilt. I can't reveal a great deal more without giving away some key elements of the plot that should truly remain a surprise (although this film is almost ten years old now--shame on you for having missed it so far). Let's just say that you become increasingly more accustomed to the idea that Cole does, indeed, see dead people, those who have unresolved issues that need attention. And this "talent" or "gift" or "curse"--whatever you'd like to call it--leads to a pretty surprising revelation or two.

I want to mention just how good Osment is in this movie. He was just 10 years old when he made this film, but he is shockingly authentic. He portrays a very troubled young boy with accuracy and deep emotion. It's tough to watch him in the part now and not worry about whether or not he understood too much of what this movie is about. I'd prefer to think that he was somewhat unaware of at least some of the more gruesome details, but even if he were, he handles them in such a quiet, mature way that you can easily see why his performance was Oscar-nominated. (Of course, they put him in the Supporting Actor category, but he is as much a lead as Willis is in the film.)

I'd also like to point out the editing. What the filmmakers do here is cut away, sometimes even fading to black, just before a scene can reveal "too much." You won't notice it the first time you watch The Sixth Sense, but this second time I couldn't help but realize just how carefully the various moments of this movie are cut apart and put together. I don't usually "rave" about a film's editing (although some certainly deserve it), but this is very thoughtful work. There's a consistent tension in the film because just as you could or might learn some detail that would change your perception and perhaps prepare you for the surprises to come, you cut away to a different moment. I suppose some might consider the editing style to be somewhat manipulative, but even if it is, it's incredibly effective as well.

If you're feeling up for a bit of a game, you might also spend some time tracking the use of the color red throughout the film. It's there all the way through. I don't think I've seen this color used more effectively since the Kryzysztof Kieslowski's film of the same name (Red, not The Sixth Sense). It's obviously used metaphorically here too, so see if you can figure it out as you go or if you have to think about it retroactively as I did.

Ordinary People (1980)

Ordinary People won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1980, famously beating out Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. Everyone knows that Raging Bull is one of the best films of the entire decade of the 1980s and probably should have won the Academy Award easily that year. But after watching Ordinary People, it's easy to see why this smaller, quieter film resonated so much with the voters. It's not on a par with Scorsese's film, certainly, but it's still an exceptional movie, perhaps even more so for being the directorial debut of Robert Redford. Few people can make a movie of this consistently high quality on their first try.

Ordinary People is a film about how we deal with loss. The Jarretts, an upper class family from the North Shore of Chicago, have recently experienced the death of their older son, Buck, in a boating accident that also involved his younger brother. The father, Calvin (played with great understatement by Donald Sutherland), is trying to hold his family together; he's the peacemaker, the intermediary. Beth, his wife (played by Mary Tyler Moore in a role that is a complete 180-degrees from Mary Richards), has seemingly closed herself off emotionally to both her husband and her remaining son; she was always closer to Buck when he was live, so his death makes her even more remote. The surviving son, Conrad (Timothy Hutton--more later), has been recently released after being institutionalized and is trying to reintegrate himself into his school and the community, and he's struggling to do so.

Hutton won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this role, and he is amazing. He seems completely at ease in the part, able to demonstrate just how tightly Conrad has kept his feelings under wraps. However, in his scenes with his new psychiatrist (played with great humor by Judd Hirsch), he allows himself to reveal his frustrations and his fears and his desires. It's one of those performances that you watch and then wonder why the actor didn't have a bigger career. Was he just too difficult to pinpoint in terms of appropriate roles for his talent? (I think the same might have been true for Hutton's dad, the marvelous Jim Hutton, someone I always admired as an actor but who was also sadly overshadowed too many times.) Hutton is completely realistic as this teenage boy; he inhabits this role as he were truly having difficulty returning to "normal" society.

This film is quiet. Many scenes are slowly paced, and characters are often silent as they watch others or look out of windows or other unobtrusive behavior. It's really a film about how we don't communicate with each other, despite our obvious desire to change our behavior. We seem, the film suggests, to prefer silence. I remember being at my mother's house in one of the suburbs of Chicago when this film was being made and then seeing it later and realizing just how many people were like my own family. We don't always talk about how we really feel, and Ordinary People ably demonstrates the devastating consequences of such behavior.

The Red Shoes (1948)

I wish I could remember the exact lines about The Red Shoes, which was nominated for Best Picture of 1948, that are made by one of the female dancers in A Chorus Line. After hearing so many of the other dancers rave about seeing The Red Shoes and how it changed their lives and made them want to become dancers, she says something to the effect of "I've never seen The Red Shoes. I've never even heard of The Red Shoes. I don't give a fuck about The Red Shoes." Perhaps if she had seen it, she would have a different opinion. It's a pretty stellar film in terms of the dancing itself. I didn't think the plot is particularly illuminating, but when the dancers take the stage, that's another point entirely.

The primary focus of the film is the rise of a young red-haired dancer named Victoria Page (played by Moira Shearer). Well, red-haired is a bit tame; flame-haired might be more like it. She starts, as they always do, as a member of the corps. However, the director of the ballet company, Boris Lermentov (Anton Walbrook), happens to catch one of her performances back in her hometown and is smitten with her. Soon, she has been given the plum role of lead dancer in a new ballet entitled The Red Shoes, complete with red shoes, naturally.

Well, "new ballet" isn't really accurate. Lermentov asks a young composer he's hired, Julian Craster (Marius Goring), to rewrite some unworkable sections of a ballet. Craster takes quite a lot of initiative and rewrites the entire score, making it into a rather amazing, if difficult, piece. He too begins to make a reputation for himself, so his and Victoria's fates rise together.

Have I failed to mention that Julian and Victoria fall in love? Well, you saw that coming anyway, I suppose. Much to the chagrin of Lermentov, the two begin having a clandestine relationship--clandestine to Lermentov, anyway. And, as you might expect in a film like this, the man with the power does all that he can to keep his object of desire close to him and far away from the man she truly loves. You know that approach is doomed to fail, but I'm not sure you'll quite be prepared for exactly how badly it fails or how painfully.

None of that really matters, frankly, because it's the recreation of the ballet itself that stands out. I'm not an expert on ballet or dance, but I found The Red Shoes (the ballet within the movie) to be completely engrossing, a spectacularly staged dance, full of emotion and excitement. The rest of the movie can only pale in comparison to it, so strong are the feelings that Victoria and her fellow dancers stir in you. I can easily see how this movie--or, to be fair, this part of the movie--would make people want to become dancers. Unless, of course, you're than one girl who's never seen it. Yet.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was nominated for Best Picture of 2000, and it's one of the best movies of the past ten years, in my opinion. It's an intriguing mix of martial arts movie and romantic fable and historical drama, and all of the elements work in harmony with each other so well here. This film is better in the subtitled version than the dubbed version, so that's why it took me a while to get around to writing about it. Almost all of the movie channels (where I'm getting most of my material these days) seem to think that the dubbed version is more popular. I just can't fathom why anyone would want to watch people speaking words that don't match the movements of their mouth at all--at least, unironically, anyway.

The action of the movie begins with the theft of a beautiful green sword that has been offered as a gift by a famous warrior, Master Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat). The woman he has loved for many years but whose affections he has denied and has been denied knows who has stolen the sword and attempts to return it to its new owner without Mu Bai becoming involved or embarrassed. Michelle Yeoh plays Shu Lien, and she's radiant here as someone who has fought beside Mu Bai and has always yearned for them to be together. They represent one of two primary romantic plots, and it's rewarding for me to see that someone above the age of, say, 40 can still be shown as a romantic lead.

The other romantic coupling involves Jiao Long, a young woman who has been trained the Jade Fox, a long time enemy of Mu Bai and Shu Lien and others on the side of "good." Jiao (Zhang Ziyi) is kidnapped during a journey across the deserts of China by a bandit named the Dark Cloud (Chen Chang). During her time as a prisoner, she begins to fall in love with Dark Cloud, of course, and they vow to prevent her arranged marriage so that the two of them can be together.

I don't know how many people will necessarily recall the romantic subplots first in discussing this movie, though. I expect what most remember are those astonishing fights among the trees. As the opponents leap from tree to tree, swords engaged in intense battle, it's as if they are floating above the ground. Similarly, the indoor battle scenes demonstrate such flexibility among the combatants, as they leap from wall to floor and from one level of a building to another, almost effortlessly, as if they could fly. This is pretty thrilling stuff to watch, and I can only imagine how much more spectacular it seemed on the big screen of a movie theater.

I've always admired Ang Lee's directorial efforts. He's incredibly talented and has worked within and across a wide range of genres. This film strikes me as perhaps his greatest achievement yet, thanks to his ability to thrill viewers with scenes like the one involving the older woman (Yeoh) and the younger woman (Zhang), obviously fighting for dominance in the male-centered world of martial arts and warriordom (if that's a word--it should be). Then he has the ability to entice viewers into moments of great serenity and repression, such as when Shu Lien cradles the head of Mu Bai as a poison moves through his bloodstream. The affection which she holds for him at that moment is quietly and beautifully expressed; she can't really tell him how she feels because it would be too painful to him. This really is a movie that is a masterful blend of traits from several different types of films.

The Insider (1999)

I'm surprised I never saw The Insider, nominated for Best Picture of 1999, before, particularly since a significant portion of the film deals with a famous lawsuit filed by the state of Mississippi. I met the Attorney General of the state, Mike Moore (who plays himself in the movie), several times while I was still a newspaper reporter, and I have to admit that I admired his sense of integrity. He seemed to be a genuinely unaffected person; in fact, the first time I met him was at a gas station, and he was pumping his own gas. How many attorneys general can you say that about these days? He's the one who attacked the tobacco companies in the early 1990s for the Medicare health costs that the state had to pay for those who are addicted to smoking; he and the state won, by the way.

Back to the film, though. The Insider is about the attempts by Big Tobacco to cover up just how addictive cigarettes are, thanks to chemical alterations the companies make in the nicotine itself. Jeffrey Wigand (played by Russell Crowe) was a corporate officer in charge of research who is fired after confronting his bosses over their misrepresentations to the public. He is asked by a producer for the TV show 60 Minutes (played by Al Pacino) to be a part of a story on a different topic, but Pacino's Lowell Bergman quickly figures out that Wigand has an even bigger story to tell. The rest of the film is about the attempts to get Wigand's story on air, despite attempts by the tobacco companies and even the corporate structure of CBS to stop it.

The acting is all first-rate in this film, and I would call particular attention to Christopher Plummer, who does an astounding job of portraying Mike Wallace with all of this talent and vanity. Crowe and Pacino work exceptionally well together; it's a battle of intensity whenever the two of them appear on screen. I think Crowe may win most of the time, but Pacino certainly is still in the game. At least in this film, he's not doing his usual bombastic Scent of a Woman style of acting.

The film is a bit long, clocking in at almost three hours. There are moments I could see being cut without hurting the trajectory of the plot, such as the whole business at the beginning of the film with Bergman trying to get Wallace an interview with a leader of Hezbollah. I know it's meant to give us a sense of the kind of person that Bergman is, but the rest of the film ably demonstrates that. Still, this is a suspenseful movie, and it takes viewers through one of the more interesting (from my perspective as a former reporter, at least) cases of the clash between journalistic ethics and corporate mentality.

Mrs. Miniver (1942)

I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried at the end of Mrs. Miniver, winner of the award for Best Picture of 1942. This movie, made almost immediately after the events that it depicts, earns its emotions honestly. It is a war movie, to be sure, but one that concentrates on what happened on the home front in England during the air attacks by the Germans. Instead of numerous battle scenes, what you get instead is the way that the English people dealt with their situation in typically heroic fashion. I wasn't particularly prepared to be as moved as I was, but watching these "ordinary" people adjust to the horrors of war is a powerful experience.

The movie starts in 1939, just as Hitler's armies invade Poland. It shows how the people of England kept in touch with the events on the Continent, knowing that these events could and probably would directly affect them as well. The focus for much of the film is the Miniver family. The father (Walter Pidgeon) is an architect who becomes a leader in the patrol that keeps watch at night during the war; he also participates in a rather daring boat attack on Dunkirk, using only the small boat that his family owns for punting about on the river. The mother (Greer Garson) tries to hold her family together, but even she contributes directly to the war effort when she discovers a downed German pilot, manages to get his gun, and turns him over to the police.

The Minivers have three children, but only the oldest (Richard Ney) is key to the overall plot. He joins the Royal Air Force and keeps getting called to duty just when he's had a chance to reunite briefly with his family. He also falls in love with and marries the granddaughter of the town's wealthiest resident, Lady Beldon (the incomparable Dame May Whitty). His new bride (Teresa Wright) understands very well the possible sacrifices she might be asked to make as the wife of a pilot, a remarkably mature attitude for someone who is only 18 years old.

The ending of the film takes place in the remains of the town's church, which has almost been completely destroyed by bombs. The sermon for the day has to do with why the town has lost people who are considered innocents, why they have been the victims of the bombing instead of soldiers or pilots. It's a stirring moment when the vicar describes World War II as everyone's war. No doubt this film, particularly the ending, helped enormously with bolstering American sentiment for joining the war. I won't tell you who among the Minivers is lost in the bombing, but it's heartbreaking to watch the remains of the family joining together at the end.

Garson won the award for Best Actress that year, and you can certainly see why. I always liked her, even when it was only her voice that I heard ("The Little Drummer Boy," for example). Allegedly, she gave the longest acceptance speech in Academy history, but since they weren't televised back then, we have no film record of it. I'd love to see it sometime, though. Wright, as Carol Beldon Miniver, was chosen Best Supporting Actress, beating out Whitty for the award. In fact, five members of the cast were nominated that year, one of those few times when there was a nomination from a film in every acting category.

There are really three Mrs. Minivers in the film, by the way. Garson, of course, is the first one and perhaps the one that the title refers to. However, upon her marriage, Carol becomes Mrs. Miniver as well, a fact that Garson's character points out. The third is a rose, a beautiful one, that one of the townspeople names in honor of Garson's character. It's a fitting tribute to her as she embodies the best traits of the English people, a true "English rose." And, in a similar fashion, this film honors those same attributes.

The Deer Hunter (1978)

The Deer Hunter, winner of Best Picture of 1978, is the first Vietnam War movie that I remember seeing as a kid. That would have been thirty years ago at this point, when I was 15 years old, so watching it again this time was a bit of a revelation. This isn't a film that's primarily about what happened in Vietnam although I suspect that's what many people remember about it. This is really more of an investigation of the impact serving in Vietnam had on the soldiers who returned home. I'd forgotten that, and I suspect many others have as well if they haven't seen the film recently.

Only about a third of the film takes place during the war itself, and those scenes are primarily about the games of Russian roulette that three American soldiers have to participate in, thanks to their capture and imprisonment. Those scenes and some later ones involving the same brutal game being played for "fun" or profit were, of course, the ones that I remembered from my first viewing of the film years ago. They are just too shocking, in some ways, to be forgotten. Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage are the three friends who have wound up as POWs. They try to stay together as much as possible during the war but are inevitably separated and go in very different directions with their lives.

DeNiro's Michael returns home to the small Pennsylvania steel town where the three friends lived before, but he has difficulty adjusting to life after his military service. He begins to renew a relationship with Meryl Streep's Linda, a woman who had been dating his friend Nick but who has always had feelings for Michael as well. Savage's Steven has been injured in the war and is now confined to a wheelchair; he prefers to remain institutionalized rather than try to return home and create a life with his wife and child. Nick's story is the most heartbreaking of all; he has been severely emotionally traumatized by the war and seems to find an escape through his continued involvement in Vietnam's underground Russian roulette tournaments. Nick is played by Christopher Walken, who is very good here, a far cry from the parody of himself that Walken has been playing in recent years.

There are four parts to this film, and each is distinct in its tone and imagery. The first is set on the weekend that Steven gets married before going off to war. The other friends go on their last deer hunting trip before Michael and Nick join Steven. It's a bit more than an hour long, and much of that time is spent getting to know the individual characters in some detail. The second part is primarily focused on the three men in the prisoner-of-war camp and their subsequent escape. We are given only about 40 minutes or so of combat and capture, though, as if to suggest that the war itself is not the primary focus. Third comes the return to the United States for Michael and Steven. Michael, in particular, has become a very different man than the one who left for Vietnam early in the film, and The Deer Hunter gives us another hunting trip to show the contrast as sharply as possible. The final main portion of the film deals with Michael's return to Vietnam to retrieve Nick. Clocking in at a bit more than three hours, The Deer Hunter manages to take its time very carefully in depicting even of these major portions of the plot. Each is thoughtfully presented, and each contributes to the overall impact that the film has.

All of the members of the cast are excellent, and the direction by Michael Cimino is first-rate, worthy of his award as Best Director that year. Hollywood seemed to turn its attention finally in the late 1970s when it came to the Vietnam War. This was the same year as Coming Home, which was nominated for Best Picture against The Deer Hunter, and the following year saw Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola's epic reimagining of The Heart of Darkness as a Vietnam era parable. The Deer Hunter was, I think, one of the best films about the ways in which our country dealt with this time period, and it retains for me even more power today than it did when I watched it as a teenager all those many long years ago.

Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Gentleman's Agreement, winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1947, is a pretty bold attack on anti-Semitism. I think it's still a powerful movie even if some of the situations that it depicts have changed since the 1940s. What stands out most for me is just how relevant the arguments are that it makes against the silent forms of discrimination, the ways that people feel even if they do not publicly express those feelings. I just wish there were a better movie to deliver that message.

Gregory Peck plays a reporter who goes undercover as a Jew to find out how prevalent anti-Semitism is. Peck's Phil Green has moved to New York City to work at a top magazine and has to find a new "angle" on the subject he is given by his new boss. He simultaneously falls in love with his boss's niece, played by Dorothy McGuire, who soon becomes the brunt of many of his complaints about the ways that Jews are treated in America. McGuire's Kathy Lacy is one of those people who doesn't want to do or say anything that will upset the ways that others live their lives. For example, she wants to tell her sister and brother-in-law that Phil is undercover so that they can select which people not to invite to a party being hosted on his behalf. Kathy doesn't want to make waves, but Phil does. It's the central conflict of their relationship.

If the movie gets anything "wrong," it's perhaps the attention that the romance gets. Instead of going deeper into the kinds of discrimination that Phil encounters, the film instead allows Green and Kathy to talk about the future of their relationship too often. I'd rather have seen more scenes between Phil and his Army buddy, Dave Goldman, played by John Garfield. Dave could have given Phil more of a chance to see what day-to-day life is like for Jewish men. That Dave keeps having difficulties finding a home--no doubt because of anti-Semitism--is only casually integrated into the plot. That should have been a key part of Phil's investigation for his story.

However, what the movie does well is show that even among a specific group of people, there can be feelings of resentment. For example, Phil's new secretary, Elaine Wales (played by June Havoc), is Jewish herself but has chosen to "pass" so as to avoid mistreatment in the workplace. She too has to be chastised by Peck's character about her internalized dislike of her own people. It's pretty powerful stuff, to be sure but it's also a bit condescending to have the gentile tell the Jew how life should really be. As noble as the film tries to be, I just can't quite overcome a feeling of disappointment at times that it could have been stronger or better. I realize that this is delicate material; it was in 1947, and it still would be today. Yet in choosing to focus on the relationship between Phil and Kathy and by putting the arguments against anti-Semitism almost exclusively in the hands (and mouth, I suppose) of one man who spends just a few weeks living as a Jew, Gentleman's Agreement waters down its message just a bit too much to make it one of the best films of the decade.

Ninotchka (1939)

Garbo laughs, and so does the audience. Ninotchka was nominated for Best Picture of 1939, one of the greatest years in Hollywood history. This is a fun romantic comedy set against the backdrop of Paris during the years of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Not exactly what most people would consider fodder for a comedy, but Ninotchka uses the differences between the stereotypical Russian types and the more laidback Parisians to good effect here.

The title character, played by Greta Garbo in one of her best performances, is a special envoy sent to Paris to figure out why three earlier Russian agents have not yet managed to sell off the royal jewelry confiscated by the revolutionaries. The three men--Buljanoff, Iranoff, and Kopalski--have, it seems, become very enamored of the French way of life, which is so much more luxurious and, well, fun than the life they had to live back in Russia. As soon as Ninotchka arrives, she demonstrates that she will remain steadfast in achieving the goal of helping her fellow Russians. Unfortunately, she too soon falls victim to the charms of Paris and of one Parisian in particular, Count Leon, played with great charm by Melvyn Douglas.

One of the things that is striking about this movie is how Ninotchka and Leon begin to switch ideologies. She slowly becomes more cosmopolitan, even buying a new hat that she had earlier denounced as frivolous. He, on the other hand, becomes more inclined to goad his butler into starting a revolution among the workers. It's quite funny, really, to see them exchange roles in this way, and you don't need a deep knowledge of the inner workings of communism or capitalism to get the joke quickly.

There's a love triangle, naturally, that includes Ninotchka, Leon, and the Grand Duchess Swana, the original owner of the jewels who wants to see them returned to her. There's also some interesting moments set in Russia after all four of the envoys return home. Their night of sharing a four-egg omelet is quite funny, even if it does devolve into some of the most stereotypical Western views of what life under Communist rule must have been like. The ending is perhaps pure romantic fantasy, but that's always been one of the great contributions of film: allowing us to live in a world where fantasies like this can take place.

On the Waterfront (1954)

You can't really write about On the Waterfront, named Best Picture of 1954, without noting the performance of Marlon Brando. It's one of the iconic performances on film. Brando stands out so sharply from so many of his fellow actors because of the pain and torment and joy that he seems to contain within him in this film. It's a masterpiece, certainly. And if you haven't "gotten" it by the time of the famous "I could have been a contender" speech, then you likely will never understand.

Likewise, you can't really write about this film without noting its place in history. It's the movie that director Elia Kazan made soon after he named names at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings. It's an attempt, perhaps, on his part to justify his actions, to say that wasn't' really a "pigeon," the somewhat heavy-handed recurring image in the film associated with Brando's Terry Malloy. This is a film about the consequences of providing information to the authorities against your own kind. I'm not sure that it truly expunges what Kazan did; that's a debate best saved for someone and somewhere else. I can only say that within the context of the movie, Terry's actions are certainly justified. It's not such a clear parallel to what was happening with HUAC and the search for Communists in Hollywood, though.

On its own merits, On the Waterfront is still a great film. You don't have to note Brando's style of acting to appreciate the difficult situation his character faces. Here's a man who has been, to a degree, taken care of so long as he goes along with the actions of the union bosses, one of whom is his brother. Now, however, thanks to the intervention of the sister of one of his "victims" and the guidance of a local priest, Terry has to rethink his actions and reconsider what he has done with his life. His transformation throughout the film is the key to its success overall.

Brando's is not the only great performance in the film, for the record. Karl Malden is also strong as Father Barry, the priest who gets involved in union busting despite some pretty severe opposition. Eva Marie Saint as Edie Doyle, the sister of an informant who has been killed, is a remarkable blend of tenderness and intensity. She's so young here, but she already exhibits the talent that would lead her to have such a long career. And I admired Lee J. Cobb as Johnny Friendly. Cobb was always exceptional when he played a tough guy, and as the local union leader or "mob boss," he is a standout. There's a rage to his character that is always in danger of escaping, and Cobb captures that sense perfectly.

Still, it's Brando you'll remember. No one could have had the same impact that he had during Terry's walk along the docks at the end of the film. I won't spoil the ending for you, but watching him stride past all of his fellow longshoremen, knowing the pain that he is feeling at that moment, is revelatory. Brando holds the film together and, as a result, changed the way that actors acted on film from that point on. Brilliant stuff.

The Thin Man (1934)

Did anyone ever really drink as much as William Powell's Nick Charles in The Thin Man, a nominee for Outstanding Production of 1934? I stopped counting after he had downed more than a dozen drinks in the brisk 91 minutes of this film. Is anyone able to function as well as Nick does while drinking? Could that person still be a brilliant detective who can see and interpret clues that escape the police? I started to think that he even drank in his sleep, particularly since there are bottles and glasses conveniently located in his bedroom. Yes, I know that the drinking is part of the charm of the series of Thin Man films that Powell and Myrna Loy, as Nick's wife Nora, starred in, but it is one of those plot points that makes you stop and think. Not for very long, though, as you get caught up in the sharp wordplay of this charming movie.

Interestingly, the film doesn't even begin with Nick and Nora. Instead, we are given the context for the mystery they (well, really, he) will be asked to solve. An eccentric inventor named Clyde Wynant (Edward Ellis) plans to go into seclusion for a while in order to complete work on his latest invention, one he's trying to keep secret. His daughter, Dorothy (a very young and delightful Maureen O'Sullivan), interrupts him at work to ask him to attend her wedding. He promises to return in time for the event. Before he can leave to continue his work, though, he has to retrieve some money that he believes his mistress, Julia Wolf, has taken from him. Julia (Natalie Moorehead) has indeed been stealing bonds from Wynant's safe and is reluctant to turn it over to him until he threatens to turn her in to the police.

There’s a fast forward to several months later, and we see Powell's Nick trying to teach some bartenders how to shake a proper martini. Dorothy confronts him and asks for his help in searching for her father, who's now been gone for weeks without any contact. Nick, however, is reluctant to go back to his life as an investigator. His wife's father has died and left him and Nora a fortune, and they've been enjoying a much more casual life in California. It’s only when the bodies start to pile up that he becomes intrigued and that Nora encourages him to get involved.

Wynant's ex-wife and Dorothy's mother, Mimi (a rather shrill Minna Gombell), decides that she deserves some money from her ex-husband, and the only way to reach him is apparently through his mistress. When Mimi arrives at Julia's apartment, though, she discovers the woman has been recently killed. Given that no one else knows where Wynant is, the police and the public begin to suspect that the inventor is the chief suspect. The case then gets even more interesting. A potential blackmailer is gunned down in the street when he tries to collect his money, and a third body is discovered buried in Wynant's laboratory. All the while, the newspapers keep the spotlight on Wynant as the suspect, a testament perhaps to the lurid nature of some news outlets of the time. And there are also rumors aplenty to report. There's an allegation that Wynant has tried to commit suicide in Allentown which the papers pick up and carry. Wherever he goes in public, and even sometimes in the comfort of his own home, Nick gets grilled by reporters who want to know more about the case even before he agrees to do any investigations.

(As a quick aside, I must confess to enjoying the montages of newspaper front pages in old movies. It became a cliché rather quickly, a short of shorthand to keep from taking up too much of the screen time with exposition, but watching the sheer silliness of some of the outrageous headlines always puts me in a good mood. And when other images such as people’s eyes (perhaps to suggest suspicion or surveillance) or paperboys or even just cityscapes are added in, well, I’m hooked.)

With Nora’s encouragement, Nick begins to collect clues and starts investigating the increasing numbers of murders that are related to the case. He starts to figure out who the most likely suspects are and decides to invite them all, along with some other key figures in the case, to a dinner where he plans to reveal the true identity of the murderer. It's quite a party when the cops and various underworld figures sit down to eat. It's reminiscent of the scenes in later detective films where all of the suspects are gathered together for the big reveal--I'm thinking here of the Hercule Poirot films like Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, for example, that I saw in the 1970s--but The Thin Man is an earlier, standard-creating example of this plot device.

While it sounds like this could be a film about serious stuff, it certainly isn't. It's a bright, cheerful comedy, one with some very sexy banter between the two leads and some inspired reaction shots from almost everyone. And the sequence involving the dinner party is very carefully choreographed to achieve the maximum number of laughs. Imagine any "real" detective asking everyone to dress up so as to be accused of murder. Almost every sequence is played for laughs, and it makes for a very entertaining movie to watch.

Powell and Loy are so good here. They act like a happily married couple, two people who enjoy spending time with each other. They also don't seem to take anything too seriously. When Nick sends Nora off to Grant's Tomb to keep her away from the investigation, she tells him upon her return, "It's lovely. I'm having a copy made for you." Even Nick's being shot at is handled for laughs here. When they read accounts in the paper about his encounter with a gunman in their bedroom, they first note that the Tribune says Nick was shot twice but, as Nora puts it, "you were shot five times in the tabloids." Nick's reply: "That's not true. He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids." Funny stuff.

By the way, their dog almost steals the film. Asta, who also appeared to great effect in The Awful Truth, is given some of the best reaction shots in the film. For example, Nick allegedly takes Asta for a walk when he's really going to Wynant's laboratory, and watching Asta hide there when Nick claims that the dog is vicious is pretty hilarious. I know it's also become a bit of a cliché to see a scene like that in films nowadays, but The Thin Man managed to achieve a laugh with that joke decades before everyone tried to copy it to lesser effect.

The Thin Man is the first in a series of films based upon the characters created by novelist Dashiell Hammett. This first one is definitely one of my new favorites, primarily thanks to the interplay between Powell and Loy. The rest of the supporting cast is first-rate as well, especially O'Sullivan as the daughter who's willing to take the rap for her accused father. It’s clear to see why she later became a star. You might also notice Cesar Romero in a small part as the new boyfriend of Dorothy's mother; I almost didn't recognize him without that crown of white hair for which he became famous later in his career. And, for some reason, I found the character of Gilbertt, Wynant's son played by William Henry, to be quite entertaining. He's meant to be an intellectual, someone who lives his life in books, and he's the butt of quite a few jokes with his questions about "sadists" and "paranoiacs."

Perhaps the best way to honor the achievements of The Thin Man is to raise a glass, maybe a martini. Or maybe you could develop a drinking game whereby you have to take a drink each time the main characters do. Expect, however, to be quite drunk by the end of the film. I did mention earlier how much drinking goes on in this movie. When Loy's Nora asks for a row of five martinis so that she can catch up with Powell's Nick, you know you're in for a heavy-drinking time. And only Powell could get away with telling a reporter who keeps asking questions about the case that "it's putting me way behind in my drinking." I think that, by the end of the film, he and Nora may have caught up.

Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production, Actor (William Powell), Directing (W.S. Van Dyke), and Writing, Adaptation