It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Watching It's a Wonderful Life has become a Christmas tradition. I suppose people find its overall message to be an uplifting one, a sense that we all have a contribution to make to humanity and that we never really know just how great our contributions might be, how influential we truly are. While I respect what director Frank Capra and his cast and crew have done with this film, I have to say that it is a very depressing journey at times to reach that final epiphany. I am usually reluctant to take that trip each year, and it was for this project that I sat down to watch It's a Wonderful Life again. Now I can cross it off the list and avoid it in the future.

Jimmy Stewart plays George Bailey, a businessman in Bedford Falls who has fallen on hard times. The “buildings and loan” business (kind of an early savings and loan office) started by his father has failed due to a stupid mistake by George's Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell), a mistake for which George has taken credit. Now he's contemplating suicide, only to be stopped by an angel named Clarence (Henry Travers) who's hoping to earn his wings by saving George from his own foolish ideas about how little he matters in the world. It's Clarence who shows up in physical form--well, as physical as an angel would be, but that's a philosophical discussion for another time--in order to show George what life in this small town would have been like without him.

We see George in a series of flashbacks, starting with the time when, at age 12, he rescued his brother from a fall into a frozen pond. He saves his brother, but he loses the hearing in his left ear, a small sacrifice to pay for his bravery, I suppose. After that heroic beginning, we see George constantly being thwarted in his plans to better himself. Inspired by National Geographic magazine, he wants to travel and see as much of the world as possible; he wants to have an adventure. He says, "I want to do something big, something important." Instead, all he gets are obligations to take care of his family and friends in Bedford Falls.

Here are a few ways that George's life turns out to be a disappointment. He wants to go to college, but instead, he has to help his father run the buildings and loan. His younger brother goes to school instead. He never wanted to get married, but he falls in love with Donna Reed's Mary Hatch, who seems content to live in Bedford Falls. She even wants to buy the old Granville house and raise a family, something George feels would keep him from seeing the world. After his father has a stroke and dies, George is chosen to run the family business, just as he was planning to leave for Europe. When he starts to think Harry might take over the family business after graduation, George learns that Harry has gotten married and is moving to Buffalo to work in his new father-in-law's glass factory. Even on the day he and Mary get married, there's a run on the bank and he has to abandon their honeymoon in order to try to keep people from taking all of their money out of the family business. And just when he's offered a high-paying job that would allow him the luxury of a comfortable existence, Mary reveals that she's pregnant and he has to stay at his current job. It's one terrible event after another for George Bailey.

I know that more conservative people will point out that It's a Wonderful Life touts the principles of living up to your family obligations and community involvement, and certainly, George is well respected by the townspeople for his generosity. And he does love his wife and children. Yet I have the same reaction to this movie as I have always had to the play Our Town. Anyone who doesn't want to stay put and be just like everyone else is forced to submit to the public will (or become the town drunk). There's no escape from places like Bedford Falls, it seems, just mind-numbing conformity. If you want adventure, well, people like you and George don't get it. You can have posters on the windows of the romantic destinations you'll like to visit, but you'll never get to go there on your own. What you'll have to make do with is a stable existence in small town America, and whether you're truly happy or not makes no difference. It can be stifling to live like that when you have other dreams for yourself.

The villain of the piece is, I'm sure you know, Mr. Potter, the wealthiest man in Bedford Falls. He owns everything, and he doesn't seem to be happy unless he's making other people's lives miserable. He's played by Lionel Barrymore, who usually brings a sense of humanity to small roles like this. But Potter is just mean. He seems to have no redeeming characteristics or qualities whatsoever. No one can seem to reach his heart and make him care for his fellow human beings. He never seems to make the right choice when it comes to other people. Naturally, he plays a key role in the collapse of George's fortunes and in the breakdown that George suffers as a result.

Before we get too far away from it, I have to admit that the opening sequence is one of the silliest I've ever seen. It's basically stars talking to each other. They're concerned about George's emotional crisis and have heeded the prayers of various members of the Bedford Falls community who are also worried about George. Presumably, one of those stars is meant to be God or the "head angel" or something like that, and the rest are all angels who come down from Heaven to help out the people on Earth from time to time. Really, though, would it be any sillier to have actors dressed as angels rather than talking stars? Which one of those is the less believable approach?

For me, and I know this will sound a bit odd, the best part of It's a Wonderful Life is when George has his breakdown. It's all gotten to be a bit too much for him. When he realizes that he's bankrupt, and there will likely be a scandal and perhaps prison time for him, he lashes out at everyone. He yells at his wife and kids, revealing at last the pent-up anger he feels at all of the disappointments he's suffered over the years. Stewart is at his best in these scenes. In particular, watch his face after he realizes that, thanks to an insurance policy, he's worth more dead than alive. It's pretty chilling.

I have never quite accepted the ending of this film. Much of the rest of the movie has been realistic... well, except for the whole talking stars thing and the guardian angels and... oh, you know what I mean. Capra had a way of capturing the lives of the downtrodden, and he wasn't always as heavy-handed as he is in It's a Wonderful Life at achieving a happy ending. Maybe it's because it's a Christmas movie? However, when Stewart's George runs through the streets of Bedford Falls wishing everyone a "Merry Christmas," it just rings false to me. Speaking of ringing, I had to resist the urge to switch the movie off before George's daughter Zuzu makes her proclamation about the connection between bell ringing and angel's wings. And let's remember that on the next day, George will be back to his mundane existence running the savings and loan again, albeit with more money. When does the "wonderful life" part actually begin for George?

Yeah, I do realize that I'm in the minority when it comes to this movie. I'm willing to accept that. I understand why it is appealing to the masses. It reinforces their notions of the importance of doing the right thing and trying to help your fellow human beings. I'm certainly not opposed to either of those things. I just object to the idea that doing the right thing always means sacrificing your dreams and living your life in a way that doesn't meet everyone else's notions of what is acceptable. While I can admire It's a Wonderful Life for its technical achievements and for the acting of Stewart and Reed and some of the supporting cast like Beulah Bondi as George's mother, I'm glad that my obligations to watch this film are now over for good.

Oscar Nominations: Best Motion Picture, Best Director (Frank Capra), Best Actor (James Stewart), Best Sound Recording, Best Film Editing

Father of the Bride (1950)

Compared to some of the other nominees for Best Picture of 1950, Father of the Bride is pretty inconsequential material. When you consider that the competition included such masterpieces as All about Eve, the winner, and Sunset Boulevard, what chance could a charming little domestic comedy have at winning the big prize? As enjoyable as Father of the Bride is, and it certainly has its entertaining moments, it just doesn't hold up as an award-worthy accomplishment. Even Born Yesterday and King Solomon's Mines, the two other nominees for Best Picture that year, have more to recommend them to a viewer nowadays in terms of contributions to film history.

Spencer Tracy plays Stanley Banks, a respectable middle-class lawyer whose daughter Kay (played by Elizabeth Taylor) is his favorite child. He has two other children, Ben and Tommy, two sons, but it's Kay on whom he dotes. At dinner one night, he and his wife Ellie (Joan Bennett) learn that Kay has gotten engaged to her boyfriend Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor) without even knowing that the two kids had gotten that serious about each other. In fact, Stanley has to flip through a montage of her boyfriends to try to determine which one she's discussing. If I recall correctly, it turns out Buckley's the one he describes as "the musclebound ham with the shoulders," a not altogether inaccurate description of the actor who plays him either.

What follows are a series of events that, at times, border on the slapstick. Stanley tries to have a conversation about finances with young Buckley, but it fails, of course, because he's really in love with Kay and nothing can dissuade him from marrying her. When Mr. and Mrs. Banks meet Buckley's parents, Stanley gets drunk and spends the entire evening talking non-stop about Kay, finally falling asleep to the relief of everyone involved. At the engagement party, he never even makes it out of the kitchen because everyone wants something different to drink, leaving all of his martinis untouched. Each of these moments is played rather broadly by Tracy and the others, and each is a funny vignette.

Planning for the event itself becomes one headache after another. Kay's mother keeps buying her daughter expensive clothes for her trousseau, and they cannot seem to whittle the guest list down to a manageable size. It stands at 572 for the wedding and 280 for the reception, far more than they could reasonably expect to invite. It gets so exasperating for Stanley that he offers Kay money if she and Buckley will just elope. And the visit to the wedding planner played by Leo G. Carroll is, as you might expect, hilarious. Every suggestion gets shot down, and the expense and complexity of the reception keep increasing. When the film was remade in 1991 with Steve Martin in the Tracy role, Martin Short took over for Carroll, and, frankly, he made the character into a caricature, something the understated Carroll himself never does.

You know, don't you, that there has to be a complication that almost causes the wedding's cancellation? It's over the honeymoon. The groom wants to go fishing in Nova Scotia, an odd choice for a honeymoon destination, certainly, but just seeing him again makes Kay change her mind and take him back. Once again, Tracy's Stanley is disappointed. Perhaps that's what leads to the film's most unusual sequence, a dream Stanley has about sinking into the floor as he tries to walk down the aisle. His clothes get ripped, and the guests are all appalled, as you might expect them to be. It's quite a nightmare, and it stands out in the film for the cleverness with which it is depicted and for its rather surrealistic nature.

The film has a framing device of tracking the devastation of the Banks family's home after the party. It's quite a mess with glasses and bottles and food and confetti and destruction everywhere. Tracy tells the story of what has led to this disaster in a voice-over throughout the movie. Apparently, all of the events took place in just three months, which has to qualify this wedding as being one of the fastest to be planned and executed in history. It's hard to believe that, after all of the problems the bride and groom and their families have faced, all goes well. The reception is another disaster for Stanley personally, but in the end, he and Ellie are able to dance among the wreckage of their home, happy that it has all ended (and perhaps grateful that they have only one daughter).

This was Taylor's first adult role as an actress, and she's beautiful here. She would use her looks and talent to greater effect a year later in A Place in the Sun, but she's competent here in what is truly a supporting role, after all. Bennett and the two actors who play the Banks sons (Russ Tamblyn in an early role for him and Tom Irish) really have little to do here except react to whatever moments Tracy's character presents. Carroll steals the few minutes that he has on screen, making the most of our own preconceived ideas about what weddings and receptions and their planners entail. But it's Tracy to whom we owe the overall success of the film. I never really would have pegged Tracy as an actor grounded in physical comedy, but he manages to do some deft work here. He was nominated for Best Actor for this role, but really, it's not that much of a stretch for someone with a natural gift like his.

Father of the Bride was directed by Vincente Minnelli, who would achieve greater fame for directing classic musicals like An American in Paris, The Band Wagon, and Gigi (and for being married to Judy Garland and fathering Liza Minnelli). His direction here is assured, classical Hollywood film making, perhaps the reason he and several of the cast returned a year later to make a sequel, Father's Little Dividend, about what happens after the birth of Stanley's first grandchild. Thankfully, that one wasn't nominated for Best Picture, so I can skip seeing it again.

Oscar Nominations: Picture, Actor (Tracy), and Screenplay

The Verdict (1982)

When we first see Frank Galvin, the central character of The Verdict, a nominee for Best Picture of 1982, he's playing pinball and drinking a beer. You get the sense that Frank (Paul Newman) has spent a lot of time engaging in these two activities, particularly after you quickly realize that he's a washed-up attorney who looks for jobs by reading the obituaries in the paper. Frank is given a case that could turn his life around, a medical malpractice suit, but he has to call upon the reserves of intelligence and courage he once had in order to prove that he can still win. If that brief summary sounds like The Verdict is a movie riddled with cliches, I'd only point out to you that the screenplay was written by David Mamet and the film was directed by Sidney Lumet. With those pros and Newman as the star, this film manages to avoid the trappings of many courtroom dramas that rely upon cliched premises and expected outcomes.

Newman was a consummate actor, one of the best of his generation. Here he takes a man who is really little more than a shell of his former self, a drunk who doesn't seem to care about what happens to him, and makes him into a sympathetic character. Frank Galvin might need some breath spray and eye drops to make himself presentable, but in Newman's capable hands, he's never going to lose our attention. It's no small feat to make us like Frank Galvin; he's certainly not always worthy of our love. Yet Newman manages to let us see the redeeming qualities of persistence and integrity that Frank has.

The story involves a young woman named Deborah Ann Kaye who was given the wrong anaesthetic and is now in a coma from which she will never recover. Her sister, Sally Donaghey (Roxanne Hart), is Frank's client, and Sally and her husband are desperate for justice to be meted out for what has happened. They are also eager to accept the husband's transfer to Arizona so that they can start their lives over, and the money from the case could place Deborah Ann in a proper facility for the care she needs, freeing Sally to leave her sister behind. The Archdiocese of Boston, which runs the hospital where the patient was operated on, wants to settle the case but for a nominal amount, $210,000, of which Frank would receive $70,000. He refuses because he thinks he can win more. The lawyers for the archdiocese, led by James Mason's bulldog Ed Concannon, and the insurance company settle in for what they assume will be an easy victory. They certainly have manpower and influence on their side.

It's hard to say exactly what leads to Frank's change of heart, what makes him think he's the right lawyer for the job. He refuses the settlement offer without consulting the sister and her husband, a fact which leads to an angry confrontation in the courthouse. Perhaps it's the moment he visits Deborah Ann in the hospital. Maybe he sees the fragility of the human body (and spirit) represented in her comatose form. He certainly seems to have a renewed desire to be an attorney after the visit.

He faces a formidable opponent in Concannon, though, who plans to use the press to create a positive image of the church, the hospital, even the accused individual doctors, in the minds of potential jurors. He's also not above using his influence to get rid of Frank's key witness, a doctor who claims that the field of medicine needs to be cleaned up. And the judge in the case, Judge Hoyle (Milo O'Shea), is no help either. He seems to have already determined that the case should have been settled out of court and that Frank should lose if it does get to court. You also have to have a romantic interest in a movie like this, and you couldn't find a woman more intriguing to someone like Frank than Charlotte Rampling's Laura. However, I do think the subplot involving Laura and her spying for Mason and the rival lawyers underuses the talents of someone as remarkably gifted as Rampling.

So what is Frank left with? He has an expert witness who is quickly denounced by the opposing lawyers for his lack of experience with anaesthesia and his willingness to testify in numerous cases. Frank also has the assistance of only one other person, Jack Warden's gruff Mickey Morrissey, while the other table has a huge phalanx of attorneys to try the case and do the research. It's little wonder that Frank begins to suffer from self-doubt. He fumbles through his opening remarks, and the judge repeatedly interferes with his attempts to question witnesses, causing Frank to confront the judge in his chambers and accuse him of improper conduct.

It's only through the accidental discovery of the one person in the operating room who refused to testify that Frank sees an opportunity. Her name is Kaitlin Costello, she was a nurse on duty that night, and she's played to perfection by Lindsay Crouse. It's her testimony regarding the forging of documents that seals the outcome. The case really hinges around whether Deborah Ann had food one hour before the surgery or nine hours before it. Mason's Concannon immediately panics because the nurse has kept a copy of the original admittance form, not the copy that has been doctored and that is being used as evidence. That sets up Frank to deliver a powerful closing argument that calls into question our ability to trust institutions like the court system, the medical system, almost everything associated with the case.

The Verdict is, first and foremost, I think, a showcase for great acting. Newman is fantastic, as always, and he is given able support from Warden, O'Shea, Mason, Crouse, even Rampling in an underwritten part. We get to know Frank very well as the film progresses, and he becomes a heroic figure by its end. To be fair, though, the movie stacks the deck a little too much to be fair-minded. We never get to hear the opposing side's opening or closing statements, for example. Yet we're not really here to watch a movie that shows us both sides; we already know which side we're supposed to be on, don't we? No, what we're meant to do is consider the implications of this serious film and admire the kind of people like Frank who use their last chance at success to defend those most in need of it.

The Last Emperor (1987)

The Last Emperor won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1987, and it's a glorious spectacle of a movie. Ostensibly the story of the last man to serve as emperor of China, Pu Yi, it is also a historical account of what happened to China during much of the 20th Century. Director Bernardo Bertolucci and his crew managed to get permission to film within the so-called "Forbidden City," and they spared no expense in presenting what life was like for the emperors during the latter years of their reign. The Academy voters were very fond of large-scale or epic filmmaking like this for a long period of time in the 1980s and 1990s, and while some of their choices (ahem, Dances with Wolves) were truly bad ones, I think The Last Emperor is deserving of its Oscar for Best Picture due to its blending of the story of an individual man into the sweep of historical events that enfolded him.

Much of the film is told in flashback by the adult Pu Yi, who is accused in the 1950s of war crimes for having collaborated with the Japanese before World War II. He is subjected to repeated interrogations by the Communists in control of China, and they want to know the details of his life and how he came to betray (their word) his country. He is asked to write down the story of his life and to confess his sins, as are all of the prisoners, but nothing he writes satisfies the Communists. He must repeatedly return to be questioned.

In these flashbacks, we are given glimpses into key moments of Pu Yi's life, such as when he is named at age 3 to be the new emperor. Rather than listen carefully to the aged Dowager Empress as she makes the proclamation that will change his life, he plays a game of hide and seek. It's a charming sequence, following by an image of the young Pu Yi walking from the throne room out into the courtyard filled with eunuchs and soldiers and hangers-on. You've undoubtedly seen this sequence, with its yards of flowing yellow fabric and that first shot of the assembled crowd in the courtyard. It's pretty amazing to consider how difficult that sequence was to film.

With the establishment of the Republic of China and the installation of a president, the emperor loses whatever power he might have had. The Forbidden City is walled in, both to keep the Republic from entering what remains of the empire and to keep the emperor from leaving. There follows a time of control of China by warlords who battle each other for control, and then the takeover of China by the Communists occurs. You won't get the full flavor of Chinese history by watching The Last Emperor, of course, but you should have a rather clear sense of the broad outline of historical events from the time period. No one could do true justice to the tumultuous history of this large Asian country even in the almost three hours that this film takes to unfurl.

I enjoyed the moments involving the teenaged Pu Yi (played with a sly sense of humor by Wu Tao), particularly his interactions with his new English tutor, Reginald Fleming Johnston (played with archness by the great Peter O'Toole). The young emperor gains a wife, a bicycle, and a pair of glasses during this time. The moments between the emperor and his new empress (Wan Jung, played by Joan Chen) are especially charming. I liked the line from their first night together, "Yes, the emperor would like to see the face of the empress." Of course, he would; she was chosen for him, and he has no idea what he's gotten in the transaction.

What gets Pu Yi into trouble is his desire for reform. He cuts off the ponytail that is traditional. He demands a detailed inventory of the storerooms because he thinks the eunuchs have been stealing from him. When they burn the storerooms rather than be caught, he banishes them from the Forbidden City. (It's quite an intriguing moment to watch them carry their severed "organs" in jars as they leave the city. That's the price of being a eunuch.) He had even tried to negotiate with the Japanese over the territory of Manchuria, his homeland, especially after the Kuomintang, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, robs the tombs of Manchuria and destroys the bodies. The Japanese, of course, later invade Manchuria and seize control, triggering another Sino-Japanese war.

Interestingly, Pu Yi learns about much of what happened in China during this time while being forced to watch a documentary while in prison. He is forced to watch the bombing of Shanghai and the massacre of 200,000 Chinese by the Japanese. He himself is depicted in the film as being little more than a puppet emperor. It's a shock for him to discover how others felt and thought about him during this time; he's unprepared for the revelation.

You have to admire so many of the details of this film. The costumes, the sets, the cinematography, the music--all are handled with such delicate, careful attention. The Last Emperor won nine Oscars, including ones for all of the areas mentioned above. In fact, it won every Oscar for which it was nominated. Oddly enough, it's one of the few Best Picture winners not to receive any acting nominations. Certainly, several members of the cast are outstanding. Lone, as the adult Pu Yi, manages to age several decades throughout the narrative, and he brings a sense of gravity to every moment he's on screen. He has several outstanding moments when he's facing his interrogators, and the scene at the end of the film where Pu Yi purchases a ticket to see his old throne room in the Forbidden City is particularly charming. O'Toole is up to his usual scene-stealing standards in the few sequences in which he appears, and I'd also give kudos to Joan Chen for the range of emotions she's allowed to portray as the Empress.

Most people tend to think of biopics like The Last Emperor as boring history lessons, and to be honest, most of them are. They tend to be presented in such a dull, earnest manner that it's difficult to care much about the people involved in the story. It would be easy to get lost in the pageantry and decor of this film, to pay closest attention to the colors and objects. However, to do so, you'd lose out on a story of how far a man can fall. The Last Emperor shows us what can happen to an individual when the forces of history--forces over which he has no control despite his title--influence a man's life. That's still the heart of this movie, and Bertolucci and Lone and the rest of the cast and crew make that apparent to a viewer throughout the film.

49th Parallel (1942)

The story of 49th Parallel, also known as The Invaders, is an original one, not a historical one. The tale of several Nazis stranded in the Canadian wilderness in the early years of World War II would have been just realistic enough for Canadian and United States audiences to fear the possibility of a Nazi invasion. At the time of the film's initial release, the United States had not yet formally entered the war; that would not occur until December of 1942 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, what 49th Parallel makes clear (and what I suspect its makers intended) is that the Nazi threat was worldwide.

The film begins with a Nazi submarine attacking a Canadian ship carrying crude oil that could be used for Allied battleships. The Nazis are interested only in raiding such ships for supplies, though, so they refuse to take on any of the survivors from the sinking Canadian ship. We're meant to understand the brutality of the Germans from this brief introductory sequence, and it's quickly followed by a discussion of plans to take over a trading post in the Hudson Bay, where the submarine has fled to hide. Instead, the submarine is destroyed, leaving six crewmen, the search party, stranded in the mountains.

What follows are the adventures of those six men as they cross Canada in an attempt to reach the at-the-time-neutral territory of the United States. We see a series of vignettes of the complications that arise when a group of Germans try to pass unnoticed during wartime. For example, the first encounter with Canadians involves a fur trapper named Johnny (played by Laurence Olivier with a, um, “vigorous” French-Canadian accent). He's back at the trading post after 11 months in the wilderness and is incredulous that the English and French are fighting on behalf of the Poles. When the Nazis show up, they bring the war directly to his remote location and make him understand the need for solidarity against the German threat. Unfortunately, Johnny and several others are shot and killed when the Nazis steal an emergency plane, but the Nazi who pilots the plane dies after the plane crashes when it runs out of fuel, and the movie quickly starts to seem like a game of "Ten Little Indians." ("Six Little Nazis," I suppose, would be the more appropriate title.) One by one, the Nazis are discovered and killed or captured, no doubt a nod by the filmmakers to the strength of Canadian patriotism (or what they hoped would be the patriotic response of the Canadians). The film itself is dedicated to Canada and to the Canadian people.

There's an extended sequence involving a Hutterite community that the Nazis happen upon after meeting a young girl named Anna (played by Glynis Johns, her voice just as recognizable as ever). The Hutterites are German immigrants who have founded several communal spaces in Canada, and for a time, the Nazis think they may have found some like-minded folks. Lt. Hirth (Eric Portman), the ostensible leader of the band of remaining Nazis, even gives a speech at one of the Hutterite gatherings. He talks to them about German pride and racial purity, and it's obvious he's trying to recruit them into the Nazi movement. However, many of the Hutterites, particularly their leader, Peter (Anton Walbrook), left Europe because of the kind of thinking represented by Hirth and his cohorts; they are pacifists by nature. And Anna's father was even killed by the Nazis; that's why she is now in Canada. One of the Nazis, Vogel (Niall MacGuiness), starts to regret his involvement in the Nazi movement, and he even takes up his previous beloved trade as a baker. The Hutterites want him to join them, but the remaining Nazis sentence him to death as a traitor and execute him in the woods. It's a chilling moment in the film to watch them shoot someone who was previously their colleague.

I won't recount every moment in the film that leads to the end of another Nazi, lest it truly sound like "Ten Little Indians." Let me just say that one of the more intriguing sequences involves an indigenous festival and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police encouraging everyone in the crowd to look at their neighbor as possibly being a suspected Nazi: "Look closely at your neighbor." I wondered if there were a comment there about the paranoia surrounding Nazis and the attempts by some people to point fingers at almost anyone they find suspicious, but it's played too seriously for me to imagine that's what the film's creators had in mind.

Leslie Howard, of all people, shows up in the guise of Philip Armstrong Scott, a wealthy man who likes to carry a Picasso and a Matisse with him while out in the woods to fish and to write a book about the tribal customs of the Blackfoot Indians of Canada. Well, who doesn't want the comforts of home in a tent in the wilderness? Doesn't everyone carry several oil paintings and books by writers like Thomas Mann to read at night around a campfire? The remaining pair of Nazis taunt him for his cowardice (really, his effeminacy, I suspect, if not his effete nature) and, after tying him up, they destroy his paintings and burn his books and his unfinished manuscript. Of course, the men with whom Howard's Scott are staying rescue him, and they hunt down and kill one of the two Nazis.

That leaves only Lt. Hirth, and it's up to Raymond Massey, a hobo on a train, to stop him. I know. This is starting to sound like one of those all-star disaster movies from the 1970s where you could play "Guess the Star." Aside from those playing the fleeing Germans, all of these actors have very brief moments on screen. They amount to little more than a cameo appearance at times, but they certainly are no more than supporting roles. That means, of course, that much of the movie is seen through the eyes and actions of the Nazis. The movie walks a very thin line sometimes between depicting the Nazis as horrible, brutal killers and in showing them in a sympathetic light, such as when they have to sell their gloves for food in Winnipeg. I suppose that could be considered fair-minded of the film makers, but it also leaves quite an uncomfortable feeling at times, too.

Much of the film was shot in the Canadian Rockies, including a sequence at Banff National Park. The cinematography of the countryside is breath-taking. It's enough to make you want to hop on a train and ride through the wilderness yourself. The insertion of maps throughout the film to indicate where the action is taking place is an inspired choice, probably the work of the film’s editor, David Lean, who would later become of the greatest directors. What 49th Parallel accomplishes, interestingly, is placing men who represent an unnatural evil (Nazism) inside the natural beauty of Canada. I don't know if the makers of 49th Parallel meant to draw that connection, but given that the film's title refers to the dividing line between Canada and the United States, it's impossible not to consider it when watching the film. It's certainly an unusual piece of propaganda from the World War II era, and it's intriguing to watch just for the ways in which the ordinary people of a country could have an impact on the outcome of a war.

Oscar Win: Best Original Motion Picture Story

Other Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Motion Picture and Best Screenplay

Test Pilot (1938)

I suspect that Test Pilot was nominated for Best Picture of 1938 on the strength of its spectacular flying sequences. The film features Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, and Spencer Tracy, all of them good, but what I paid particular attention to was the way that director Victor Fleming (one year away from helming Gone With the Wind) handles the footage of the planes. The planes themselves get closeups, and we’re treated to a lot of spinning propellors and gleaming metal surfaces. For a story about men who are trying out new, experimental planes, Test Pilot also never disappoints with its depictions of the dangers inherent in the title job.

Gable plays Jim Lane, a pilot for an airline run by Howard B. Drake (the ubiquitous Lionel Barrymore). Lane is a womanizer and a hard drinker who seldom gets enough sleep to make him truly ready to fly. That's where Tracy's Gunner Morris comes in. He's Jim's best friend and the only one who can seem to get him in the air and back down on the ground safely. It probably has a lot to do with the gum Gunner sticks on the plane before each flight; at least, that's what we as an audience are meant to believe. It’s an unexpectedly sweet move on the part of someone involved in such a typically macho pursuit.

While trying to set a speed record flying cross country, Jim encounters a thunderstorm. After the new plane starts leaking oil, he dumps all of the gasoline so it won't explode and lands in a field in Kansas. And who should happen to be in that field but the lovely Myrna Loy, playing a farm girl named Ann Barton. While Jim waits for Gunner to arrive and then finish repairs to the plane, he and Ann go to a baseball game and take in a movie. In short, they fall in love. Ann already has a boyfriend, Joe (Ted Pearson), but when Clark Gable asks you to fly away with him, you go. Even though he had already left for New York, once Jim sees the baseball field where they saw the game together, he turns the plane around and takes her to Indianapolis to be married.

Of course, test pilots would naturally make less-than-desirable husbands, given their propensity for dangerous behavior, and the owners of the airlines probably prefer single men to be test pilots since they have fewer reasons to play it safe in the air. So when Jim says he’s taking a week off for a honeymoon, Drake fires him instead. Jim and Ann (with Gunner tagging along too) now have to find a place of their own and another job for Jim to make money. He begins working for a rival of Drake's, even defeating Drake's new flyer, Benson (Louis Jean Heydt), in an air race that ends with a fatal crash. The sequence involving the crash also includes Jim flying a plane that catches on fire soon after take-off. The special effects were state-of-the-art stuff for 1938, and they're still pretty thrilling to watch even today.

Both Jim and Ann start to ponder the possibility of a crash ending his life, and each reacts in a different way. After giving half of the prize money to Benson's widow, Jim goes on a four-day bender, winding up in a Chicago hotel. Ann makes plans to leave Jim. He decides that he needs money to show Ann that he can support her and be a good husband, so he takes on every dangerous mission available. Perhaps they hadn't yet invented irony in 1938. He even tries to fly higher than any plane has flown before in a new military plane that will be carrying bombs.

It's the sequence involving the experiments with that new military plane that provide some of the most thrilling moments of Test Pilot. Tracy's Gunner forgets to put his gum on the plane the way he always does for luck, so you immediately know what's going to happen. He accompanies Jim on the flight, which involves carrying enough weight to simulate the size of the bomb the plane is designed to carry. As Jim keeps pushing the plane to reach 30,000 feet, the sand bags break loose and trap Gunner. The plane crashes into a forest, killing Gunner and leaving Jim to be the one to tell Ann that someone is dead from a plane crash, a task Gunner always feared he would have. It's a nerve-wracking, thrilling, emotional sequence to watch, and it's the highlight of the film.

Interestingly, the film starts with two disclaimers. The first is about the safety of air travel, no doubt an attempt to keep the airline industry from losing business when people see that planes can and do crash and that people sometimes die when planes crash: “Any hazards [the film] presents bear no relation to the safety of modern air transportation.” Sure. The other is about the military and the need to keep secret its operations and developments of new technology: “the technical data used [in the film] in no way represent the performance of any actual aircraft, either military or civil.” Again, sure. I doubt either warning was necessary although I can imagine that, given the powerful imagery of the film, some people might have thought they were watching a documentary.

Gable and Tracy are their usual reliable selves here. Both men were natural actors, and they work well together here. You can sense that their characters’ friendship is real (more on that in a bit), and they seem to have a good time in the scenes where they bicker. The gem among the actors in this movie, though, is Loy. She could be humorous, quick-witted, teary-eyed, sharp-tongued—you name it. Here she has what could be a thankless job, diverting attention away from the macho story involving the dangerous work of men in the air, but she always manages to make herself intriguing. Aside from the sequences involving the planes, the most interesting element of Test Pilot is Loy's performance.

When you watch some of these older films, you can’t help but notice that sometimes the tension isn’t always between just a male and female character. Consider that Tracy’s Gunner is the most consistent person in Jim Lane’s life, and he’s always trying to get Gable’s Jim to leave women alone. He even seems jealous when Jim marries Ann. Oh, I know some will say that’s just because Gunner wants Jim to keep making money so that Gunner can get his share, and he fears that marriage will “tame” Jim to where he won’t desire to keep flying. How then does a viewer explain that Gunner is just as tense as Ann when Jim flies. He’s just as worried about what might happen in a crash. Remember that the two men shared an apartment, and Jim even ensures that Gunner has a room in his new home with Ann. The bickering between Gunner and Jim is almost as pointed and racy as the bantering between Ann and Jim, and should I remind you that Gunner blows Jim a kiss more than once before takeoff? This usually occurs after one or the other of them has used “darling” or “honey” as a term of endearment. Even the camera seems to support this interpretation. At one point, while Loy’s Ann is driving, Gable’s Jim sits next to her in the front seat. Meanwhile, in the middle of the back seat, literally between them on the screen, sits Tracy’s Gunner. Remember, too, that it’s Gunner’s death after a crash that causes Jim to give up flying, not Ann’s consistent worrying about his safety. Yes, I’m fully aware that others will watch this film without noting any of the homoerotic moments I’ve discussed, but something seems to have been going on a lot in those older films after the implementation of the Production Code.

Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production, Best Original Story, and Best Film Editing

Zorba the Greek (1964)

Zorba the Greek, a nominee for Best Picture of 1964, primarily revolves around the charismatic performance of Anthony Quinn in the title role. Quinn, who had starred in so many Hollywood films over the years, truly shines as an unorthodox charmer who coaxes a repressed English writer (played by Alan Bates) into allowing him, essentially, to take over the writer's life. I know you're going to accuse me of being of a one-track mind when I say this, but Zorba the Greek is really focused on the attraction that Zorba and Bates's Basil have for each other. It's one of the most homoerotic of mainstream films of that era; it just never addresses its obvious homoeroticism.

Zorba and Basil meet while waiting for a ship to leave port. Basil is on his way to the island of Crete where his late father owned some property. He's thinking of starting up the mine on the land again, and Zorba begs Basil to let him go with him. As he puts it, "I like you. Take me with you." (Yeah, I don't know how I could read anything homoerotic into those lines, especially after Quinn's Zorba picks Basil out of a crowded room of passengers to strike up a conversation.) Zorba says he can cook for Basil and even claims to have some experience working as a miner. After the rain that has delayed the boat trip finally stops, the two endure a choppy ride to Crete together.

Almost immediately after their arrival, token love interests appear, both of them destined to end unhappily. Irene Papas, who sports one of the most striking visages in film, is a local widow whom all of the men of Crete seem to be lusting over. She, however, only has eyes for Basil, who (unsurprisingly, at least to me) seems to lack interest in starting a relationship with her. Zorba's love interest is Madame Hortense (played with gusto by Oscar winner Lila Kedrova), the proprietor of a rather shabby hotel where the two men initially stay when they get to the island. Of course, Zorba has first tried to get Basil to flirt with Madame Hortense but has to take over the "duties" himself when he realizes how inept Basil is at interactions with women. He won't even go to the widow's home to ask for the return of an umbrella he loans her, despite repeated prodding by Zorba.

Zorba and Basil reopen the mine, enlisting the help of several local men. Basil tries to help at first. However, he just isn't strong enough to do the physical labor. After all, he is a writer, a composer of poems and essays, not a laborer. The film is trying to make a rather obvious point about a life of experience versus a life of reading and writing, and I'm not sure that anyone who watches the film wouldn't know that you are supposed to follow Zorba's example and choose the life of experience. Zorba has so much more energy, so much more appreciation for life. Working in the mine is dangerous work, though, especially after the timbers holding up the ceiling collapse. That's when Zorba hits upon a scheme involving the trees in the forest belonging to a monastery and an elaborate, almost Rube Goldbergian contraption for transporting them down a hill. He takes some money to go purchase cables and other equipment for his idea, and when he gets to the town, he meets a young prostitute whom he tries to impress with champagne and flowers; it's almost as his pride is more important than his sexual prowess at this point. He stays in town a bit longer than expected to spend money on his new girlfriend, and even Basil begins to suspect that Zorba has betrayed him by taking their money and leaving for good.

While Zorba is gone, Basil does start a tentative relationship with the widow. They have one night together, but their relationship is doomed because one of the young men of the village, someone hopelessly in love with the widow, drowns himself. His body is carried through the village for everyone to see; naturally, they carry him right past the widow's home. At the young man's funeral, the villagers surround the widow and throw stones at her, and several men attempt to assault her. The young man's father cuts her throat, a horrific moment witnessed by Basil and Zorba. That is pretty severe punishment either for sleeping with a foreigner or having sex outside of wedlock or whatever "crime" the villages feel she has committed. Of course, the film needs to have fewer distractions from the relationship between Basil and Zorba anyway, so the widow's death conveniently leaves Basil without a love interest.

Zorba's relationship with Madame Hortense ends no better. She is rapidly declining in health, and she eventually pressures Zorba into marrying her. I'd imagine it's her death scene that won Kedrova the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, even though I think it could have been played with more subtlety. After she passes, the women and other townspeople ransack the hotel, taking everything of value with them. Madame Hortense's room is picked bare, with only her body left untouched on her deathbed and a bird in a cage beside her. She's even refused a proper burial because she is French, not Greek. Again, that's appalling behavior on the part of the villagers, and I don't really care how ethnocentric that sounds. Still, it frees Zorba to spend more time with Basil and carry out their plans to make a fortune with the reopened mine.

We first have to see, of course, if Zorba's contraption works. Each attempt is a failure, and the apparatus is quickly destroyed by the logs slamming into the framework. You can make of that what you will, all those phallic logs banging into what is obviously a symbolic vagina and knocking it over. After this defeat, Basil and Zorba are left alone on the beach, and Basil asks Zorba to teach him how to dance. The two men are side by side, arms clutching, having a great time. It's interesting how many of the moments involving dances in the film are men-only moments. Zorba admits to Basil, "I've never loved a man more than you," but by this point, we know that their relationship must also end now that Basil no longer has any financial prospects in Crete. It almost seems as if no bond can last in this film, regardless of the couple involved.

Quinn played so many different roles during his long film career. Although born in Mexico, he was often asked to play men of other ethnicities. He played Greek characters, Italians, Cubans, even Arabs. He won two Oscars for supporting roles in the 1950s, but he was never better than in Zorba the Greek. He was nominated for Best Actor of 1964 for the role, but he lost to Rex Harrison's Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. It's a tough call. When you watch Quinn's Zorba drink a little too much (or a lot too much) and dance with gusto to the hypnotic music by Mikis Theodorakis or when you hear that laugh, that inimitable laugh, you start to think he just might have been a better choice.