Air Force (1943)

 

Air Force is a solid piece of World War II era propaganda made by Hollywood. It’s filmmaking designed to make the audience support our wartime efforts and to revile, in this case, the Japanese enemy. The battle sequences are staged very effectively, and they often demonstrate the kind of American might that was having success at destroying Japanese warships. Much of the film follows the crew of the “Mary-Ann,” a B-17 bomber plane that arrives in Hawaii just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, then travels to Wake Island just after it has been attacked, and journeys to the Philippines just after another attack – perhaps you can detect a trend here. They always seem to be flying into a dangerous situation despite being warned against landing or flying out of an area to head to another dangerous location. It’s a lot of takeoffs and landings for one film to depict. Most of the characters are “types” more than realistic portrayals of actual people. Whether you want to call them archetypes or stereotypes is up to you. When you have characters called “Irish” and “Tex” and “Minnesota,” you know that you’re probably not going to have the depth of characterization that more actor-driven movies might have. The opening credits don’t even mention the names of the characters; John Ridgely plays The Pilot, Gig Young plays The Co-Pilot, Arthur Kennedy is The Bombardier, etc. We do get some bits of information about most of the men in the “Mary-Ann.” For example, the gunner failed his pilot training but is actually quite a good pilot. There’s a fresh recruit that you just know isn’t destined to last for too long. There’s an old-timer whose son is carrying on the family tradition of military service. Because we only get brief insights into the backgrounds of these men, it is tough to really speak much about the performances, but John Garfield as the gunner Joe Winocki stands out (just as you would expect an actor of Garfield’s talent to do) as does Harry Carey as Robbie White, the experienced crew chief. The film features only a few minor female characters because this is truly a film about men in wartime and what they have to endure in battle and afterwards. (For some comic relief, there is a dog named Tripoli, who barks whenever someone says the word/name “Moto.” It’s rather cringe-inducing after a while, though, a “joke” that truly doesn’t stay fresh for long.) The film spends quite a bit of time in the cockpit with the men gently teasing each other, such as when the pilot and co-pilot rib their passenger, a fighter pilot who prefers to fly the smaller planes, over which kind of pilots are the best. The plane itself endures a lot. It keeps getting shot at and damaged, and more (longer) repairs are needed each time it lands. Air Force also isn’t afraid to depict one of the typical outcomes of war: death. An extended battle sequence late in the film is particularly brutal in that respect, particularly in its depiction of the defeated Japanese. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the cinematography; it’s first-rate and really shows a mastery of the use of light to illuminate faces in those flights at night.

Oscar Win: Best Film Editing

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Black-and-White Cinematography, and Best Special Effects

Five Graves to Cairo (1943)

 

Five Graves to Cairo is a suspense-filled delight. Set in North Africa during World War II, it sets up an intriguing narrative. The lone survivor of a German attack on a British tank must determine whether or not to remain in hiding to garner military intelligence (and save his own life) or attempt to assassinate Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (and possibly save the lives of thousands). Franchot Tone is British Army Corporal. John J. Bramble, who has made his way through the desert to the Empress of Britain hotel, run by Farid (played by the great Akim Tamiroff) and staffed now only by a Frenchwoman, Mouche (played by Anne Baxter with an accent that seems tough to maintain). When Rommel and his troops arrive at the hotel, Farid and Mouche help to pass Bramble off as Paul Davos, a former waiter at the hotel who has vanished. Of course, this being a Billy Wilder film, there are some amusing complications. Davos was Greek and had a clubfoot. Oh, and he was a German spy, a fact that Bramble learns from Rommel himself. Bramble has to rely on Farid and Mouche to keep his secret, but Mouche has her own plans to ask Rommel to get her brother released from a concentration camp and has little interest in helping the British, given what she perceives as their abandonment of the French at Dunkirk. The suspense over whether Bramble will be discovered only gets heightened in the sequence involving the theft of a gun from an Italian general traveling with Rommel and from the arrival of a group of British POWs, one of whom was a former guest of the hotel and knew Davos. There’s also the problem of Lieutenant Schwegler (Peter van Eyck), who is charmed by Mouche and may help her with the issue concerning her brother’s release (and who discovers Davos’ body in the hotel cellar during an air raid). Wilder always did know how to complicate a plot to keep the audience intrigued. Rommel is played to the hilt by Erich von Stroheim; he truly steals the film, and it’s difficult to concentrate upon the other actors when he’s in a scene. The moments when Rommel asks his prisoners to ask him twenty questions is a particular highlight. The enigmatic title comes from the five locations where Rommel, pretending to be an archaeologist, had supplies buried in 1935 in anticipation of the war’s outbreak. Bramble’s discovery of its meaning is another tense sequence in the film. If there is one small complaint to make about this high-quality film, it’s the lack of subtitles for the German spoken at various times in the film. Otherwise, Five Graves to Cairo is an outstanding example of the ability of the Hollywood studio system to craft genre films and films like this that cross over several genres.

Oscar Nominations: Best Black-and-White Cinematography, Best Black-and-White Art Direction-Interior Decoration, and Best Film Editing

Casablanca (1943)

Since its release, Casablanca has become engulfed in as much nostalgia and mythology as any film ever made. Set before the U.S. involvement in World War II, it takes place in French Morocco during the era of Vichy France. Much of the action takes place in and around Rick’s Café Americain, whose owner is played to world-weary perfection by Humphrey Bogart. As the saying goes, “everyone comes to Rick’s,” and that’s certainly the case with the French, Moroccans, Germans, Russians, Bulgarians, Italians, and others who frequent the café. The importance of what transpires over the course of the film is less about what happens, honestly, and more about the interactions between sharply drawn characters. Explaining the magic of Casablanca is almost impossible because it is such an exemplar of how each of the pieces is perfect on its own and contributes somewhat unexpectedly to the greatness of the whole.

The plot is both engaging and engrossing. It is a love story, a war movie, and a suspense film all at once. The premise is rather simple: One of the greatest of the Czechoslovakia Resistance leaders, Victor Laszlo (played by Paul Henreid), is coming to Morocco in search of two letters of transit that will ensure safe passage for him and his wife to Lisbon, Portugal, and then America. The letters are among the greatest of film MacGuffins. They serve as a central focus to the plot and everyone wants to find these letters, but really we are more intrigued by what appear at first to be a series of subplots. For example, the love triangle between Bogart’s Rick, Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa, and Henreid’s Victor keeps viewers wondering whether Ilsa will stay with her husband, the noble and respected Victor, or go with the man she loved in Paris, Rick. Given that Rick can at times be excessively cruel to Ilsa, you might think the choice is obvious, but Bergman (who was nominated as Best Actress in a Leading Role for a different film in 1943, For Whom the Bell Tolls) reveals just how difficult the choice truly is. Indeed, the romantic plot is what propels much of the main narrative of the film.

There’s also a lively subplot involving the friendship between Rick and Capt. Renault (the great Claude Rains, stealing the film whenever he appears on screen). They are often at odds with each other, such as when Rick helps a young wife gather enough funds to avoid Renault’s planned advances on her in exchange for passage out of Casablanca. Renault understands how to survive, though, and he admires Rick’s perseverance even though he doesn’t know all of the café owner’s background. There’s some intriguing wordplay exchanged between the two men, and they sometimes come across more as a romantic couple than just friends. And then there’s Renault’s description of Rick: “Rick is the kind of man that… well, if I were a woman, and I were not around, I should be in love with Rick.” It wouldn’t take much to tease out the playful homoeroticism of their relationship in the film.

For the most part, the plot is rather linear. However, the narrative makes very effective use of a flashback to Rick and Ilsa in Paris before the Germans took over the city. It shows such a sharp contrast in personality to the man Bogart plays in the  contemporary timeline. Seeing how much in love they were before the war separated them reveals how a man who was once on the side of rebels and patriots could feel like he has lost everything, including his concern about what happens to himself. The screenplay also features  other brief powerful moments too, such as when Laszlo has the band play the “Marseillaise” loudly to drown out the Germans singing in the café, a rousing threat to German authority and power. And then there are lovely little interchanges between Yvonne and Sasha that serve as little moments of comic relief. Even at a somewhat brisk 102 minutes, the film takes the time to develop even small moments as embellishments to the main plot.

Casablanca also has one of the greatest casts ever assembled, particularly in supporting roles. Bogart and Bergman are at their best here, and the camera truly loves Bergman. Watch as her face changes during the flashback set in Paris; it’s very clear that something has changed for her. Or watch the rapturous way that she listens to Dooley Wilson playing “As Time Goes By.” Even when silent, Bergman is so very emotionally expressive. Henreid is solid, but he does sometimes play Laszlo as more of an ideal than an actual man. I’ve already mentioned Rains and his great work here (perhaps the best work he ever did in a long and distinguished career), but the rest of the supporting players were some of the best character actors in Hollywood. Just consider Sydney Greenstreet as the duplicitous Ferrari, the owner of the rival Blue Parrot; Peter Lorre at his oiliest and most unctuous as Ugarti, the thief who initially stole the letters of transit; Conrad Veidt as the venomous German Major Strasser; and S.Z. Sakall as Carl, the sentimental waiter at the café. It’s a series of beautifully modulated performances.

The film also has some of the most quoted (and most quotable) lines in film history. The screenplay by the Epstein Brothers (Julius and Philip G.) and Howard Koch features sharp, incisive, and witty dialogue. It’s a delight to watch over and over, and repeated viewings always reveal new insights, new aspects of the rich intricacies of the interchanges between characters. The final sequence at the airport is justifiably hailed as a masterpiece of closure, and you’d be hard pressed to find a monologue that compares with Bogart’s interchange with Bergman as the audience waits to see whether or not he will join her. And you should always correct anyone who misquotes Ilsa: “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Times Go By.” No one in the film says, “Play it again,” but there’s no need to do so.

Many of the lines have justifiably been cited as perfectly written. Just a few brief samples illustrate the clever nature of the screenplay’s use of language:

·         “I don’t mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one.”

·         “I stick my neck out for nobody.”

·         “I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray, you wore blue.”

·         “I told my men to be especially destructive. You know how that impresses Germans.”

Those are, certainly, lesser known examples, but if you’ve watched the film, you are already familiar with “Here’s looking at you, kid” and “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Even if you haven’t watched the film, you likely have heard some reference to its dialogue, such as the phrase “the usual suspects.”

All of the components here add up to represent the very best of classical Hollywood studio filmmaking. Finding out that none of the film was shot on location doesn’t detract from its impact. The backlot at Warner Brothers and the Van Nuys Airport wouldn’t necessarily remind anyone of an exotic African city, but here they ably work to depict the café and its environs. Learning that Bogart and Bergman weren’t the original choices for the leads doesn’t detract from the pleasure of their performances here, either. The studios controlled a lot of people’s lives during that era, thanks to very restrictive contracts, so when you were assigned to work on a film, you did so.  It’s the final product that has deservedly endured as a classic even though no one might have expected it to be so when they were making it.

One side note: In case you’re wondering why “As Time Goes By” wasn’t nominated for the Best Original Song, it wasn’t written for Casablanca. It was actually written for a Broadway musical from eleven years earlier, Everybody’s Welcome. It took Casablanca to popularize the song and make it one of the most memorable movie songs of all time, but oddly enough, it’s actually not a film song at all.

Oscar Wins: Outstanding Motion Picture, Best Director (Michael Curtiz), and Best Screenplay

Other Nominations: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Humphrey Bogart), Best Actor in  Supporting Role (Claude Rains), Best Black-and-White Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture 

Madame Curie (1943)

Madame Curie, one of the ten nominees for Best Picture of 1943, is of a science lesson than a biographical movie at times. The story of how Marie and Pierre Curie met and then devoted themselves to the discovery of radium, Madame Curie is really not really just about the title character; it's about both of the influential scientists. The film is ostensibly a love story intermingled with recreations of the experiments that drove the two scientists to spend many years of their lives (and endangering their health) for the sake of scientific discovery. While I might have wished for less time in their laboratory and more time with them at home, the film does a nice job of showing the grueling work they undertook in order to better the lives of other people.

The film begins with Marie Sklodowska (Greer Garson) as a student at the Sorbonne in Paris. She's come from a poor family in Poland, so she doesn't always have the money for such necessities as regular meals. She's working on a master's degree in physics and mathematics, and she's distinguished herself in her classes. However, without any money, she will have to return to Poland to live with her father and perhaps abandon scientific research. One of the more sympathetic professors at the school, Professor Perot (Albert Bassermann) recommends that she take on a project that will help to keep her at the university so that she can continue her studies. The only catch is that she must share laboratory space with another scientist, Pierre Curie (Walter Pidgeon), and he's very particular about how his lab operates. Just ask his assistant David (Robert Walker), who tries to spell out the rules to Marie on her first day. And Pierre's particularly unhappy about sharing space with a woman, "the natural enemy of science."

They are, however, exceedingly polite to each other upon meeting. They don't interfere with each other's work, and she manages to stay quieter than David does. One evening when Marie and Pierre are departing the building in a rainstorm, he walks her home under his umbrella and they discuss matters related to physics while on their way. I had, of course, no idea what they were discussing, give that my last physics class was in high school about thirty years ago now, but they seem so immediately drawn to each other's minds that you know that's just the scientific way of showing love. Hot stuff, those deep conversations about physics problems.

Imagine Pierre's shock when he discovers that she will be returning to Warsaw after finishing her doctorate, apparently abandoning a life of science in the process. He goes to her apartment and finds her packing to leave, so he invites her to the country home of his parents for the weekend before she leaves Paris (and him). His parents, played by reliable character actors Henry Travers and May Whitty (later Dame May Whitty), can see that he's in love, but Pierre is a scientist, not a romantic. It takes a long night of pacing the floor in his room for him to develop the nerve to ask her to marry him. Of course, he doesn't put it in such terms. To him, it will be "a wonderful collaboration," just like salt. No, I'm not kidding. He compares their relationship to the one between the different elements in salt. When you have such a romantic devil like that on your hands, you'd best marry him even if he's never even kissed you.

After a honeymoon that includes a great deal of discussion of her planned experiments with radiation, they return to the lab to begin work. It's another scientist who earlier got them interested in the work that will consume much of their lives. He had found that a material called pitchblende seems to give off x-rays on its own. Both Pierre and Marie found this intriguing at first, but they went back to the work they had already started. It's only after their marriage, when starts working on the puzzle the other scientist prompted, that she starts to find some anomalies in the measurements of radiation, and that gets Pierre to thinking so much about the problem that he doesn't even pay much attention when his father keeps talking about grandchildren. They'd rather produce a scientific discovery than an heir, it seems. When you watch them rush back to the lab, you can only imagine that this must be a form of foreplay for the two of them.

What follows is a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo, something about thorium and measurements and residue and such. I don't know that we are really meant to follow all of this scientific discussion in detail, but I suppose the film's creators didn't want to gloss over the work of the Curies too quickly. They did make remarkable contributions to science--Pierre says it's really "the secret of life itself"--and the film is careful to give a thorough overview of the amount of work it took for them to have any breakthroughs. Garson and Pidgeon sweat lot, for example, when their boiling down the pitchblende. I don't know that we need as much information as we are given by the narrator, but I suppose viewers with a more scientific bent will find it all intriguing.

The film does a good job of demonstrating just how radical the work of the Curies was to the scientific community. The professors at the Sorbonne, for example, refuse to grant the Curies more money and laboratory space to conduct their research. One of the critics dismisses Marie as "young, inexperienced, and a woman." They wind up with a leaky shed--and it seems to rain all the time when they are working--with no budget or equipment. They remain steadfast in their efforts, though. At times, I felt like the movie was recreating all four years of efforts to isolate radium. The most innovative aspect of this long sequence is the use of time-lapse photography to depict the process of crystallization the Curies used to locate radium. Thankfully, we are not subjected to all 5,677 crystallizations they undertook. The voice-over narration spares us from having to watch some of the more mundane details.

The movie also skims over a few relevant details along the way, at least relevant to those wanting more than just a movie about science. Marie develops burns on her hands, but after being warned of a possible threat of cancer by her doctor, she returns to the experiments. So dedicated is she to the possibility that their work could eventually be used to destroy cancerous tissue that she risks her own health. The couple also have two children, so I suppose there must have been a couple of times when they didn't spend all of their nights boiling pitchblende or spreading out little dishes of isolated material to crystallize. We also, sadly, don't get much else in the way of the love between the two of them. It's only near the end of the film that Pierre seems to start thinking about his wife as a woman instead of a colleague.

Garson is very good here. She always was such a warm, caring presence in films that you can't really hide that with all of the scientific talk that she's asked to deliver. Her lovely nature and generous spirit shine through whatever guise she has to adopt. And Pidgeon, who had a long career in films, is a solid counterpart to Garson's warmth. He's frequently called upon to reflect Pierre's absent-mindedness, and he brings a gentle sense of humor to those moments in the film. They are a nicely matched couple, and the film's greatest strength is their chemistry. They subtly manage, even if Madame Curie doesn't, to reveal the love that Marie and Pierre Curie had for each other as they worked side-by-side all those years.

The Song of Bernadette (1943)

The Song of Bernadette, nominated for Best Picture of 1943, begins with an admonition that is repeated by one of the characters later in the movie: "For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible." Bernadette Soubirous was the French peasant girl who claimed to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary near a waste dump in the village of Lourdes in 1858. The film version of her life seems to accept the first half of the admonition at its start; it never truly questions Bernadette's faith in what she saw.

Jennifer Jones stars as Bernadette, and she brings a naive charm to the role. Bernadette admits that she isn't very smart--well, she calls herself stupid, actually--and that she doesn't truly understand what people mean when they talk to her about such concepts as the "holy trinity" or the "immaculate conception." Perhaps that's why it's tough for people to accept the story that she tells. It's really quite a simple tale. While she was waiting for her sister and a friend to return with some firewood, she felt the presence of someone else. She walks into a small niche in the hillside next to the dump, and there is a lady dressed in white talking to her. Bernadette kneels as if in deep thought and/or prayer and promises to return to the spot again.

When word of her vision gets out, everyone denounces her, even her mother and father. Her story is just too incredible to believe. The local priests and nuns all consider her to be blasphemous, and the city elders immediately try to have her declared insane in order to prevent her from returning to Massabeille, the spot where she first saw the lady in white. Oddly enough, though, her impoverished family suddenly has a change of fortune, with her father getting a good job and friends bringing them food just when they might have gone hungry. That doesn't mean that she or her family make a connection between their good luck and the vision, though. In fact, her mother (Anne Revere) tries to send Bernadette to live with her Aunt Bernarde (Blanche Yurka) to preserve the family's good name in Lourdes.

It's the aunt who makes the family reconsider Bernadette's story. The next time Bernadette wants to go to the dump, she is accompanied by her mother and her sister. We watch the gossip of the townspeople as they pass, but gradually, some of the other residents of Lourdes tag along. They watch as Bernadette kneels, but no one except for the young girl sees the woman in white. The crowds grow a little bigger each day, making Lourdes the subject of a great deal of ridicule in the French papers. It isn't until the lady tells Bernadette to drink from a spring that the first "miracle" occurs. You see, there's no spring there. Bernadette digs, but she finds only mud. It's after she is laughed at by a policeman and the crowds start to disperse that the trickle of the spring begins. A stone cutter gains his sight back after bathing his eyes in the water, and then a child regains the use of his legs after his mother places him in the spring. After these two events, a stream of people begins to make the trek to Lourdes. What's pretty remarkable is the film's depiction of the power of a message passed by word of mouth. Bernadette's story travels quickly throughout France, making it all the way to the Emperor and his wife.

Bernadette continues to be interrogated not only by the city officials, who eventually start to enjoy the money brought by increased tourism anyway, but she must also face a special church-sponsored commission. Despite numerous documents and repeated testimony from Bernadette and others, the church still claims that the results are inconclusive because the evidence is "insufficient." Given her notoriety, Bernadette cannot simply fade back into an ordinary life as a housemaid and wife as she had planned. She is recommended to a convent, and the latter part of the film depicts her time as a novice and then as a nun.

Jones won the Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of Bernadette. She is certainly consistent in her depiction of the peasant girl's naivete and faith. Bernadette seems very susceptible to influence from others around her like her parents or the leaders of the church, yet she's also steadfast in her belief in her visions. She never backs down from her claim, "I did see her." Perhaps it's that sense of faith--and a belief that such an innocent girl as Bernadette is incapable of lying--that makes people begin to support her. Jones is quite good at conveying both Bernadette's trusting nature and her tenacity when it comes to carrying out the requests made by the lady in her vision. We lost Jones recently, and it was very bittersweet to watch her in this role from the early part of her career.

The supporting cast features some standout performers. Charles Bickford plays Father Peyramale, the Dean of Lourdes who initially chastises Bernadette for lying about her vision but who ultimately becomes her most ardent supporter. The great Vincent Price has a small role as Vital Dutour, the town's prosecutor who is thwarted in every one of his efforts to put an end to the spectacle occurring on the edge of the town. Dutour, after professing his strong lack of faith throughout the movie, undergoes a conversion late in the film when he learns what has been ailing him for many years. Lee J. Cobb, almost unrecognizable here, plays Dr. Dozous, the physician who not only has to examine Bernadette to see if she is mentally ill, but he also has to deal with the patients who experience miraculous recoveries after bathing in the waters of the spring at Massabielle.

I have to note, in particular, the performance of Gladys Cooper as Sister Marie Therese. She begins the film as Bernadette's teacher, and she's a prime example of the stereotype of the harsh treatment nuns reportedly meted out. She's the one who first calls Bernadette "stupid," and she's one of the harshest critics of the story that Bernadette tells of her vision. She even claims that, in earlier times, Bernadette would have been burned as a heretic. Later in the film, when Bernadette enters the Convent of the Sisters of Nevers, it's Sister Marie Therese who has to show her around and keep an eye on her. She still doubts Bernadette's story and tells her so; she's also determined to make Bernadette suffer. Her conversion to being a believer is the most shocking and the most emotionally satisfying, and that's due in large part to Cooper's talents as an actress. She was deservedly nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role. She never won an Oscar, by the way, despite numerous good performances.

I am not really surprised at the earnestness with which this film approaches its subject matter. It just accepts that Bernadette's story is true; it offers no evidence to cast doubt on what she claims happened. Oh, certainly, there are characters who doubt her, but they are quickly dismissed when they have to confront the depth of faith that Bernadette has. By the film's end, you as a viewer are also expected, I think, to believe the story without question. Nowadays, I'm certain a film maker would be a bit more critical of the veracity of Bernadette's tale, but in 1943, you would probably have expected less questioning of religious faith. I don't really mean that as a criticism of the film; I just feel it is a product of its time.

The Human Comedy (1943)

The Human Comedy was nominated for Best Picture of 1943, and I suppose it's an indication of the depth of Hollywood's support for the war effort. This film, written by William Saroyan, is really just a series of vignettes of small-town life in the San Joaquin Valley of California. There is a sense of an overall plot, thanks to the voice-over narration by the dead father of the family that is the central focus of the movie. No, I didn't write that incorrectly. The voice-over is by a dead man, a device that would be used to greater effect about seven years later in Sunset Boulevard. Here it's just a bit creepy.

Mickey Rooney is the main star of the movie. At least, he gets the most time on screen. He plays Homer Macauley, a high school boy who has had to assume the mantle of family provider thanks to his father's death and his older brother's recruitment into the Army. Rooney has a job after school delivering telegrams, sometimes singing ones. Anyone who's seen his musicals with Judy Garland would know that Rooney can sing and dance. The Human Comedy shows that he can also act. He gets some big emotional scenes, including the one involving the death of the old telegraph operator, Willie Grogan (played by Frank Morgan, still perhaps best known as the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz).

The entire Macauley family gets to shine, though, if for only a few moments each. The always reliable Fay Bainter plays the mother of the clan, and she has a daughter, Bess (played by a young Donna Reed), and another son, Ulysses ("Butch" Jenkins, in what amounts almost to a non-speaking part), at home. They periodically receive letters from the oldest son, Marcus Macauley (Van Johnson), one of which makes Homer cry because of its sentimentality--in a good way, I mean. When Marcus tells his younger brother that he (Homer) is the best of the Macauleys, you're likely to tear up as well. There are a couple of scenes depicting Johnson in the Army itself, and they are usually played for laughs, such as when he has KP duty with his friend Tobey George (John Craven).

The worst part of Homer's job, of course, is having to deliver telegrams that notify a family that a son has been killed in action. So painful is this aspect of the work that Morgan's Willie tends to stay drunk most of the time in the telegraph office. He even makes a deal with Homer to make certain that he's able to intercept the telegraph messages as they arrive, so drunk is he sometimes that he could miss an important one. There's an especially sad telegram that has to be delivered, but the shock of that moment is best left to experience yourself.

The Human Comedy has a few too many speeches to suit my taste, but I suppose that's rather common among war movies of the time. Yes, I know this isn't technically a war movie, but it does show the impact that such events had on the people left behind. Hollywood seems to have found those stories quite compelling, considering the Oscar wins for Mrs. Miniver the year before and the nominations for Since You Went Away a year after the release of The Human Comedy. One of these speeches, though, is particularly egregious. Homer and his high school rival, Hubert Ackley III (David Holt), are kept after class on the day that they each hope to win the 220 low hurdles race. They've both been courting the same girl, and it's led to a disruptive classroom environment. Homer's history teacher gives a rousing discussion about equality, respect, civilization, and democracy. It all could have been written by the War Department, frankly, and it's just a bit too jingoistic for me.

(That scene also gives one of the best lines of the movie. When Homer receives encouragement to win the race from his teacher, he states, "I never knew that school teachers were human beings like everyone else and better too." As a teacher, I have to appreciate that mentality.)

The film features a subplot involving Homer's boss, Tom Spangler (James Craig), and his courtship of the wealthy Diana Steed (Marsha Hunt). Of particular note is the dinner party where she tries to convince him that he's just like everyone else at the party. So enamored of her is Spangler that he even dons a bowtie--and looks rather ridiculous doing so--as a homage to her father's preferred neck apparel. The best scene with the two of them, though, is when they return to town for a cultural festival and keep driving past the different groups of people dancing: the Greeks, Mexicans, Armenians, Russians, and Swedes. I suppose it's a very efficient way of touring the world and never having to leave your small town. Sort of like a drive-by cultural education.

As I mentioned earlier, the plot is really a series of vignettes, and they are mostly charming if brief moments. I liked the one of the neighborhood boys trying to steal peaches from an old man's tree. The old man actually enjoys letting the boys take the peaches, but he's game to play along with the ruse. He knows it's all part of growing up. If you pay attention, you'll recognize Carl Switzer, better known as Alfalfa in the Our Gang short films, as one of the boys. Later in the film, you might also recognize Robert Mitchum as one of the three sailors who pick up Bess and her next door neighbor for a night of innocent movie-watching.

Perhaps my favorite part of the film is the most unrealistic in some ways. Marcus' Army buddy Tobey listens to all of the stories of the Macauley family and life in Ithaca, California, and starts to feel like he grew up there himself. He is actually an orphan with no roots. Marcus gives him a picture of Bess, and Tobey falls in love with her through her picture. He and Marcus vow that they'll both return to Ithaca and marry their sweethearts, and you believe that such outlandish things could indeed happen. It's only after the movie ends that you start to question just how likely such a romance would be.

I think The Human Comedy is an interesting film in many ways, not the least of which is its loose, episodic structure. There are good performances, particularly from Rooney, who was nominated for Best Actor for this movie. I expect most of the moments depicted here, which are so evocative of life in a small town, are drawn from real life experiences. I just don't know that this film contributes anything of note to the craft of filmmaking. It's still solid "entertainment," but I tend to think that nominees for Best Picture should be more than that. Yes, I am fully aware that quite a lot of the movies I've watched for this project so far fall into the "competent but not exceptional" category, but I am always pleasantly surprised when one tends to stand out from the crowd. The Human Comedy, though, is not such a film.

Watch on the Rhine (1943)

Watch on the Rhine, a Best Picture of 1943 nominee, is a World War II era movie that takes place almost entirely in the area surrounding Washington, D.C. However, it's not about government officials or military leaders trying to determine how best the United States should involve itself in the fight against Nazism and fascism. Instead, it's a film about one family's struggles to make what it considers to be the right choices.

Paul Lukas, who would win the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance here, plays Kurt Muller, a German refugee who is married to an American woman, Sara, played by Bette Davis. At the beginning of the film, they and their three children, two boys and a girl, cross the border from Mexico into the United States in order to escape to the home of Sarah's mother, Fanny Farrelly (the delightful Lucile Watson), the widow of a former Supreme Court Justice--it's a fact she keeps pointing out throughout the film; you can't accuse Fanny of subtlety. In addition to her son David, Fanny is also host to the Count and Countess de Brancovis (George Coulouris and Geraldine Fitzgerald), a Romanian couple. The Count, also known as Teck, has maintained ties with the German embassy; well, his ties include regular poker games and gossip with various hangers-on at the embassy.

Fanny, delighted to have all of the members of her family in the same house, tries to arrange for an engineering job for her son-in-law. Unfortunately, she soon learns that he hasn't really been working as an engineer for quite some time. He describes himself instead as being an "anti-fascist" whenever someone asks him. The Mullers left Germany in the 1930s and have been to most of the places in Europe where the Nazis and others have attempted to take control. Herr Muller tells how he saw men murdered in the streets of his hometown during a holiday festival, and that's what apparently determined the future direction of his life. Davis' Sara has been completely supportive of his choices, and the family has made many sacrifices over the years to support the father's efforts.

The Count, after initially suspecting that Muller might have been an advance man for the Nazis, comes to realize that he is either the leader of an anti-Nazi underground group or one of its most active members. He discovers money and a gun among the contents of a locked briefcase in a drawer in the Mullers' room, and he confronts Kurt after Sara discovers that the lock has been broken. The showdown between Kurt and Teck is very tense, and it's probably what won Lukas the Oscar. Of course, he won over Humphrey Bogart's legendary performance as Rick in Casablanca, so I'm not sure Lukas truly deserved the honor that year.

What intrigues me most about this film is that it is set in April 1940, years before U.S. involvement in World War II. Fanny and her son David seem to be naive about world events, perhaps choosing only to pay attention to those changes in Europe that they seem to favor and ignoring any evidence that the fascists have infiltrated many countries. They do not, for example, realize how much of an opportunist the Count is until it is too late. Sara confronts her mother's lack of knowledge by saying, "The world has changed." It's a pretty stinging indictment, and I suspect it was meant as much for the United States people as it was for the older woman in the movie.

Lukas gets a couple of good moments, particularly when he explains to his children why he has taken some of the actions he has over the years, such as killing another man. Davis is very different here from those movies in which she was the star. She's top-billed here, but this is really more of a supporting role for her, but she handles the part admirably. Watson is a standout as Fanny, and she was deservedly nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. I also enjoyed the performances of the three children, but the one who stands out, of course, is Eric Roberts as Bodo. No, it's not that Eric Roberts. Just how old do you think he really is? This Eric Roberts gives a fine performance as the know-it-all youngest child, a boy who's read a great deal of philosophy and history and seems to know all of the answers.

Watch on the Rhine is based upon a Lillian Hellman play that appeared on Broadway a few months before the attacks on Pearl Harbor led to the formal involvement of the United States in World War II. Maybe Hellman was trying to warn Americans of what was ahead for them. Her long-time lover, Dashiell Hammett, adapted the play into the screen version, keeping intact most of the warnings voiced by Sara and Kurt Muller. It would have been a very timely choice for the Academy to nominate this film in 1943 and to give an acting award to Lukas, at least in part, as a gesture of support for all of the anti-Fascists in Europe at the time.

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

Many, many years ago, when I was an undergraduate majoring in journalism, I decided to enroll in an elective class entitled "Film and Literature" offered by the English Department. It turned out to be one of the most demanding and most rewarding classes I ever took at the university level. I learned so much about how to understand and interpret a film from that class, and I looked forward each Wednesday night to the screenings we had in the School of Architecture's auditorium. This was a bit before the days of videotape being so widespread, so we were watching 35mm prints of most of the films. For three of the movies, we also read the books, A Clockwork Orange, A Passage to India, and The Ox-Bow Incident.

I had read Walter Van Tilburg Clark's novel of The Ox-Bow Incident, based upon a series of true events, before we watched the film. As powerful as the book is--and it is a gripping story--the movie was a more powerfully emotional experience. It begins with Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan's characters riding into town (after a dog crosses their path) and ends with them riding out of town (with the dog crossing the road after they leave). Between those parallel moments, the plot moves very precisely as a posse, acting upon a report of a rancher's death, goes in search of his murderers. When they find three men outside of town with cattle bearing the rancher's brand, the posse decides to hang the three rather than take them back and let the "slow" court system convict them.

There are only seven men in the large posse who attempt to keep the mob from carrying out its plans, but they are all quickly dismissed by the overwhelming sentiment of majority rule. Harry Davenport as Arthur Davies is the chief spokesman for this side; Davenport played supporting parts in dozens of films, but he was never better than he is here as a man who knows he cannot save three men from a brutal hanging, who tries everything he can to see that justice is actually meted out fairly. Fonda is great as Gil Carter too; he was always at his best when portraying a man with a strong moral center, a man with a clear sense of right and wrong. He and Morgan's Art Croft have some great scenes together, and their interplay shows a strong sense of friendship.

Two of the "convicted" men are also familiar faces. A young (and quite beautiful) Anthony Quinn plays Juan, a man whose past seems to have caught up with him at last. You might take note of the looks Quinn's Juan gives Major Tetley's son; either he's making fun of the younger Tetley for his decidedly unmasculine ways, or there is some sexual tension between them (I prefer to think the latter). The "leader" of the three men who are captured, Donald Martin, is played by Dana Andrews. I met Andrews while I was still a student in Mississippi. He had come to the campus to take part in a film festival in his honor; he was born in Mississippi, after all. I got a chance to interview him for an article, and I watched a series of his movies, including The Ox-Bow Incident for a second time. He was always a reliable actor, especially in roles like this or in The Best Years of Our Lives, roles that gave him a chance to show a range of emotions.

This film is obviously about our concepts of justice, about vigilantism, about the will of the majority. It's also a very intriguing examination of masculinity. I've already mentioned Major Tetley's son, who is forced into participating in the posse's actions by his father, a monomaniacal former Army officer. He tells his son at one point, "I'll not have no female boys bearing my name." He seems to think that the traits of violence and brutality are keys to being a man, yet the way he is depicted in the film clearly suggest that he is no role model for appropriate masculine behavior. There are other characters who state what they think men are expected to do in a situation like this, and some who question whether the choices they are making are appropriate for men to make. Oddly enough, Jane Darwell's Jenny Grier, the only woman to join the posse and a rather "butch" one at that, has to take the whip used to drive the horses away from the hanged men after all of the others refuse. I find it particularly odd that this film was released in 1943, in the middle of America's involvement in World War II, yet it doesn't take a typically macho posture to what a man should do. In fact, if anything, it raises more questions about men's roles than it settles.

I still think this was one of the best westerns ever made by Hollywood. Although it uses many of the generic conventions associated with those movies, it frequently calls them into question as well. And Fonda's reading of the letter Martin writes to his wife is one of the most heartbreaking sequences in film; the other men, all toughened by the life on the frontier, can barely hold their heads up while he reads. This certainly seems a very downbeat choice for one of the Best Picture nominees of 1943, but enough members of the Academy recognized the quality of this film. Surprisingly, Best Picture was the only nomination for an Oscar that the film received that year.