West Side Story (1961)

West Side Story won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1961, and it is one of the most honored movie musicals ever made--and rightfully so. It has it all: great songs, remarkable dance sequences, interesting characters, and (even in the make-believe world of movie musicals) a realistic storyline that draws you in. Everyone knows that this film, based upon the successful Broadway musical, is derived from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but everything about it still feels fresh.

The plot is relatively simple. Two rival gangs in New York, the Jets and the Sharks, plan a rumble. At a dance before the details of the fight can be worked out, Tony (a former Jet and good friend of the current leader of the Jets) meets and falls in love with Maria, sister of the leader of the Sharks, Bernardo. While the two gangs plot their big fight, Tony and Maria begin devising ways to see each other without being caught. They are aided at times by Maria's friend Anita, who is also dating Bernardo. You've no doubt seen Romeo and Juliet, so you know this isn't going to end well, but there is a surprise or two since the film (like the theatrical production) doesn't exactly follow that play's ending.

I must admit here that I have always found the Sharks more interesting than the Jets. I'm not entirely sure why, but they seem to have more vitality and energy (and I don't mean that in some stupid, stereotypical way). Perhaps it's that they get some of the better songs and dance sequences, such as the one for "America" that has always been a favorite of mine. Bernardo, their leader, is played by Oscar winner George Chakiris, and he's a stronger dancer than I remembered. In fact, all of the members of the Sharks are better dancers than I remembered from earlier viewings. And, of course, the Sharks have another point in their favor with Anita, played by Oscar winner Rita Moreno. Moreno is great, as she always is, and her scenes with Natalie Wood's Maria are clear evidence for why she continues to have a career in the entertainment industry.

The Jets do have Russ Tamblyn as their leader, Riff, and he's as athletic here as he was in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers seven years earlier. The songs the Jets get to perform aren't as spectacular perhaps. I mean, "Gee, Officer Krupke" isn't exactly going to be anyone's favorite from this movie, but the staging of it (by famed choreographer Jerome Robbins) is certainly entertaining. And the Jets do have an interesting twist in the fact that one of the gang members is actually female, a girl named Anybodys who wants to be one of the boys.

I suppose I could join the chorus of people who have criticized the casting of Natalie Wood as a Puerto Rican. She doesn't really seem to be the best choice for the role, especially since her singing is dubbed by the always reliable Marni Nixon. And Richard Beymer as Tony is somewhat of an odd fit as well. He actually looks like he might be better suited to portraying a member of the Sharks. He too had his songs dubbed by someone else, Jimmy Bryant. Still, the two leads have a nice chemistry together, and when you have songs like "Somewhere" and "Tonight" and "Something's Coming" to demonstrate the depth of their love for each other, who can really complain?

Certainly, this film is a product of its time period. Gangs today are a bit grittier than this, of course, and I suspect they were grittier than this back then as well. Yet what makes West Side Story retain its status as one of the greatest movie musicals is the way in which it depicts our ability at times to overcome our fears and dislikes of others, our ability to connect to others who are (on the surface) different from us. And it gives us this lesson with some of the most glorious music ever recorded on film. Listen again to Tony and Maria's version of "One Hand, One Heart" if you don't believe me, and you'll be instantly transported back to the first time you watched this film and fell in love with it.

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

Judgment at Nuremberg, one of the nominees for Best Picture of 1961, is really two movies (and it's about as long as two movies as well). In part, it is a courtroom drama, as three American judges attempt in the aftermath of World War II to determine the guilt or innocence of four German judges who used Nazi policies to imprison and sterilize people during the years that Hitler was in power. The film is also about one of the American judges, Dan Haywood (played by Spencer Tracy), and his struggles to make sense of the war and the German people's reactions to it. I have to say that it is somewhat difficult to watch this film at times, given how very differently these two plotlines are presented. If it were strictly a courtroom drama, I think there would probably be a greater sense of tension built through the testimony of various people, played by such notables as Montgomery Clift (who looks so tragic here, so marred was his beauty by a traffic accident years before) and Judy Garland (who takes a couple of small scenes and makes them very memorable).

As it stands, Judgment at Nuremberg tries to show the complexities of German society during and after the war. It raises important questions, particularly ones about the culpability of "ordinary" citizens whose government has take a country down a path of certain destruction. This isn't a particularly comfortable film to watch at times, especially given the graphic nature of some of the testimony. I'm not sure how revelatory some of the points made would have been in 1961, but they must have been shocking to those in Nuremberg and the rest of the world so soon after the war had ended. Even if the imagery of the concentration camps that is used as an exhibit at one point in the film is more familiar to us now, it still has the power to overwhelm us emotionally.

There are many fine performances here. Tracy is good, solid as always. I've already mentioned Clift and Garland, but I would also single out Burt Lancaster. He is exceptional as Ernst Janning, and the testimony he gives is some of the most powerful of the movie. Here is a man who knows what he has done and must now learn to deal with the aftermath of his actions; you can sense just how conflicted he is. Marlene Dietrich, still so beautiful at the age of 60, almost steals the movie in her scenes with Tracy's judge. She is, at turns, tender and seductive and ferocious; her discussion of how much she and people like her hated Hitler is one of the high points of the film. Richard Widmark plays the prosecutor, and his single-mindedness is sharp and intense; it's a pretty devastating moment when you learn why he is so tenacious in his attempts to bring these men to justice.

If you pay attention, you'll also admire a young William Shatner, years before Star Trek and before he became a bit of a parody of himself on Boston Legal. And you'll also see Werner Klemperer as one of the defendants, in a performance that is radically different from his role on Hogan's Heroes. The couple who play Haywood's housekeeper and butler, Virginia Christine and Ben Wright, while he is in Germany are also exceptional actors in small, significant parts. Tracy's questioning of them one night in the kitchen allows them to reveal the depth of conflicting emotions they still feel about the Nazi era. It's a small but emotionally resonant scene.

I have to say that I am surprised after watching the film that Maximilian Schell won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role as Janning's attorney, Hans Rolfe. It isn't that he isn't good in the part--he certainly is--but aside from one showy moment where he asks how widespread the blame for what happened during World War II should be, he doesn't get to do very much with this role. He mostly just stands and asks questions, something that Widmark manages to do with a greater sense of fire than Schell does much of the time (although Widmark wasn't nominated for his role). It's a key moment in the film when Schell's Rolfe puts the question of justice on trial, certainly, but nothing to compare with what Lancaster gets (and Lancaster wasn't nominated that year either). To watch Lancaster's "defense" is to watch a masterful actor at his peak.

Fanny (1961)

Nominated for Best Picture of 1961, Fanny is a film set on the waterfront of Marseilles. It's about two young lovers who separate thanks to (what else?) a misunderstanding. He's always wanted to escape the place of his birth, and she's always wanted just to see him happy. The morning after they reveal that they love each other and spend their first night together, Marius (played by Horst Buchholz) leaves Marseilles for five years on a scientific voyage, and Fanny (played by Leslie Caron) stays behind to marry the aging Panisse (played by Maurice Chevalier).

The cast is made up primarily of French actors, with the exception of Buchhoz, who is German born, and they all seem to be enjoying themselves tremendously. Chevalier always looked like he was having the time of his life in every movie, and even a deathbed scene raises a smile here. And Charles Boyer, as Marius' father, gets many laughs with the kind of bluster he was well known for in his later, more comedic roles. The scenes involving these two great film stars are highlights of the movie, especially the scene where they negotiate for the future of Fanny and Marius' not-yet-born child. Georgette Anys as Fanny's mother, Honorine, provides another layer of comedy as the woman who thinks she is marrying Panisse, only to discover that he prefers her daughter instead.

The heart of the movie is the relationship between Marius and Fanny. From the first scene these two have together, you can see that they are in love. Marius, in particular, shows the reluctance he feels in leaving Fanny behind, even though he has always dreamed of leaving his father's tiny cafe for the seas. Buchholz is good at demonstrating just how difficult such a choice can be, how tortured he feels emotionally. And Fanny must come to terms with the fact that she must marry a man who is not the father of her child but who promises to treat them both well. Caron must consistently reveal the regret she feels for having lost her lover while simultaneously feeling joy at the saving of her public virtue by a marriage of convenience. She was best known as a star of musicals, but here Caron demonstrates her skill at acting without singing and dancing. Both Buchholz and Caron, although somewhat old to be playing teenagers, are charming. There's a real sense of erotic tension between them, even when they have a very brief chance meeting later in the film; it only takes a few looks at each other to reveal that they still have the same feelings as when they were teens.

Much of the film is obviously shot inside a studio. However, the outdoor shots along the waterfront are spectacular. A sense of life, of energy, abounds there. I particularly enjoyed the opening sequence showing the city from above. The camera makes its way to the specific location of much of the action of the film, and by the time we arrive at the cafe, we viewers certainly feel as if we are in France. We acclimate almost immediately to the environment.

I'd never even heard of this film before I saw it recently. It was nominated the same year that West Side Story took the Oscar for Best Picture, and that film has been so widely loved and praised, perhaps a movie like Fanny is ultimately just too light and enjoyable to have gotten the same sort of reaction. (The other nominees were all very serious in tone: The Guns of Navarone, The Hustler, and Judgment at Nuremberg. Not many smiles or laughs to be had in that grouping.) Watch Fanny knowing that despite some of its more somber subject matter (illegitimacy, loveless marriages of convenience, deception), you'll still feel uplifted by it.