Grand Hotel (1931-32)

Grand Hotel is one of the first all-star films, featuring lead performances from Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, and Lionel Barrymore. They all play guests at the Grand Hotel in Berlin, and their characters' lives keep connecting and disconnecting from each other throughout the movie. There are as many plot lines as there are main characters, yet each is relatively easy to follow. I suspect everyone who watches this film develops a particular fondness for one of the stories over the rest, and mine is certainly the one featuring John Barrymore.

John Barrymore never quite got the recognition for his acting ability that he deserved. His brother Lionel and his sister Ethel won Oscars for their film work, but John was never even nominated. Of all of the cast of Grand Hotel, I think his is the performance that most deserved recognition among this ensemble of actors. He plays a down-on-his-luck baron, a man who is so desperate for money that he stoops to some pretty reprehensible actions such as breaking and entering or even filching a wallet of money from a sick, dying friend. However, he's also a man with a conscience, the kind of guy who feels remorse and returns the wallet that he has stolen. He also doesn't go through with his theft of a pearl necklace from the great dancer played by Greta Garbo. Instead, he falls in love with her and "nurses" her back to happiness with his affections. I was more interested in what would happen to the Baron than any of the other characters in the film, and that's certainly a testament to Barrymore's talent. He was known for his profile, yet it's his face that I found to be his greatest asset. He's amazingly expressive.

The rest of the cast is good too. Garbo plays Grusinskaya, the dancer who has lost her love of performing because she has no love in her life. I like her best here after she falls in love with the Baron; there's a giddiness to her performance that's quite intoxicating. Beery plays a very hot-tempered industrialist who has to make one last deal or else he will face bankruptcy. He's his usual solid self (although I always tend to prefer him in more comedic parts). He’s also the one member of the cast trying to do a German accent; I’m not sure it works effectively, but kudos to him for trying. Crawford plays the secretary Beery hires to help keep records of the deal; of course, he falls in love with her and plans to take her with him to England for a clandestine relationship. Crawford is also very strong here, smart and very wise to the ways that things tend to operate. I once read a review of the film Chicago that described Catherine Zeta-Jones as being the kind of actress whose desperation to be a star was as visible on the screen as Joan Crawford's. It was an interesting comment, but in watching Grand Hotel, I can certainly see what the reviewer meant. Crawford attempts to make herself the most interesting person in any scene she's in, whether through her posture or her facial expressions or whatever other means she has available. She certainly has a hunger to be the center of attention.

The one performance I didn't particularly like is Lionel Barrymore's. He plays a dying clerk at Beery's company. He's come to Berlin to indulge himself; he wants to enjoy what little time he has left before he dies. Unfortunately, he seems to be playing to a theatrical audience rather than a film one; his performance is almost too big and broad for the screen to contain it. His brother John is much more subdued and, therefore, much more effective. Lionel's Kringelein is teeth-grindingly excessive at times. It is a pleasure to watch the two brothers when they are together, but such scenes only serve to underscore just how much better a film actor John was.

One of the minor characters, Dr. Otternschlag (played by the formidable Lewis Stone with half of his face scarred, a constant if subtle reminder of World War I), says of the Grand Hotel: "Always the same. People coming. People going. Nothing happens." Of course, we see a great deal happen during the course of the film, but perhaps because the end of the film so clearly mirrors the beginning, we're meant to see that no matter what happens, the hotel and Berlin and the rest of life continue on as if nothing ever happens. It's a pretty bleak outlook, frankly, particularly given how much time and attention have been given to the lives of these individuals.

Grand Hotel holds the dubious distinction of having been nominated in only the category of Outstanding Production and winning. No other aspect of the film – not its acting nor its production design nor its cinematography – was nominated. It’s certainly surprising that it won the big award with no other recognition.  The production design, in particular, is quite spectacular. There’s a circular desk in the lobby of the hotel, and it’s there that we meet each of the characters who will be the focus of the movie. The hotel and its room are all very Art Deco and beautiful. I’d also point to Garbo’s costumes as deserving of a nomination, but the category of Best Costume Design wasn’t a part of the ceremony yet.

The film’s camera work is also dazzling at times. We begin the film with an overhead shot of telephone operators at the hotel, setting up the idea that carries throughout the film that the hotel is very busy and lots of things are actually happening, despite what the doctor says. There are also shots from the floor where all of the major characters are staying that look down on the street and on the lobby. They are pretty spectacular views.

This movie is certainly entertaining and deserves credit for its ability to juggle the stars and their various storylines, but it isn't particularly challenging. I enjoyed it, certainly, but I can't imagine that there weren't other films that year that contributed more to the art of film. I suspect this is one of the examples of how the studios influenced voting very early in the history of the Academy Awards. Perhaps Louis B. Mayer felt it as MGM's turn to get a Best Picture Award, and he had an all-star cast to support him.

One last side note: Jean Hersholt plays one of the men behind the front desk of the hotel. His character has a wife in labor over several days, apparently one of the longest labors in the history of pregnancy. I had never seen, at least not knowingly, a performance by the man for whom the Academy's Humanitarian Award is named. He's good here, but perhaps he will and should be better remembered for his work creating the Motion Picture Relief Fund, which still provides assistance to retired members of the motion picture community. I'm going to try to keep an eye out for him from now on.

Oscar Win: Outstanding Production

There Will Be Blood (2007)

One of the nominees for Best Picture of 2007, There Will Be Blood ostensibly tells the story of the level of greed that was inspired by the discovery of oil in turn-of-the-last-century California. Its primary character is Daniel Plainview, a man whose desire to make as much money and acquire as much of the oil-rich land as possible overtakes almost every aspect of his life. The plot turns upon his growing obsessive nature, which is nicely compared and contrasted to that of a young minister who seemingly wants only to have his church grow as swiftly and exponentially as Daniel's wealth grows. This is a film about the single-minded ways that we go about achieving our goals, and it is also a commentary on the disastrous results of doing so.

This film was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and it's quite a revelation watching it once you know he's the director. This is nothing like Boogie Nights or Magnolia, both of which I really admired and enjoyed. They were very much in the same vein as Robert Altman's films, very episodic with interconnected characters and plot lines. Anderson has dedicated There Will Be Blood to Altman, yet it's not a film like the kind Altman would have ever made. Instead, this film follows a relatively straightforward chronological plot. There's one main character who is the focus throughout the action. There aren't the same quick cuts that you associate with either Anderson or Altman; scenes and shots sometimes play out very slowly. And rather than a lot of dialogue, particularly the kind that overlaps, There Will Be Blood is often a film about silence. The first 15 minutes, for example, are wordless. Yet you're still drawn in quite powerfully to what is happening as Plainview tries to rescue himself from a dangerous fall down a mine shaft.

Of course, at the center of this film is the performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as Plainview. It's one of the greatest performances I've seen in years. Day-Lewis has such commitment to the part and such intensity. He's truly frightening to watch at times, so deep into character has he gone. You can see all of his emotions, even when he's trying to mask them himself, and you can certainly see how his growing obsession with oil and the money that it brings can, quite literally, physically transform him. You can't quite turn away from him whenever he's on the screen, and that's almost every minute of this movie. A lesser actor could never be as commanding a presence in this role. The overall success of the film depends, I think, primarily upon how much we are invested in Day-Lewis's Plainview.

What's even more amazing about his work is that it so overshadows that of some of the other cast that you forget how, in some ways, they are completely wrong for the parts they have been given. Case in point: Paul Dano. As the Rev. Sunday, Dano gives just too weak a performance. He's meant to be akin to a faith healer at times, one of those charismatic ministers, but he can't quite muster the gravitas that the part dictates. He comes across more like a child who's playing "grown-up." I know Dano is a good actor; I thought he was one of the best things about Little Miss Sunshine. However, when you're in the same scene with the force of nature that is Daniel Day-Lewis, you need to be able to hold your own.

I do, however, want to point out one other performance that I think does stay with you after the film. Dillon Freasier plays H.W. Plainview, Daniel's "adopted" son. Much of Freasier's performance is silent, even before his character loses his hearing in a mining accident. Yet even without words, he manages to convey just how much he is absorbing from the events around him. He has some of the most expressive eyes I've seen since watching Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple years ago. Like her, Freasier can summon emotions through a simple look. It's quite amazing that such a young performer can leave almost as indelible mark as the lead actor.

Bound for Glory (1976)

Bound for Glory, nominated for Best Picture of 1976, tells the story of folk singer Woody Guthrie's travels from Texas to California and his subsequent adventures in the Golden State during the years of the Great Depression. Rather than follow the usual biopic formula of trying to cover as many highlights of a person's long life as possible, this movie instead chooses as its focus a seminal period in Guthrie's life. It was during the Depression that he began to encounter huge numbers of the impoverished in America, and those encounters really changed who he was as a person and what he wanted to accomplish with his music and his life. This film, much like the more recent The Motorcycle Diaries, shows the growth in consciousness of an activist, the motivations behind a famous man's later actions.

The look of the movie is what struck me (and probably everyone else) first. It's filmed in that sort of golden sepia tone that we tend to associated with photographs of the time period in which the movie is set. Either that, or it's the color of the dust that so surrounds the people in Texas (and other parts of the country as well). The cinematographer is the great Haskell Wexler, and it's a nice tribute to his accomplishment that he is the first contributor named in the opening credits. The shots of Guthrie's travels by train, in particular, are just spectacular, and the scenes in the migrant worker "camps" (especially those shot at night) are equally awe-inspiring. Wexler won a well-deserved Oscar for his work here.

David Carradine plays Guthrie, and his performance is a far cry from the work he did on the TV series Kung Fu. It must have been a risky choice to select Carradine for this part. Here he plays Guthrie as a very stoic fellow, quietly observing a great deal of what happens around him. You can still sense how much the harsh treatment of the migrant workers affects him and why he wants to become more political with his music, despite the attempts by his radio station bosses and the advertisers to get him to avoid being so overtly political on the air. It's a calm performance, and Carradine is very good here, just as good as he was in Kill Bill a couple of years ago.

I also liked the work of Melinda Dillon. She seemed to be the It Girl of the 1970s when they needed someone to play a female character who's emotionally fragile and always on the edge of a crisis or breakdown. She actually plays two roles in the film, Guthrie's wife Mary and his radio singing partner Memphis Sue, and she's good in both roles.

I have to mention the music also. Rather than use original recordings by Guthrie, the film includes vocal performances by Carradine and the others like Dillon and Ronny Cox. They all turn out to be quite strong singers; I was as pleasantly surprised listening to them as I was when Sissy Spacek sang in Coal Miner's Daughter rather than use Loretta Lynn's original recordings. The songs that are chosen to be included here do more to set a tone for the action than almost any movie I've seen before or since. Someone (anyone? please?) in Hollywood needs to watch this film to get a sense of how to select the right song for the right moment without being heavy-handed or ironic.

M*A*S*H (1970)

Nominated for Best Picture of 1970, M*A*S*H is perhaps best known nowadays for having spawned one of the most successful television series in history. I always loved the show and its dark sense of humor even in the days when the networks were still using laugh tracks to tell us when something was funny. The movie version is quite different, of course, particularly given that you don't have as much time to develop the characters the way that the show could. Still, it's an entertaining film, making some of the same trenchant observations on the craziness of wartime that the TV show did (but doing them first, of course).

Like most films directed by Robert Altman, this one has very little in the way of a plot. Two talented surgeons (Hawkeye, played by Donald Sutherland, and Duke, played by Tom Skerritt) are sent to work in a Korean War hospital, a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, to be specific. Neither one is fond of following orders, a trait that Army officers tend to disapprove of. They are joined later by a gifted chest surgeon, Trapper John (Elliot Gould). Most of the movie is devoted to individual scenes of the attempts by these three men to maintain a sense of their own sanity through the use of humor. They manage to rid themselves of the religious hypocrite Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), they ridicule and embarrass Burns' accomplice (Hot Lips, played by Sally Kellerman), and they even squeeze in a bit of golf now and then. And the football game that serves as the focus of the second half of the film is a riot, with each side engaging in increasingly dirty tricks. Rather than follow a single thread of a plot throughout the movie, what Altman and his screenwriters choose instead is to have a series of incidents that reveal who these people are and how they feel, especially the strength of their emotions about the military and its attempts to bring democracy to places like Korea. The episodic nature of the movie does not diminish its comedic (or any other) impact in any way.

M*A*S*H is, of course, a commentary on war itself and the insanity that surrounds war. Although the film is set in Korea, everyone knows that it is really about Vietnam and how the military was completely out of its element fighting that war. None of the military leaders in the movie seem to have a clue what is going on; they are a collection of bumbling, incompetent fools. You'd have to turn such a movie into a comedy or you'd likely face the wrath of the Pentagon. And the humor here is pretty cynical and bleak at times. Watch the doctors try to help the camp dentist commit suicide, and try to keep from laughing as they create a tableau reminiscent of the Last Supper. (That he's trying to commit suicide because he now thinks he's gay since he can't get an erection is really quite the stupidest of premises, to be frank.)

The film opens in the same way as the television program always did, with helicopters bringing in wounded. Those helicopters show up a lot during the movie, and Altman never spares us from the blood spilled during wartime. Numerous scenes take place in the surgical unit, and there's much more of an emphasis on the casualties of battle than you might think. It's an interesting juxtaposition the film makes of the moments of laughter and the time healing wounds, but perhaps that's meant to explain why the surgeons in the camp need to have some of their sillier moments such as trying to determine if Hot Lips is a "true" blonde, leading to a shower scene that's almost as famous as the recreation of the Last Supper mentioned above.

Only Gary Burghoff, playing company clerk Radar O'Reilly, also starred in the television show. The rest of the cast were replaced even though their characters retain most of their traits from the film version. I know some people prefer the film version, and others really enjoy the television series more. To me, they're so very different from each other. A film has to capture your attention and quickly give you a sense of the characters, and M*A*S*H does just that. You get a sense of just how iconoclastic these doctors are and how out of place they are in the military structure. Television has the luxury of a slower pace, revealing bits and pieces of characters over time, and the series accomplishes that as well. I still think the film and television versions fit together nicely, and I'm glad that the quality of the movie inspired a quality TV show. We've certainly seen enough examples in recent years that the reverse is seldom true.

Airport (1970)

Airport, nominated for Best Picture of 1970, was one of the first (if not the first) of the disaster movies that became so popular in the 1970s (well, at least among my family and friends). I have seen it several times over the years, and I've always enjoyed watching it. It spawned some pretty awful sequels, but the original is still a good example of just how wrongheaded Hollywood has become these days. Airport isn't one of the greatest films ever made, certainly, but it manages to use what was then a big budget to tell a story that draws viewers into it rather than spend the money on special effects to wow the crowds.

As I was watching Airport this time, I began to notice that most of the film was spent developing the characters and their relationships with each other. It's almost 100 minutes into the film (which only runs about another 30 minutes anyway) before the actual disaster itself occurs. So rather than a prolonged special effects bonanza, which I believe is the way it would be filmed today, instead what you get is a film about how interrelated our lives often are. It isn't as if we viewers don't know what's going to happen on the flight--that's abundantly clear as soon as we meet our future bomber (played by Van Heflin) putting together his briefcase--it's just that the film isn't merely about the bomb itself. It's about the people whose lives are going to be and are affected by the mid-air explosion. The suspense is only heightened by the fact that we first learn about the passengers and crew who are on board.

Just as an example, take the case of Dean Martin and Jacqueline Bisset. He plays the captain for the flight, and she's the head stewardess (that's the lingo of the day, not flight attendant). They've been having an affair even though he's married (his wife is played by Barbara Hale of Perry Mason fame). She reveals to him that she's pregnant before the flight takes off, and he's forced to deal with his emotions while simultaneously trying to keep the passengers on the plane safe. Martin's Capt. Demerest is also brother-in-law to Burt Lancaster's airport manager, and the two of them repeatedly clash over airport policy. Early in the film, for example, they haggle over how to handle the snow-covered runways. Knowing all of these details influences the way we respond to later conversations between the two men after the bomb has exploded; needless to say, they exchange some tense words, but you still have a sense that they each want to achieve the same goal. It also makes us empathize with Martin's captain when he must see his lover after she's been seriously injured by the blast. And all it takes is one look from Hale as Martin exits the plane walking with the gurney carrying Bisset to let you know how she feels. No one in Hollywood seems to write characters of such depth these days, people you could get to know and care about before the explosions begin.

So many famous character actors have small parts in this film. It almost becomes a game of "Isn't that so-and-so?" Helen Hayes, of course, won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as a stowaway who always seems to manage to get her way; she is terrific here. But there's also the great Maureen Stapleton as the wife of the potential bomber and George Kennedy as the guy you call whenever there's trouble and Jean Seberg as the head of public relations for the airport. And that's only the beginning. Each of these characters has enough of a back story for you to become involved in what happens to them all.

A few years ago, when I was teaching a film class at my college, I showed The Poseidon Adventure, one of my all-time favorite films. The students loved it, a reaction I was not expecting. For contrast, I also showed one scene from the film Twister. I then compared it to the scene in The Poseidon Adventure when Ernest Borgnine's cop and Stella Stevens' former prostitute reveal how much they love each other and what they've endured together. The "similar" scene in Twister between Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton pales in comparison. Even the students could tell that from looking at just one scene. It seems that Hollywood, the big studios, at least, have lost their ability to tell stories like Airport or The Poseidon Adventure, where character is always more significant and important than special effects. Think of what we've lost as a result.

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1953, From Here to Eternity depicts the lives of Army soldiers in Hawaii in the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. This is an interesting examination of the roles of masculinity in the military, and I found Montgomery Clift's story as Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt to be particularly fascinating. Certainly, the scene on the beach with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr making love has gotten much of the attention over the years--and perhaps rightly so, given how erotic it remains even now--but Clift's Prewitt is a man who refuses to follow everyone's expectations of what a soldier should or must be. He's a model of individualism and nonconformity, if it's not too much of an oxymoron to say that.

The film begins with Prewitt showing up to his new army base after being demoted and transferred from another unit. Almost immediately, he fails to fit in. Despite a reputation as a gifted boxer, he refuses to participate in the base's team, and the other soldiers set out to make him miserable until he relents and joins them. He's also a bugler, far more talented than any other who's had the position at the base. When he plays "Taps" in honor of one of his friends, it brings tears to all of the men in the company (whether they allow themselves to show the tears or not). And he falls in love with a "hostess" at a local club, a woman who has obviously taken the job for the money and who starts out with a intensely pragmatic sense of who and what she is. Of course, in 1953, the filmmakers had to make her a hostess, but any adult watching the movies knows that she's a prostitute. Yet Prewitt still loves her because he sees past all of the stereotypes associated with such women. Given all those narrative details, how could Clift not be the focus of the movie? How could he not command our attention?

Lancaster and Kerr's storyline is much more conventional. He's a sergeant who reports directly to her husband, the captain of the unit. Her husband, as you might expect, is frequently absent, leaving her alone and lonely, emotions she has felt before at other bases where her husband has been stationed. (Yes, that means she too has a reputation.) Lancaster slowly makes her fall in love with him just as he falls in love with her, and the chemistry between him and Kerr is strong. The scene where he shows up at her home in a rainstorm is almost as sexually charged as that moment on the beach that people are more familiar with. Throughout their scenes together, you can sense how much their characters yearn for each other's company, and you also sense the strain that the secrecy of their relationship has on them both. Both Lancaster and Kerr are good--they always were--and he's particularly adept at showing us a man who's figured out how to work the system of the army to his advantage.

Still, I'd rather watch Clift. His very presence in the movie calls into question what it means to be a man. He's capable of feats of strength, certainly, yet he also shows genuine affection and even tenderness for both his lover Alma (played by Donna Reed) and his friend Maggio (played by Frank Sinatra). That mixture of intelligence and sensitivity is what makes Clift such a compelling actor to watch. When he stares down the brute who's been abusing Maggio, you sense just how much strength is coiled in that body of his. And the endurance that he shows while undergoing "the treatment" by his fellow soldiers, his willingness to allow them to continue to abuse him, shows how much more of a man he is. It's a intriguing study of masculinity, as were many of the films that he appeared in. His performance alone is worth the time to watch From Here to Eternity.

The Yearling (1946)

The Yearling, a nominee for Best Picture of 1946, is one of the most beautifully shot films I've seen in a while. Set deep in the Florida Everglades, it's the story of a young boy named Jody Baxter who adopts an orphaned fawn as his pet. Much of the film tracks his and the fawn's growth into adulthood, and the highlights of the movie are those scenes shot in the wilderness of Florida as Jody and the fawn, eventually named Flag, romp and play. The cinematography of those moments is really quite spectacular, some gorgeous shots that make you want to see for yourself if such a place still exists.

The story begins with Gregory Peck, here giving his usual solid performance with just the slightest of grins every now and then, and Jane Wyman, playing his wife who's still grappling with the deaths of her other children, trying to raise their son with a sense of adventure and love of nature (from his father's side) and morality and responsibility (from his mother). Claude Jarman Jr. plays Jody with a real "aw shucks" sensibility. I'm sure his performance is lauded by many people, but I quickly found him to be quite irritating. It isn't that the approach to the role is wrong--Jody would naturally be naive given his isolation in the Everglades--it's just that Jarman is quite obviously untrained as an actor. Peck and Wyman, as expected, are consummate professionals, and there are even times when Peck's interaction with Jarman sparks some sense of realism, but given the miscasting of such a central role, the film overall doesn't work for me.

That's not to say that it isn't without some enjoyable moments. I particularly liked the visits to the Forresters; they're even more backwoods and backwards than the Baxters, and they're obviously there to provide some comic relief to the otherwise saccharine proceedings. Chill Wills as Buck Forrester is a particular delight. And I even enjoyed the scenes at the Forrester home with Jody and Fodderwing, the youngest Forrester, a boy who is destined to die before the film is over given his "unnatural" abilities to understand the strange ways of nature. He and Jody have a most intriguing conversation while up in a treehouse; watch the scene and see if you can determine who's the better actor, Jarman or Donn Gift as Fodderwing.

If you've seen Old Yeller (and what man of a certain age hasn't), you'll need to prepare yourself for a moment similar to the shooting of the dog in that later film. The resonance isn't quite as powerful in The Yearling, perhaps because Flag is a wild animal and not a domesticated pet like Old Yeller. Viewers naturally would have more empathy for a boy who has to shoot his own dog, given how many people have had a dog themselves while growing up. But when the deer continues to behave as an animal in the wild would do, you know there's truly only the one option left. The scenes that follow do, however, give Wyman an opportunity to show her strength as an actress. For the first time, she allows her character a chance to open her previously hardened heart to her only son, and it's a powerfully emotional moment in the film.

This is a family film, and certainly until the point in the film when Jody must face the fact that he has to destroy Flag, it's a film that even young children could enjoy. Adults, though they could certainly admire the scenery and perhaps the performances of the adults, will likely be somewhat underwhelmed by the focus on Jody and the acting of Claude Jarman Jr. for much of the movie. It's just perhaps a bit too corny and old-fashioned for grown-ups nowadays (although I suspect it was too corny and old-fashioned for real adults back in 1946 as well).