Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was one of the ten nominees for Best Picture in that remarkable year of 1939. It's an expose of the depths to which the government is influenced by the wrong men. You might say it's about how corrupt the Congress, especially the Senate, had become in the 1930s, but that might imply that we've somehow gotten rid of the kind of backroom deals that the movie depicts. We all know that's not the case, of course, making Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in many ways just as insightful today as it was seventy years ago.

James Stewart plays Jefferson Smith, a naive young man chosen to fill the vacancy created by the death of one of the senators from his home state. Smith's choice as a replacement senator is a difficult one for the governor, given how much pressure he faces from newspaperman Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold) to choose someone who will help push through a shady land deal. Smith, the head of the Boy Rangers, a sort of Boy Scout organization, gets public support from the boys themselves, so Governor Hopper (Guy Kibbee) chooses Smith over Taylor's initial objections. After all, what does Smith know about how the federal government works? So long as his powerful and influential fellow senator, Claude Rains' Joseph Paine, guides him, the deal should go through. Right?

No one expects Smith to be as naive as he is, though. For example, when he finally arrives in Washington, he disappears for an afternoon just so that he can see all of the monuments and memorials in town. He stands in awe of the Capitol Dome itself, and I won't even mention how much attention the Lincoln Memorial gets in this film. His assistant, Miss Saunders (Jean Arthur, who's growing on me as an actress), tries to help Smith learn the ways of bill-making and other government operations. Unfortunately, she can't always control him, such as when he's questioned by the press. He makes bird calls and gives Indian signs in his first press conference, and his actions are used to ridicule him in the newspapers the next day. He even punches out one of the newspapermen in retaliation for the damage to his reputation.

Smith, you see, has a specific goal he hopes to achieve while in the Senate; he wants to build a national boys camp to teach morals to the young boys of America. He tells Saunders about the ideal location for this camp, oddly enough the same site that Jim Taylor wants to build a dam. Needless to say, when word gets out about the conflict, everyone tries to distract Smith so he won't know about the plans for the dam. Senator Paine even uses his daughter Susan (Astrid Allwyn) as a "distraction," let's call it, while the bill for the dam is presented.

There's a confrontation, naturally, between Smith and Taylor where their core beliefs are revealed. Is it any surprise that Taylor thinks he "owns" everyone? There's also a confrontation between Smith and Paine where Paine tells the younger man that he has to compromise his principles. Taylor inevitably tries to smear Smith in the newspapers and other media outlets he controls, and Paine even goes so far as to accuse Smith of being unfit to be a Senator because, he claims, Smith is trying to profit from the sale of the land that is in dispute. Paine lies at a meeting of a Senate committee, a moment so shocking to Smith that he packs his bags and tries to leave town. Saunders catches him at the Lincoln Memorial, and he agrees to return to the Senate and attempt the longest filibuster in the history of government.

It's tough to imagine that the writers of a film would decide to make such an arcane Senate rule as the one governing filibusters into a central piece of its narrative, but Mr. Smith Goes to Washington certainly does so to great effect. There's still quite a bit of dramatic license taken with the rules of the Senate, including the scene where bags of mail allegedly against Smith's filibuster arrive on the Senate floor, but you can't fault director Frank Capra for wanting to amp up the dramatic tension in scenes like these.

Stewart is reliably good here, as are Arthur and Arnold and Rains and Thomas Mitchell as Diz Moore, a newspaper reporter who is one of Saunders' closest friends. As much as you enjoy the performances, though, this is really a movie about the government itself. To a degree, it's an essentially conservative message that's being filtered through this narrative. After all, Smith's proposal for a boys camp couldn't be any more "traditional values" than much of the legislation passed these days. However, it's really more about the power the individual has in the face of government that you're supposed to recognize at the film's end. If one man like Smith can come to that most corrupt of places, Washington, and retain his integrity, then why (you're supposed to ask) doesn't everyone else? It's an interesting question to which the film gives perhaps too pat of an answer. It is Hollywood's version of the government, after all.

I've been trying to figure out just how this film would have been received by those in Washington in 1939. It doesn't portray most of them in a very favorable light, of course. In fact, almost every Senator seems to be under the sway of some person or interest with deep pockets. The press is represented in a negative way as well, yet the film received good reviews at the time of its release. Perhaps in the midst of the Great Depression, people wanted to renew their faith in the integrity of the government. How ironic that it sometimes takes a movie like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to make people consider that issue.

Oscar Win: Original Story

Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director, Actor (Stewart), Supporting Actor (Harry Carey and Rains), Art Direction, Film Editing, Scoring, Sound Recording, and Screenplay

The Life of Emile Zola (1937)

Winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1937, The Life of Emile Zola is quite a snooze-fest of a movie. Undoubtedly, it won because it is a Prestige Picture, one of those movies designed to showcase the studio's talent for picking serious material and presenting it with dignity. It's supposed to be high-minded and literary, but I just found it overly long and quite tedious.

The ubiquitous Paul Muni plays the title character, the French novelist who was perpetually in trouble because of the controversial subject matter of his books. For example, he meets a prostitute (no, not in that way) and interviews her. She becomes the subject of his novel Nana. Of course, everyone is scandalized that a book about a prostitute would even be published, but that doesn't stop everyone from wanting a copy. Zola is repeatedly accused of writing books that are bad for the morals of society and is even given an official warning from the public prosecutor, but he continues to write about topics that were typically off-limits at the time.

Much of the early part of the film is about his career as a writer, and there is the inevitable montage showing a series of books on the shelf, letting us know just how prolific a writer Zola was. However, the largest portion of the film is taken up with what became known as the Dreyfus Affair. It's an interesting historical moment, perhaps for its revelation of anti-Semitism in France at the time as much for the notion that the military could be just as corrupt as any other segment of society. Unfortunately, it's the handling of the Dreyfus Affair that is the dullest and most problematic aspect of the film.

I promise to cover this history lesson as briefly as possible, something the movie itself doesn't do, by the way. Dreyfus was an officer who was accused of revealing military secrets when the real culprit was another, better-liked officer, Major Walsin Esterhazy. Everyone involved in the incident knows that Dreyfus is innocent, yet the military needs a scapegoat, and Dreyfus is Jewish, a fact which some officers use to stir resentment against him (although the words "Jewish" or "anti-Semitic" are never uttered in the entire movie, a cowardly move on the part of the studio). He is court-martialed after being charged with treason and is sent to the notorious Devil's Island prison off the coast of South America.

Dreyfus' friends, knowing that Zola is a bit of a rabble-rouser, attempt to get the novelist involved in the officer's case. Even Dreyfus' wife, played by the lovely Gale Sondergaard, pleads his case. When the mistake is uncovered and exposed to the public, the military officers, led by Donald Crisp's Maitre Labori, work to ensure that they are not ridiculed. A court martial of Esterhazy ensues wherein he is, of course, found innocent, thereby reinforcing Dreyfus' alleged guilt. As the word of what has happened becomes even more public, the pressure on Zola becomes more intense. After he publishes J'Accuse, which criticizes the military's handling of the case and demands a new trial for Dreyfus, the military begins a smear campaign against him. His books are destroyed, and he is burned in effigy in the streets of Paris.

What is ostensibly the most interesting part of the movie begins when Zola is taken to court on charges of defamation. The judges, all of them solidly on the side of the military, refuse to reopen the Dreyfus case and witness after witness refuses to come to court to testify because they are all acting under military orders. There are even people sitting in court, all of them planted by the military, to disrupt the proceedings when it seems that any information might be forthcoming that could damage the reputation of the military. It's all pretty blatant stuff, frankly.

Muni gets to deliver quite a damning speech about the dangers of justice being co-opted by outside influence, but you know it's not going to matter. He will still be punished despite the growing acknowledgement that the military has covered up its crime. After receiving a one-year prison sentence and a 3000-franc fine, Zola flees to London. The pressure continues, though, to release Dreyfus, a process that is eventually successful. However, Zola dies on the day that Dreyfus is awarded the Legion of Honor, a ceremony at which the two men were to meet in person at last. Historically, that's not what happened, of course, but for the sake of narrative clarity and impact, we'll let it go this time.

I haven't talked very much about the performances yet, but perhaps I just wasn't as overwhelmed as Academy voters were. Muni is his usual solid self. He had a way of disappearing into roles. So long as he had a beard or make-up or some other disguise, he seemed to become the person he was playing, and he was given quite a few biopics over the years. Sondergaard is solid as always as well, as are most of the supporting cast made of studio regulars like Crisp and Louis Calhern and Harry Davenport, all recognizable faces. Hardly anyone has a true French accent, of course, but I suppose that's quibbling. Most of the Hollywood studio pictures of the time that were period pieces didn't even try to represent accents faithfully.

The most surprising performance, undeniably, has to be that of Joseph Schildkraut as Captain Dreyfus. What is so astonishing about it is that he won Best Supporting Actor that year even though he has only a few minutes of screen time, and most of those minutes are shots of him crying in a prison cell. I don't know if the Academy voters were just trying to find another way to reward a film that addressed Important Issues or if they truly felt that he gave the best performance that year. At least, when they gave Beatrice Straight and Judi Dench Oscars for brief performances, those two women had parts that were filled with memorable lines.

I have only seen three of the other nominees for Best Picture from 1937: The Awful Truth, The Good Earth, and A Star Is Born. Any one of them would be a better choice than The Life of Emile Zola. I'd even give the award to The Good Earth as stolid and boring as that movie is. Of course, my pick so far would have to be the delightful, clever The Awful Truth, which did win Leo McCarey the Oscar for Best Director. The choice of The Life of Emile Zola just smacks of those attempts by the Academy to show that it values Serious Filmmaking. Unfortunately, as in the case of this movie, Serious Filmmaking usually winds up being just dull. If I wanted a history lesson, I'd read a book. At least, the book might attempt to be more accurate anyway.

Taxi Driver (1976)

Everyone who's seen Taxi Driver remembers the scene where Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle recites "Are you talking to me?" in a mirror. It's a showy actor's moment, so it's little wonder that it's the moment most people can most readily recall. However, the film itself follows Bickle through quieter moments, and those (for me) are even more horrific and frightening. In Travis Bickle, director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader found an almost perfect vehicle in which to place our post-Vietnam War era fears.

At the beginning of the film, Travis takes a job driving a cab at night because he can't get to sleep. A former Marine, he received an honorable discharge, but you suspect he is still haunted by what he saw and did during the war. He certainly doesn't seem to have reintegrated himself into "normal" society since his return. DeNiro's voice-over ticks off the list of people he despises: "All the animals come out at night--whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets." It seems as though no one is good enough for Travis Bickle’s world.

Don't start thinking that Travis is some kind of morally pure crusader, though. He, too, is guilty of contributing to the corruption of the streets. He frequents a porn theater, for example, and even tries to pick up the concession stand worker. Of course, he probably tries to convince himself that he's just making conversation with her, but people who are stable don't tend to engage in that kind of behavior. He's so emotionally stunted, though, that he cannot understand why she rejects his advances.

After he sees a beautiful young woman in white (Cybill Shephard as Betsy) crossing the street, he seems to think he has found the perfect match for himself. He starts hanging around her job to ask her out. She works in the New York City campaign headquarters for a presidential candidate, and her co-workers, particularly Albert Brooks' Tom, begin to suspect that Travis is not what he appears to be. Eventually, she agrees to go to a movie with Travis, and he takes her to see a porno, telling her that lots of couples go there. Betsy, after trying to reason with Travis, walks out of the theater and gets into a cab. So much for romance for Travis. He immediately begins to think that she's just as cold and distant as everyone else in the city when he is truly the one with the problem--a classic case of projection.

At about this same time, he first encounters Iris, a young prostitute named Iris, played by Jodie Foster. Foster was 14 when Taxi Driver was made, but she displays a maturity that suggests that she has far more worldly knowledge than she will admit. As soon as he meets Iris in person, Travis decides to take her on as his next project. He's going to save her from a life of prostitution and from her pimp, who is played by Harvey Keitel in outrageous hippie drag. He takes her to breakfast and tries to convince her to go back home, but she can only dismiss him as another "square." No one, it seems, wants to be saved by Travis.

Foster is not the only bright spot in the film. Shephard is also well cast, using her somewhat brittle personality to good effect here. I've already mentioned Brooks and Keitel, but the film has small, pivotal roles for up-and-coming actors like Peter Boyle as one of the other taxi drivers. I also enjoyed the cameo by Scorsese as a passenger obsessed with the woman who is cheating on him. It's DeNiro, though, who is really the draw here. His is a quiet performance in many ways, yet DeNiro gives a chance to gain some insight into Travis' mind. The voice-over narration, especially when he tries to write his thoughts down, are very illuminating. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to do a psychoanalytical interpretation of them. I suspect that they have.

It's after Travis buys a gun from a "traveling salesman" that the movie takes its darkest turn. That's also when he first gets the chance to practice in the mirror, his big scene. Actually, there are several moments in front of the mirror, including his practice with the gun he has customized to spring out from his jacket sleeve. He's decided, apparently as revenge for Betsy's treatment, to kill Senator Palatine, the presidential candidate. Or perhaps he's resentful of the fact that Palatine, who has ridden in his cab, seems to have dismissed him. However, he fails in his attempt to assassinate the senator, but he shoots a would-be robber at a grocery store and then later goes after Iris' pimp. He's even proclaimed a hero by the media for helping to "clean up the streets."

This is not, however, as bloody or violent a film as you might have been led to believe. Frankly, I'm not sure that the sight of blood has all that much impact these days, but the sparing use of it in Taxi Driver is effective. It's all the more shocking when someone is actually shot. However, I think the most terrifying aspect of this film is that someone like Travis Bickle can seem so "ordinary" to so many people. He just walks among the citizens of New York City, completely undetected as the potential menace that he is. Even when he shaves his hair into a mohawk, he doesn't attract a great deal of attention. Perhaps Schrader and Scorsese are warning us as a society, or perhaps they are trying to suggest that we will never be truly aware of the dangers under the surface or veneer of civilization.

Either way, Taxi Driver is quite a shocker today when you reflect on how many people like Travis Bickle have attempted or succeeded at acts of terrible violence. The decades since its release have seen dozens of instances where seemingly ordinary people have become frightening harbingers of doom and destruction. No, I won't give examples because they have already had too much publicity as it is. Were these filmmakers gifted with some form of remarkable foresight in 1976? I don't know, but this film is still powerful stuff, and it serves as a reminder that we should never take for granted that the person next to us (or in front of us driving the cab) is just like we are.

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robert DeNiro), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jodie Foster), and Best Original Score

Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

Coal Miner's Daughter, a nominee for Best Picture of 1980, is the story of country music superstar Loretta Lynn. Well, to be honest, it's really more about the story of Lynn's lifelong romance with her husband, Doolittle or "Mooney." Rather than have a biopic that focuses primarily on the rise of Lynn's career, the filmmakers have chosen to keep the emphasis on the ups and downs associated with her marriage, particularly as they affected her career at times. It's an intriguing move because it takes most of the emphasis away from what Lynn is perhaps best known for doing, her music, and puts the story squarely in the tradition of romantic movies. However, this is a somewhat unconventional love story.

Sissy Spacek plays Lynn, and while she doesn't really look all that much like Lynn to me, I have to give her credit for never trying to do an impression of the superstar. Spacek sings on her own--her voice is not dubbed by Lynn--and, as a result, she becomes much more realistic in the role. She won an Oscar for her portrayal. I might have preferred a win by Mary Tyler Moore as that tightly wound mother in Ordinary People, but you can't argue with the depth of Spacek's portrayal in this film.

Her husband is played by a young and impossibly handsome Tommy Lee Jones. Jones has a tough job to do in this film. He has to remain likable despite being a womanizer. Lynn should know better than to fall in love with Doolittle. After all, he got his nickname "Mooney" from his dangerous work as a moonshiner. Yet the film suggests that you can't stop people from falling in love although her parents certainly do their part to keep their 14-year-old daughter safe from the advances of Jones' former soldier. It has to be the sense of adventure he represents that excites her so, and Jones certainly depicts that with all of the emotions that devilish grin of his can muster.

Lynn co-wrote the book on which the film is based, and she used the plain language with which she always speaks. The film mirrors that sense of plainness in its depictions of various stages of the Lynns' marriage. The wedding night is a disaster, for example, and she is one of the most inept housewives ever, it seems. He gets a job in a coal mine, a job he hates, and it isn't long before he hits her and later starts cheating on her. The kids come in quick succession, and the family doesn't seem to be making much financial headway until Doo (Loretta's own nickname for her husband) buys her a guitar for their anniversary.

When the film allows Spacek to sing, you begin to see just how enticing performing was to Lynn. The first audience (at a Grange Hall) gives her a thrill, and it isn't long before her career becomes the focus of the marriage. She writes a song for herself, "Honky Tonk Girl," and it becomes a hit thanks to the two of them driving around asking deejays to play it. I really enjoyed watching the performances throughout the second part of the film. Lynn's debut at the Grand Ole Opry, for example, features Ernest Tubb, and I can remember seeing him perform a couple of times when I made it to Nashville. You also have to admire how quickly she's able to react to events in her life and turn them into songs. It's not long after she finds Doolittle in the back of a car with another woman that she writes "You Ain't Woman Enough to Take My Man," one of my favorite Lynn songs.

By the way, there's also a couple of moments set in Tillie's Orchid Lounge, which I have also visited. It looks a lot cleaner in the movies, let me tell you. When I had a drink there back in 1994 or so, the walls were stained from all of the cigarette smoke and the smell of alcohol permeated the place. Legends die hard, I suppose. Or, perhaps, they've cleaned the place up to appeal more to tourists.

There's a key cameo by Beverly D'Angelo as Patsy Cline, who befriended Lynn and even helped her in her career. The two of them have a couple of songs they sing together, and both of them have strong voices. Again, these are not attempts to copy the singing of the actual stars. I suppose it's more of an homage or even a suggestion of how the "originals" really sang. Cline's death was quite a blow to Lynn, and the significance of that moment is powerfully demonstrated in this film.

If I have any harsh criticism of the film, it's probably the handling of Lynn's alleged mental breakdown. It just happens so quickly. Suddenly, Lynn's taking pills to help her sleep and fight off headaches; there's no gradual increase in her drug usage. She and Doo are fighting all the time, but she wants him with her on the road. The reasons for their fighting are not always apparent, but perhaps it's just the hardship of being on the road all the time? He and the members of the band have to feed her lines to her songs so she can remember the words, but in performances depicted only moments before, she's just fine on stage. It's all there, but her collapse on stage seems as if it comes out of the blue when, in truth, there had to have been a series of signs that Lynn's health was deteriorating.

I have always admired Loretta Lynn. I think she stands now as the greatest female singer country music has ever produced. If you look at the catalog of her songs, many of which she wrote herself about her own life, you'll see some of the best titles ever put on vinyl (or, now, CD). Coal Miner's Daughter isn't a comprehensive look at the life of this amazing woman who overcame extreme poverty to become one of the most celebrated women in the world, but then it doesn't claim to be that anyway. It is, however, a glimpse into a key aspect of who Lynn is and how she got to be that way. That is reason enough to watch this film.

Oscar Win: Actress (Spacek)

Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, and Sound

Les Miserables (1935)

I don't think I've ever read the Victor Hugo novel on which the film version of Les Miserables is based. I saw the musical in the early 1990s on Broadway; the tickets were a birthday gift to Partner At The Time, but we both had a great time at the theater that night. The musical was pretty lengthy, and the book has a reputation for being quite the time-killer as well. However, the 1935 film, which was nominated for Best Picture, is pretty brisk, coming in at just under two hours long. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the adaptation, but this is an enjoyable film with two strong lead performances by Fredric March and Charles Laughton.

March is Jean Valjean, a man sentenced to prison in France during the early 1800s after stealing food to keep his family from starving. While serving time in the galleys--in scenes reminiscent of ones in Ben-Hur--Valjean comes to the attention of Javert (Laughton), a man whose father died in jail and who was himself born while his mother was in prison. Javert is a strictly by-the-book disciplinarian. Much like the judges who sentenced Valjean, Javert does not believe that the law has any room for empathy or consideration of mitigating circumstances.

After Valjean serves his sentence and is released, he finds that no one will provide him with lodging or food save for a bishop. He is carrying a so-called "yellow passport" that identifies him as a former prisoner, and only the bishop sees a fellow human being in need. Valjean, though, is desperate for money and steals silver plates and candlesticks from the bishop. He is captured and returned, but the bishop refuses to press charges. He gives the silver to Valjean, who apparently has a kind of spiritual epiphany on the journey that follows.

We next see Valjean years later when, using the name of Madeleine, he is asked to consider being the mayor of the town where he has built a factory that employs many workers. On that same day, one of his managers fires a woman named Fantine, who has a child at a boarding house she is trying to support. Valjean learns of the woman's plight and takes her under his care. He also takes over the guardianship of her daughter, Cosette, who has been put to work in the boarding house doing chores like washing dishes despite her young age. Upon Fantine's death, Valjean assumes the role of parent of the child.

Of course, Valjean is still on the run from his past, and it isn't long before he's recognized by Javert. Valjean helps to lift a wagon that has been stuck, and it's oddly reminiscent of how he used his back in prison once to save a fellow prisoner. Javert, now a police inspector, makes it his mission to capture Valjean and make him admit to his identity as a former prisoner. You see, there's another fellow who has been charged as Jean Valjean, a drunk who's willing to admit to almost any crime. Javert begins investigating the mayor over the objections of everyone else. The real Valjean admits who he is in open court, but when Javert shows up to arrest Valjean, the mayor and his "child" escape and assume new identities. He now becomes a gardener at a convent where his daughter is schooled, and they seem to be happy for a time.

I know I'm making this plot sound horribly convoluted, and I'd be willing to wager that the book itself requires you keep a list of all of the characters, but really, it isn't all that tough to follow. I suspect the story has been remarkably streamlined in order to fit within a two-hour time frame, but the intrigue is still strong. The key, of course, is trying to discern if Laughton's Javert will truly find March's Valjean and arrest him and send him to jail despite all of the good deeds that the reformed prisoner has done.

March is very good here, playing Valjean and his various aliases each with a somewhat different style. Yet he remains the same man of integrity throughout the film, and his affection for Cosette is one of the film's strongest points. March always had an intensity to his acting, displayed perhaps best in his two Academy Award winning roles in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Best Years of Our Lives. The real star, though, is Laughton. He is younger and leaner here than I remember him from other movies of the era, and there's a hunger to him, an energy to prove himself that seems to drive his actions. He was an actor who always had a haughty look to his face, and it's used to good advantage here. His single-minded desire to arrest Valjean leads him to a harrowing trek through the sewers of Paris, but he refuses to give up. Laughton had already won an Oscar the previous year for playing the title role in The Private Life of Henry VIII, and he would co-star this same year in the original Mutiny on the Bounty, which defeated Les Miserables for Best Picture of 1935. It is starting to look like quite a string of great roles he had during that decade.

There's more to the story, of course, but why bother rehashing all of it? There are revolutionaries and rioting and all sorts of discussions of right and wrong. The year 1935 had a lot of high-brow literary adaptations, among them fellow nominees David Copperfield and Alice Adams and A Midsummer Night's Dream. This version of Les Miserables certainly belongs in that august company.

Oscar Nominations: Picture, Assistant Director, Cinematography, and Film Editing