Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Witness for the Prosecution, a Best Picture of 1957 nominee, surprised me in a couple of ways. First, it's a very entertaining film, an interesting mix of humor and suspense, and the Academy is not always prone to rewarding such films. Entertaining and complex? Not typically their favorite mix, judging from what I've seen so far. Second, it features some great performances from an interesting range of actors: Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Elsa Lanchester, and a raft of British character actors. Next, it's very much a courtroom drama; almost all of the action takes place inside a British court, so it's rather close to its stage roots in its use of one primary set for much of the film. Finally, it's directed by Billy Wilder. I guess I just wasn't familiar with Wilder's full range of movies, but it did catch me off guard when his name appeared during the credits. As good a film as this is, it didn't initially strike me as being a particularly Wilder-esque movie. By the end of it, however, I was fully convinced.

Power plays Leonard Vole, who has been arrested for the murder of a wealthy widow he has befriended. Laughton plays the criminal trial lawyer Sir Wilfrid Robarts, who has been hired to represent Vole even though he (the lawyer) is supposed to be recovering from a heart attack by taking things easy and giving up smoking and drinking and taking his pills and only eating a bland diet. His nurse, played by Laughton's real-life spouse Lanchester, is there to ensure that he sticks to the rules (and to allow her to provide comic relief from time to time). Vole's alibi for the evening of the widow's murder depends upon his wife, a German refugee named Christine, played by Dietrich. She is particularly cagey, choosing her answers carefully and rarely showing emotion when one would expect a wife to do so.

The trial is beset by one surprise after another, not the least of which is Christine's decision to serve as the title "witness for the prosecution" rather than for the defense. On the stand, she contradicts the story she told earlier to police and to the attorneys, thereby implicating her husband directly in the murder. Needless to say, Laughton and company do everything they can to impeach her testimony, including the retrieval of some damning letters Christine allegedly wrote to a male accomplice. The ending of the trial is not the ending of the movie, though, as there are still a couple of surprise twists left for the audience.

I really enjoyed watching Witness for the Prosecution. Dietrich is a marvel here, and yet she wasn't even nominated for an Oscar for her performance. She's remarkably cold at times, but she is quite capable of unleashing a torrent of fury when confronted on the witness stand with her contradictory testimony. Power is also good; you just won't realize how effective he is until the very end of the movie. Laughton is almost playing a parody of himself here, replete with all of the usual gestures and tics that he had perfected over the years. I still liked his performance, but if anyone wants to develop a Laughton impersonation, here's a good film to watch first.

Knowing that he directed this film makes me admire Billy Wilder even more. Look at a partial list of films he helmed: Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, and on and on. And then you can add all of the ones that he wrote or co-wrote, such as Witness for the Prosecution, which started life as an Agatha Christie play. (Confession time: I'm a huge Christie fan. I own a lot of novels she wrote, and realizing that this movie is based upon one of her works just made it all the more exciting.) Perhaps the Academy, which honored Wilder six times during his career, recognized in this film his usual skillful direction. Despite being somewhat different in tone from his other movies, it still bears the stamp of a Wilder film. And that's certainly a reason to watch it on its own.

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.

On Golden Pond (1981)

On Golden Pond, nominated for Best Picture of 1981, is a film that comes about as close to perfection as you could hope for. It has an exceptional script with great dialogue and rich characters. The cinematography is gorgeous, and the setting is well chosen. And then there's the acting. All of the major parts in this film are handled by performers at the top of their game: Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn, Jane Fonda, Dabney Coleman, and Doug McKeon.

Henry Fonda plays Norman Thayer, a retired professor who has come to Golden Pond for the summer. Hepburn plays his patient wife, Ethel, who has been trying to reconcile Norman with his daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda) for years. Chelsea shows up at the Thayer cabin on Norman's birthday with her fiance and his son in tow, leaving the boy to spend the summer with Norman and Ethel while she and Bill Ray (Coleman) travel in Europe. As the summer progress, Norman bonds with Billy (McKeon), taking him in as a surrogate grandson. Chelsea returns after marrying Bill and tries to become friends with Norman.

In his last feature film role, Henry Fonda is great as a man facing the prospect of his mortality. He has, apparently, long been obsessed with death, but now that he has reached an advanced age, he seems even more preoccupied with it. Hepburn is a marvel. She manages to walk a fine line between the kind of wife who always tries to put a sunny face on and one who worries about the impending loss of her husband. Her scene with Jane Fonda where she basically tells the younger woman to grow up is one of the best in the movie. Then again, she also has some of the best funny lines too, particularly those where she calls Norman an "old poop." (My family, especially my grandparents, loved that.)

It's hardly surprising that this film can also be examined as a study of the relationship between the Fondas; it was their only movie together. Jane's Chelsea struggles to live up to Norman's expectations of her, and you can just imagine Jane herself had similar difficulties living in the shadow of her famous father. The scene where she tries to talk to him after returning from Europe is heartbreaking. Jane has talked about that moment since the death of her father, saying that it was one of those times when the film and real life intersected, and you can see where even Henry is overcome by emotion and has to hide his face after she touches his arm. The reality of the sentiments there are more than about Norman and Chelsea Thayer.

I loved watching this movie again. I'd forgotten how rich this film is. It has moments of great comedy, such as when Norman and Bill Ray have the "illicit sleeping together" talk. It has moments of pure joy, such as Billy's solo ride on the boat. It's filled with moments of intense sadness, as when Ethel realizes that Norman's memory is starting to fade after he is unable to find the Old Town Road. And there are moments of great fear as well, such as when Norman thinks he may have suffered a heart attack and Ethel imagines what his funeral will be like. These are characters you begin to care about, people you even start to love.

I expect the somewhat slow pace of this film might put some people off, but this is a film about the twilight years of life. It's meant to be slow, and I think the interludes with scenes of the lake and the loons are beautiful transitional moments. Sometimes you get a chance to reconnect with a favorite film from your past, and On Golden Pond is one of those. I might not have even thought of watching it again had it not been for this project, but I'm so grateful for a chance to see all of these talented performers and this beautiful movie again.

Lady for a Day (1932-33)

Lady for a Day, an early Frank Capra film, was nominated for Best Picture of 1932-33 (the last year the Academy had a "split" year for eligibility). It has all the hallmarks of a Capra film, with its sentimental depictions of the lower classes and the struggles that they face. Some will perhaps think that I'm criticizing sentimentality here; nothing could be farther from the truth. Capra was one of the few and one of the best at showing the plight of those people who were not often the subject of movies. And, with its story of how a group of gangsters and thugs and the like try to help a poor apple seller pretend to be rich in order to impress her daughter's fiance, Lady for a Day is a movie that rightfully earns its emotional impact.

May Robson plays Apple Annie, who has come to America to make money but has wound up instead trying to eke out an existence by selling apples in Times Square. However, she has been writing letters to her daughter back in Europe making it appear that she is wealthy and attending lots of parties and balls with the rich society of New York. Dave the Dude, played by Warren William, is a gangster who considers buying an apple from Annie to be a good luck charm. Once he learns of her plight, he decides to help her pretend to be the society matron she has told her daughter that she is. What starts out as a simple "con" turns into a series of increasingly more difficult--and, therefore, more amusing--attempts to keep up the masquerade.

Dave's odd behavior can't help but attract the attention of the police, who suspect that he must be up to something big. He has, after all, gotten the assistance of almost every criminal under his control in New York to carry out this plan. Thanks to Dave's new activities, the police chief, the mayor, even the governor begin to question what his next action will be. In truth, he's just trying to help out a friend, and the movie's depiction of his gentleness with Annie is one of its most touching attributes. In fact, almost everyone tries to do her or his best to help Annie, making this one of the best films ever about the nature of true friendship.

One of my favorite scenes involves Dave trying to teach the thugs and molls in his gang how to behave like the upper class. Needless to say, they don't respond well to instruction. Several times during the movie, in fact, it appears that the entire scheme is going to implode. Yet each time it gets close to that moment of collapse, something happens to keep the fairy tale alive for just a bit longer. I won't spoil how they pull off the ending of the movie, but it's a marvel that will make you smile. Capra seems to be making a point here about the inherent goodness of people, and that's a message we could certainly do with hearing more often.

Robson is so charming as Apple Annie. She was already late in her acting career when she took on this role, and she manages to make viewers sympathetic to her plight with her portrayal. While another, less talented actress might have made you question why Annie keeps up this charade for so long, Robson instead makes you hopeful that she can continue to manage it. William makes for a very suave Dave the Dude (don't you just love the names that Damon Runyon came up with?), and he is surrounded by a first-rate cast of supporting players in his gang of criminals with hearts of gold.

I can't imagine how different this film might be if someone remade it today. (It was remade in 1961 as A Pocketful of Miracles with Bette Davis as Apple Annie, but I don't think the later version is quite as good.) It would be doubtful that anyone could capture the enormous warmth of the story that Capra's film depicts, and the rest of the vagabonds who share Annie's plight would likely be saddled with far more depressing characterizations. Thankfully, we still have the original available to us to remind us of our common ability to be good to each other, to help each other out, no matter how absurd or ridiculous the "project" might be.

Johnny Belinda (1948)

The heart of Johnny Belinda, nominated for Best Picture of 1948, is the performance of Jane Wyman. If you're only familiar with her work on TV's Falcon Crest, you will be astonished at the grace with which she portrays a deaf/mute girl who is raped and then tried for murder. Wyman, whom I've already discussed in the posting about The Yearling, was a contract player at the time and had already been in dozens of films playing small parts. Here she takes a leading role without dialogue, yet she manages to make the audience completely sympathetic to her character. That's no small feat to accomplish without uttering a word.

Belinda McDonald, Wyman's character, works for her father Blackie (Charles Bickford) on a farm just outside a fishing village in Nova Scotia. Having lost her hearing as a baby to scarlet fever, she has learned how to communicate through a series of facial expressions and marks on the pages of a ledger book, but both her father and her aunt (the great Agnes Moorehead) seem to think that her deafness means that she is also mentally deficient. A new doctor, played by Lew Ayres, moves into town and becomes interested in Belinda's almost immediately. He begins teaching her sign language, and she begins to fall in love with him. He, however, seems oblivious to her feelings. That's particularly odd given how expressive her face is whenever she's around him, but no matter. The plot must go on.

One day, while almost everyone else is gone, one of the town's bad boys, Locky McCormick (Stephen McNalley), shows up at the grist mill on the farm where Belinda is working alone and assaults her. Belinda, not fully comprehending his actions, becomes very sullen and uncommunicative, even with Dr. Richardson. The good doctor, hoping that perhaps Belinda's hearing loss is reversible, takes her to a specialist, only to have that doctor reveal that Belinda is pregnant. The townspeople eventually learn of the pregnancy and, in true small-town fashion, begin blaming the doctor. He has, after all, been spending a great deal of time with Belinda. They shun Belinda and the doctor and even Belinda's family. When Locky shows up to take custody of his child, thanks to a town meeting rife with false accusations and misunderstandings, Belinda tries to defend her child and kills Locky in the process. Her trial ends the film, and as you might expect from a Hollywood movie at the time, there is a happy ending.

The rest of the cast is strong as well. How could you go wrong, really, with Bickford and Ayres and (especially) Moorehead? But the true joy of watching this film is in Wyman's performance. She was already 31 when she made this film, yet she portrays Belinda with the naivete and joy that a teenage girl has. I can't imagine a better performance that year, male or female, and it's one of my favorites that I have watched since starting this project. She manages to express love and confusion and anger and intense happiness without ever saying a word, and for that, she richly deserved her Oscar for Best Actress.

My Left Foot (1989)

How can anyone really talk about the achievement of My Left Foot without concentrating upon the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis? Although the film was nominated for Best Picture of 1989, the primary reason it got noticed was his lead performance as the artist Christy Brown. Without the work of Day-Lewis, this film might not have gotten as much attention.

Brown was born with cerebral palsy and only slowly learned the ability to draw and write and speak. The film shows the struggles that Brown faced, and the actor who plays him at a young age, Hugh O'Conor, is quite marvelous. He plays Brown before the artist learned to speak clearly enough to be understood, so this is mostly a silent performance. O'Conor's face is so expressive, though, that you're always able to understand his emotions.

However, when Day-Lewis begins his performance, that's when the real fireworks begin. Unlike Dustin Hoffman's performance in Rain Man, which I have always found to be rather one-note, Day-Lewis is totally committed to the full portrayal of a man with cerebral palsy. He distorts his body and his face. He demonstrates the struggle that Brown faced just to form words. He uses his left foot to draw and write, and Day-Lewis shows remarkable dexterity in these scenes. He also allows us to note his slow progress over time. It's the kind of acting that makes you forget that you're watching a performance. You do feel as though you're watching the person himself.

I also admired the performance of Brenda Fricker as his mom, and the supporting actors who play his siblings are good too. Fiona Shaw as the doctor who works with Christy to learn how to speak is luminous. You can see why Christy would fall in love with her. One of the most heartbreaking scenes is at the restaurant when he finds out that she is engaged to another man; his rage is uncomfortable to watch, yet it shows you the depth of Day-Lewis' commitment to the role.

I do have one major criticism of the film, and that's with the way that it was edited, with the flashbacks throughout the film. The "frame" for the movie is a presentation of Christy Brown at an event at a country estate and his flirtation with the nurse who looks after him while awaiting his moment on the stage. I do think My Left Foot would have worked just as well as a more straightforward narrative. Then it could have perhaps maintained a bit more of the intensity of feeling that certain scenes create. Still, overall, it is competently made and interesting to watch, but it's only Day-Lewis that elevates it to a film that could be considered Best Picture material.

Raging Bull (1980)

I think I finally understand why Raging Bull, nominated for Best Picture of 1980, lost the award to Ordinary People. As remarkable an achievement as it is, Raging Bull is almost too clinical in its depiction of the way that violence permeates one man's life. Ordinary People, on the other hand, is a very emotional film that strikes at the heart of the family. I think, given those choices in 1980, the Academy went with the one that had the most emotional resonance for them.

That's not to say that Raging Bull doesn't have quite a powerful impact on a viewer. This is a brilliantly filmed movie, one that uses its black-and-white cinematography to full effect. It allows Robert DeNiro, then at his acting peak, to burrow into the character of real-life boxer Jake La Motta. And the screenplay is a marvel of construction, allowing us to see the progression over time of La Motta's inability to restrain his violent urges.

This is certainly one of the greatest films ever made by Martin Scorsese, and it's widely considered his best. (I still think Taxi Driver might deserve that designation, but no matter.) As in others of his pictures, Scorsese is here examining the culture of violence and how it has permeated America. La Motta is but one example of a man whose life spirals out of control because of his inability to contain the brutal urges he feels. He cannot merely "keep it in the ring." He beats up his wife and his brother, and he seems incapable of stopping himself from always making the wrong decisions about his career and his future.

To me, one of the real strengths of the film is the series of boxing matches that are depicted. There's almost a poetic beauty to the beating that two men inflict upon each other in the ring. It's pretty tough to watch at times, certainly, but the use of slow motion and the sound effects editing provide a different context for viewing the pummeling. Maybe it's that dissection of the art of boxing (a metaphor for the violence of everyday life?) that proved too much for Academy members. As much as they admired the overall achievement of the film, they just didn't "feel" the depth of pain that a man like La Motta suffered. Perhaps he just seemed like a brute to them, and they chose instead to honor a movie that tugged at their hearts more directly and softly.