55 Days at Peking (1963)

 

Several decades ago now, I was teaching a five-night-a-week English as a Second Language class in Monterey Park. Most of the students were recent immigrants from China and Taiwan and other Asian countries although someone from Saudi Arabia or Mexico would occasionally sign up. On Friday nights, we were given permission to watch American movies and practice conversational skills in English with the students. One Friday, I showed 55 Days at Peking, a film set against the backdrop of the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, to the class and they became so angry with me. They were adamant that the movie was completely inaccurate in its portrayal of what truly happened. Well, of course, it isn’t accurate. It’s a Hollywood movie that depicts an episode of Chinese history from the perspective of those who were trying to exert influence in China: England, the United States, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, etc. – in other words, the very people that the Boxers were rebelling against. The central character, of course, is an American, Marine Maj. Matt Lewis, played by Charlton Heston with his usual woodenness. He did always think he was more charming than he actually was, didn’t he? Sometimes I think the only reason to watch a Heston movie is for the inevitable shirtless scene. Ava Gardner plays a Russian baroness, a beautiful woman with a past, which means that all of the other women hate her because their husbands can’t help but admire the Baroness Natalie Ivanoff’s beauty. Well, who could resist Gardner? She was always a good actress, but she isn’t given much to do here except try to escape from China, fail, and then tend to a wounded soldier. Oh, she and Heston do get to share a hotel room because there’s no other place for him to stay, but sadly, not enough is made of that tantalizing possibility. David Niven plays the leader of the British contingent in China, Sir Arthur Robinson, which means he’s also the de facto leader of the foreign legation. He and his wife question why Great Britain (and everyone else) is in China, and there’s lot of talk of leaving, but do colonial powers ever truly leave an area? The most embarrassing bit of casting is having British actors in yellowface. Dame Flora Robson plays the Dowager Empress, who mostly just sits around and speaks in odd metaphors. She has two advisors, the prince (who openly supports the Boxers trying to rid China of Western influence) and a general. The prince is played by another British actor, Sir Robert Helpmann, and Leo Genn, yet another Brit, plays the general. Yes, such casting was common at the time, but it’s still grating to see it on the screen. The film features outstanding production design, marvelous costumes, lovely cinematography – all depicted on a rather grand scale. At the level of an epic, it works well enough, I suppose, but the film is a bit soulless since it’s clearly taken what might charitably be characterized as the wrong side of the battle to support. The battle sequences themselves are well staged, but your natural sympathies might be on the side of those who are being occupied. The film has to have Robinson’s son get shot in order to get some emotion going. By the time Heston’s Lewis has to tell an Asian girl that his American father has been killed, you start to wonder if the only way to make the viewer care for the Western side of the story is to harm a child. When Lewis has the brilliant idea to use the sewer system to get in and out of the palace grounds to destroy some ammunition – something none of the Chinese had apparently ever considered? – you have to acknowledge that maybe my students all those years ago were right to be angry with me. Come to 55 Days at Peking for the spectacle but avoid trying to learn any accurate historical information. Consider yourself warned.

Oscar Nominations: Best Original Song (“So Little Time”) and Best Substantially Original Score

The Birds (1963)

 

The Birds is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous and most spectacular films (and a particular favorite of mine). Ostensibly the story of how birds begin attacking humans for no apparent reason, the film’s plot centers around Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a wealthy woman who meets lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a San Francisco pet shop and stalks him all the way to his family’s home in the isolated California coastal town of Bodega Bay. Over the course of a weekend, Melanie seemingly becomes integrated in the life of the town, meeting Mitch’s mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy, using a highly theatrical acting style completely out of sync with the rest of the cast but all the more fascinating because of it), his younger sister (Veronica Cartwright), and even one of his old girlfriends, schoolteacher Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette, who almost steals the film with her enigmatic line deliveries and world weary facial expressions). However, it’s not the plot that got the film its sole Oscar nomination; it was the series of bird attacks, still one of the key reasons for which the film is viewed by film lovers and academics. Numerous sequences stand out, such as the one involving a flock of crows going after school children, another taking place at a gas station with some particularly aggressive seagulls, and even the final much-copied sequence as Mitch and his family escort Melanie through a crowd of birds who are momentarily resting before they perhaps begin another attack. The film does have some interesting psychosexual implications, especially in the relationship between Mitch and his overly-clingy mother (a bit too Freudian in its suggestiveness), and its use of only diegetic sound and editing techniques are certainly noteworthy, but after watching a children’s birthday party ruined by another bird attack, you might be forgiven for overlooking some of the film’s underlying implications and marvel at how the filmmakers managed to wrangle all of those birds.

Oscar Nomination: Best Special Visual Effects

Lilies of the Field (1963)

Lilies of the Field, nominated for Best Picture of 1963, is a relatively slight film, to be honest. The story is simple. A drifter named Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier) needs water for his car and winds up at a remote farm in the desert. The farm happens to be run by a group of Eastern European nuns, most of whom barely speak English, yet they somehow manage to convince and/or trick Homer into completing a chapel for them. Nothing more complicated than that happens, but Lilies of the Field is nevertheless a charming little movie, primarily thanks to the charisma of its star (who would win an Oscar for Best Actor) and his interaction with the nuns, particularly Mother Maria (played by the indomitable Lilia Skala).

The nuns have all come from countries like Germany, Austria, and Hungary. They are, in a sense, refugees from East Berlin, having escaped over the wall after World War II. They are, certainly, completely out of place in the harsh environment of the desert. So far, they have been unsuccessful at finding someone to build the chapel that they think will unite the small Catholic community of the area. As it is, there's an Irish Catholic priest who visits each week to hold services in the dusty area in front of a general store and a few parishioners who show up for the weekly mass.

When Homer shows up, these nuns (Mother Maria, in particular) think he must have been sent by God to help them. He agrees to work only if he's paid for what he does. Homer, it seems, only wants to get enough money to move on to the next town. He fixes their roof and starts driving them to services each week. They feed him a spartan diet; one of the funniest scenes involves Poitier eating in one bite the entire breakfast that has been prepared for him. In fact, there's a lot of gentle humor throughout the movie. The most fun, of course, involves him trying to teach them English. They've been listening to records to learn this new language, and he has more than a few laughs at how oddly they phrase sentences.

There are, naturally, obstacles along the way. Everyone, including the priest who visits each week, thinks the nuns are in over their heads, and Homer is told repeatedly that the best thing for him to do is move on. Instead, he feels enormous sympathy for them, so he gets a job working two days a week for a local construction firm in order to stick around. One of the movie's very few instances of calling attention to Poitier's race happens when he asks for the job. The owner calls him "boy," only to have Homer call him "boy" right back. Otherwise, I suppose we're meant to see that the nuns treat Homer as an equal regardless of his skin color and that there can be relative harmony between people of such disparate backgrounds.

The film includes images of numerous groups of Mexican immigrants as well, including those who attend the weekly services and those who show up initially to watch Homer work and then take over the actual details of the construction. When Homer is called a "gringo" by these workers, he claims he doesn't know if that's a step up or down. To represent the diversity of the desert Southwest, the poor and disenfranchised of the area would logically need to be a part of this movie, and the filmmakers don't disappoint.

To be honest, I think my description of what happens makes Lilies of the Field seem more racially charged than it really is. This is a subtle film in many ways, but you always know where its heart lies. I know it sounds like a revolutionary picture by having a black man be the "savior" for the Europeans who have struggled before his arrival. However, this film is really about unity in the grand liberal film making tradition. Everyone needs to pitch in to build this chapel because, well, we all have to live together. Of course, that makes this movie sound even more ham-fisted than it really is too. It walks a rather delicate line, actually, and is perhaps as successful as it is because of that light touch.

Aside from the performances by Poitier, who is very sympathetic and realistic in his portrayal of a man who has often been caught in difficult circumstances, and Skala, who is great as the toughest, most single-minded nun ever abandoned in the desert, I'm not sure that there's much else here to recommend this film, particularly as a Best Picture nominee. It's a testament, I guess, to how far we've come that this movie's plot seems so outdated in many ways. We've seen stories like this so many times, and I'm not really certain that it wasn't already a cliche when it was released in 1963.

The Academy made some odd picks for that year. I've already discussed How the West Was Won, a personal favorite of mine but no one's idea of a great movie. I've also written about the winner, Tom Jones, an overrated movie without a lot to recommend it these days. I've seen the Taylor-Burton Cleopatra in the past, but frankly, I'm not looking forward to enduring that monstrosity again. So we're left with America, America, a movie I've never seen nor heard much about, as the only possible choice left for the award. If you needed a year to begin questioning the judgment of the Academy members--and if you haven't already, you should--1963, the year of my birth, just might be a good place to start.

Oscar Win: Actor (Poitier)

Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Supporting Actress (Skala), Adapted Screenplay, and Cinematography (Black and White)

Tom Jones (1963)

Tom Jones, winner of the award for Best Picture of 1963, begins with the discovery of an illegitimate child in one of the beds of a country estate. The supposed mother and father, both servants, are kicked out of the house, and the country squire "adopts" the baby and raises it as his own. The baby, if you haven't already figured out, is Tom Jones himself, the hero of the Henry Fielding novel that bears the same name. After the baby grows up and becomes Albert Finney, the movie becomes a series of sexual encounters between Jones and various women, save for the one woman he truly loves, the beautiful Sophie Western (played by Susannah York). It's supposed to be a representation of the bawdiness of the early 18th century as depicted in the Fielding book, and the filmmakers have done a good job of keeping the tone lighthearted and fun throughout the movie.

At the time of its production, Tom Jones would likely have been quite a standout film. It was made during the waning days of the Production Code, after all, so the topics of promiscuity and illegitimacy and adultery would have been "hot stuff" to handle. However, given the sexual liberation in the decade that followed, much of the film's "outrageous" scenes no longer shock, and most of them no longer seem all that funny or even amusing. We never see any direct nudity, after all, just Finney's bare legs and chest at times and the naked back of a couple of the women, but that's it. This is hardly scandalous material nowadays, even if it is played for laughs here, particularly in the "mistaken identity" incident at the Upton Inn.

Finney is quite charming in the title role, but as cute as he might have been in 1963, it is difficult to imagine every woman in England being immediately smitten with him upon first sight. Hardly a female in the country seems able to resist him, and frankly, I just don't get it. Perhaps it truly was Tom's reputation for being a womanizer that made him such an object of interest to the various females, but in truth, other than a rather extended "relationship" with a poor girl named Molly Seagrim, he devotes much of his energy to his beloved Sophie.

The women of the film are actually more interesting to watch. Diane Cilento brings a particular atavistic charm to the role of Molly. Even when we discover that Tom has not been her only lover, you can still understand why he finds her attractive. York is charming as Sophie, and her attempts to resist all suitors but Tom provide some of the funniest moments of the film. Her aunt is played by that force of nature, Dame Edith Evans. I always thought Evans had a flair for comedic roles, and she proves that true in this case. My favorite performance in the film, though, is given by Joan Greenwood as Lady Bellaston. Greenwood, who was so good as a golddigger in Kind Hearts & Coronets with Alec Guinness, here plays a lady who toys with other people's lives for her own amusement. Underneath that placid surface of hers, you can see just how much she relishes the prospect of ruining someone else's happiness.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the "style" of this movie. Every imaginable kind of wipe and dissolve is used to full effect and to gain attention. There are even wipes that are shaped like pinwheels or fans or spirals or clocks. The characters, at times, directly address the audience, calling attention to the artificiality of the movie itself, and at other times, just a knowing look or wink to the audience lets us "know" that the characters are in on the joke as well. Even the voice-over narration plays a part in calling attention to the fact that you are watching a movie; the narrator repeatedly says that the film must cut away from scenes that might go "too far" in depicting sexual activity on the screen. Again, I suspect that this would have been innovative stuff back in 1963 when the film first appeared, but it's been imitated so many times since then that it fails to have much impact on a modern audience's response.

I did enjoy watching Tom Jones. Don't misunderstand. It is a fun movie, but it seems like such a trifle to have been awarded the Oscar for Best Picture. Looking at the other nominees--America, America (haven't seen it yet), Cleopatra (are you kidding?), How the West Was Won (a hoot and a favorite of mine, but hardly Best Picture material either), and Lilies of the Field (a bit small in scope for the Academy's taste back then)--perhaps Tom Jones was the one that just seemed new and different. That we've grown past its innovations is perhaps a (small) testament to its influence.

How the West Was Won (1963)

How the West Was Won, a 1963 nominee for Best Picture, is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. It's pretty surprising that it was nominated for an Academy Award, frankly, because it isn't that good of a movie in terms of its plot (although it won an Academy Award for its screenplay) or the overall quality of the film. Perhaps it was the novelty of a Western shot in Cinerama that helped it make the cut for the top five of the year. Despite its somewhat creaky plot and hokey situations and wildly different directing styles from the three (!) directors and at-times wooden acting, I still love this movie. It doesn't really pretend to be more than it really is: an old-fashioned story that spans several generations of a family and how its members came to experience the westward expansion of the United States. It's a pretty thrilling adventure spanning river pirates, the Gold Rush, wagon trains, the Civil War, the building of the railroads, the conflicts with Native Americans; almost every piece of our western heritage is squeezed in somewhere.

Almost everyone imaginable is in this film. It's like playing a game of "who's who" as you watch. Just a short list: John Wayne (in a cameo as General Sherman), Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart (the first person we see on screen), Karl Malden, Gregory Peck (a rather oily gambler), George Peppard, Eli Wallach, Richard Widmark (up to his usual tough-guy antics), Walter Brennan (as a river pirate, of all things), Robert Preston, Harry Morgan (briefly scene as General Grant), Andy Devine--if they'd ever been in a Western, they appeared in How the West Was Won. It's a movie lover's kind of movie. But that list looks very male, doesn't it? There are women in the film, Carroll Baker chief among them in the early scenes (oddly enough, playing the daughter of her Baby Doll co-star, Karl Malden) and Carolyn Jones in the last part of the film. Still, most Western films are about the ways that men tamed the land, and this film is no exception, I guess. The film even has Spencer Tracy as the narrator to help bring that point home.

Oddly enough, though, the central character, the one whose story lasts throughout the film, is Lilith (Lily) Prescott, played by Debbie Reynolds. The film is quite a showcase for Reynolds' talent. She gets to act and sing and dance, and if you know anything about her career, you know that Reynolds could do all three of those well. When the film starts, she's a young woman heading west with her family. She gets to endure a raft ride down the Erie Canal that's quite remarkable in its execution on film. She also rides west as part of a wagon train, where she is pursued by two men, Peck and Preston (who makes perhaps the worst, most unromantic marriage proposal in the history of movies). She works in dance halls and on steamboats as an entertainer. She eventually marries Peck's gambler, only to have to sell off her accumulated wealth to return to farm life with her nephew, played by Peppard, after her husband's death. It's a role with a lot of range, and Reynolds is never less than exciting on screen. I particularly enjoyed seeing a Western that has a female character as its central focus (most of the time).

I also like the smaller parts played by two of my favorites. Agnes Moorehead, a year before she became Endora, plays the Prescott matriarch, and she brings her arch sense of humor to the few lines that she gets; she has quite a foil in Malden as her Quaker husband. (One of the funniest moments for me is seeing what is quite obviously a burly stuntman taking Moorehead's place during the scene on the rapids; another hulking brute stands in for Baker, and it's pretty obvious that the camera isn't far enough away for us to be fooled.) The other highlight is seeing the always reliable Thelma Ritter as a single woman "of a certain age" who is still looking for a man. She becomes Reynolds' sidekick for much of the middle part of the film, and who could ask for a better one? I love how Ritter's character, Agatha Clegg, still believes she's a young woman. She says to Reynolds not long after they meet: "I've got a feeling you're gonna draw men like fish to bait. Maybe I can catch one of them while they swim by." Ritter, just like Moorehead, was always good in whatever movie she was in; even if the material wasn't good, you could count on her to rise above it.

I have seen this film twice on the big screen. And when I say the big screen, I mean in true Cinerama. Twice since its remodeling a few years ago, the Cinerama Dome (over at the Arclight Cinemas) has shown How the West Was Won. If they show it again, I'll go back and see it again. It's one of the few Cinerama films still in existence, apparently. (The Arclight has also shown This Is Cinerama a couple of times; that's also a must-see.) Nothing quite prepares you for the experience of witnessing this film the way it was originally intended to be shown. You can see the seams where the three images captured by the different cameras overlap (sometimes smoothly, others not as much), but the size and scope of the film are really best appreciated on a screen that large. It is almost as if you are in the movie itself. Watching it on my television at home, even with the letterboxed version, just wasn't quite the same. You need the curved Cinerama screen to make the images look the proper way, but I still have the same affection for this movie even if I'm sitting on the couch in my living room.

The great John Ford directed the scenes set during the Civil War period, and George Marshall was in charge of those under the heading of "The Railroad." That leaves the rest--entitled "The Rivers, The Plains, The Outlaws"--in the hands of Henry Hathaway. In fact, Hathaway must have directed most of the film, considering that the Civil War and railroad sequences take up less than an hour of screen time. And even with a running time of about 162 minutes, it's still a thrilling, action-packed film. We get whitewater rapids, an Indian attack on a wagon train, the Battle of Shiloh, a buffalo stampede, and even a robbery of a moving train. Add to that the panoramic views of the various western locales such as Ohio, Illinois, and Arizona, and you have a large-scale spectacular that only a major studio like MGM could have attempted.

The film ends the way it begins, with Tracy's voiceover narration describing the taming of the West. However, I still prefer the narrative's true ending. Reynolds' Lily is moving to Arizona to start a ranch with her nephew, Peppard's Zeb Rawlings, and his family. She's already endured at least forty years of adventures traveling across the country, yet she still seems eager for a new challenge. In its attempt to encompass so large a subject as the history of westward expansion, How the West Was Won really comes to a close with the scene of the family riding through the Arizona desert surrounded only by those large monuments of stone. They may be dwarfed by the landscape, but they are ready to tackle whatever comes their way.