92. Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Stars:  Elizabeth Taylor (Martha), Richard Burton (George), George Segal (Nick), Sandy Dennis (Honey)

Director: Mike Nichols

Awards / Honors

• 5 Oscar Wins – Best Actress (Elizabeth Taylor), Best Supporting Actress (Sandy Dennis), Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design

• 7 Additional Oscar Nominations - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Richard Burton), Best Supporting Actor (George Segal), Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Film Editing, Best Music (Original Score), Best Sound

• #67 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (2007)

Genre:  Drama

Running Time:  2 Hours, 11 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 ½ Stars (John - 4 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

Three things.

First, after watching this movie I have decided that at some point I have to see the movie “A Man for All Seasons”, and “The Fortune Cookie”.  This is because Paul Scofield, who beat out Richard Burton for Best Actor and Walter Matthau who beat out George Segal for Best Supporting Actor must have had unbelievable performances in those movies.  However, unless I am just blown away by those two performances, I am just going to have to assume that the “fix” was in that year.  It has been a long time since I have been as impressed with the performance of an entire cast as I was with the cast of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  Granted, there are only four people in the movie (five if you want to count the bartender that has a single line), but still…  If you want to see an example of why Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are “Screen Legends”, then you don’t need to look any farther than this movie.

Second, if you want to understand how symbolism can be used effectively in a story, this is a good movie to study.  Virtually everything in this film has some sort of symbolic importance – even the title of the movie.  For those of you are not familiar with Virginia Woolf, she was an early 20th Century English author who is best know for stream-of-consciousness writing that frequently touched the effects of war and other forms trauma on individuals.  Her worked also tended to touch on the idea of living life with no life with no illusions.  Early on in the movie, Elizabeth Taylor’s character sings “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” as a parody of the Disney song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” from “The Three Little Pigs”.  However, as the movie goes on, it becomes clear that this movie is going to delve quite deeply into the real meaning(s) of that question – Who’s Afraid of Living Life without Illusions?  Who’s Afraid of Looking at the Damage We Do to Those We Profess to Love?  As we watch George and Martha’s little after-hours party, the symbolism continues flow into the dialogue at gradually quickening pace, until the dialog stops being simply symbolic and transforms into a type of foreshadowing. George and Martha are always one step ahead of their guests (and us the audience) – the true meaning of their banter and arguing only becomes clear later as we learn more about them.  However, just as we have figured out what their earlier statements really meant, they are off busy talking and arguing about something else. 

Third, this film is probably one of the exhausting movies I have ever seen.  I have been in 2 hour-long arguments / fights with family members that were less exhausting than watching this movie.  Watching four people tear into each other for two hours can take a lot of out you.

After the film was over Beth and discussed if this was the most tragic / depressing of the movies on are list that we had watched so far?  Initially, we both felt it was clearly the most depressing, but as we discussed it, it became a little less clear cut.  For example, Sophie’s Choice – the story a Holocaust survivor – is hardly a feel-good romp.  Then you have movies like The Last Picture Show and Do the Right Thing, not to mention pure melodramas like A Place in the Sun and Wuthering Heights.  Declaring a film “most-depressing-so-far” wasn’t quite so clear cut.

Ultimately, however, Beth and I returned to this movie as “the-most-depressing-so-far”.  It won out for two reasons.  The first reason was the forementioned exhaustion we felt after watching it.  Watching Sophie having to choose between her son and her daughter was horrifically sad.  Watching Sonny come to realize that he would never escape that small town was depressing.  Radio Raheem being murdered by the police was tragic.  However, none of those things left us feeling like we had just run three miles.  The second reason is that the other movies all leave the viewer some sort glimpse of hope – Mookie and Sal come to an understanding; Singo goes on with his life; Ruth Popper is there for Sonny; the spirits of Heathcliff and Catherine walk off together; even George manages to come to terms with his fate at the end of A Place in the Sun.  In Who’s Afraid, however, no one escapes unscathed. There is no glimpse of hope – all four of them are trapped, and they don’t even have their lies to hide behind anymore.

I truly believe that this film truly deserves to be referred to as a “classic”.  Despite that this movie is artistically and technically brilliant I can’t give it a perfect ranking of 5 Stars.  As I mentioned back in the All the President’s Men post, for me to consider a movie truly great and get a 5 Star rating from me, I need to find it highly re-watchable.  It has to be able to make me stop and watch it if I happen to stumble across it while channel surfing.  I can say with all honesty that the odds of me watching this movie again casually are pretty low.  It is just too emotionally brutal.  Thus, it is just going to have to make due with a ranking of 4 Stars.

John

93. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Stars:  Frank Sinatra (Maj. Bennett Marco), Laurence Harvey (Raymond Shaw), Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Iselin), James Gregory (Sen. John Yerkes Iselin), Janet Leigh (Eugenie Rose Chaney), Leslie Parrish (Jocelyn Jordan) 

Director:  John Frankenheimer

 

Awards / Honors

• 2 Oscar nominations - Best Supporting Actress (Angela Lansbury), Best Film Editing
• #67 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1998)
• #17 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills (2001)
• #21 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains – Mrs. Iselin, Villain (2003)

Genre:  Drama (Political Thriller)

Running Time:  2 Hours, 6 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

 

John's Take

While watching this movie, Beth and I started discussing the apparent lack of purpose that Janet Leigh’s character, Eugenie, has in this movie.  During that brief discussion, Beth made a comment something along the lines of “Why does Janet Leigh always play these weird roles? Like how she gets wacked right near the beginning of Psycho…”  Her comment struck me for two reasons.  First, I was pleasantly surprised that Beth even knew that Janet Leigh was in Psycho.  Truth be told, despite me being a larger “classic film” buff than Beth, if you wait six months and ask me, “What is the name of the actress that killed at the beginning of Psycho?”, I would probably choke and not remember.  I am terrible at names and I pretty much rely on Beth to keep me up to date on “entertainment news”.  If I want to know which star is getting married / getting a divorce, she is the person I turn to.  However, Psycho was bit before her (and TMZ’s) time, so I was pleasantly surprised.  Kudos to Beth.  The second reason her comment struck me as profound, was the fact that it was probably more truthful than she realized.  Not to disparage the career of Janet Leigh, but one has to admit that her most well-known roles all have sort of odd twist / idiosyncrasy that contribute as much to their notoriety as does her performance.

 

For example, there is the previously mentioned Psycho (film #16 on our list, by the way) in which her character is killed in the first third of the movie despite being the “star” of the film.  In the film Safari, her character decides it is good idea to tour a crocodile-infested river in a rubber raft.  In Touch of Evil…  OK, the fact that Charlton Heston is trying very hard and failing equally as hard to play a Mexican character – yet it still kind of works because, well, he is Charlton Heston – is more quirky than anything Janet does in the film.  That being said, does anybody believe for a second that Janet Leigh is physically capable of strangling anyone?  No, I didn’t think so.  So, why do any of the characters in the film believe she could?

 

That brings us back to her role in this film.  While watching the film I just assumed that she was tossed in because some Hollywood exec decided that Frank Sinatra needed a love interest and hat film needed more “star power”.  However, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a case of me just missing some subtle element in the script or her performance that explains why the heck she is even on screen.  Thus, I decided to do a quick internet search before I wrote this post – no harm in double checking.  Guess what I found!  In the Frequently Asked Questions section of the IMDb entry for The Manchurian Candidate was the question, “What’s Up with Janet Leigh’s Character?” Ah-ha!!  Beth and I were not ones who noticed that her character was pointless and much of her dialog didn’t really make sense.  So, what was the answer to the question you ask?

Rosie's inexplicable dialogue in the train scene was taken, according to the director's commentary, from the novel.  Its meaning is a manner of debate among fans and is up to interpretation.  It's possible she was simply saying strange things to catch his attention. Another theory is that she was Marco's [Frank Sinatra’s] "American operator," working with the conspiracy and trying to control Marco.  Another theory, which the 2004 remake endorses, is that she was working with the federal government. 

In other words, nobody really knows.  How terribly unsatisfying.

 

I guess I could go read the novel, but since I really have no desire to do that, I decided to do the next best thing – look up the novel in Wikipedia and see if I could find an answer there.  Unfortunately, I really only managed to learn that this film is considered by some to be a fairly accurate portrayal of the book (which implies that the Eugenie character is just as ubiquitous in the book as in the film), and that the author, Richard Condon, died roughly 15 years ago which means asking him directly is not really an option at this point. Again, terribly unsatisfying. 

 

This unresolved question then brought to mind yet another question.  In an industry know for “adapting” source material in anyway they happen to see fit, how does a successful director like John Frankenheimer not take a look at the script and say, “Hey, this character makes no sense. Maybe we could just cut her right out and have Janet play Leslie Parrish’s part…”?  Having Janet play Leslie’s part seems like a reasonable solution to me. J anet would have ended up with more or less the same amount of screen time and the film would still have had “big name” actress.  At least Leslie’s character had a point to it.  Not only does a surprising amount Janet Leigh’s dialog make no sense, her character really doesn’t do anything to move the plot along.  You could literally cut out all of her scenes from the finished work and it would have absolutely no affect on the plot whatsoever.  No one would even miss her. 

 

However, that isn’t what happened and we are stuck with this slightly annoying ambiguity.  It appears that the question of “What’s Up with Janet Leigh’s Character?” is simply one of those mysteries that will never truly be solved.  More’s the pity.

 

I give The Manchurian Candidate a rating of 3 Stars.  Overall, it is a good movie and I would certainly watch it again, but there are certainly better movies on this list.

 

John

 

94. An American in Paris (1951)

Stars:  Gene Kelly (Jerry Mulligan), Leslie Caron (Lise Bouvier), Oscar Levant (Adam Cook), Georges Guétary (Henri Baurel), Nina Foch (Milo Roberts)

Director: Vincente Minnelli

Awards / Honors

• 6 Oscar wins – Best Picture, Best Writing, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Musical Score.
• 2 Additional Oscar Nominations – Best Director, Best Film Editing
• #68 on AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movies list (1998)
• #39 on AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Passions list (2002)
• #32 on AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Songs list – “I Got Rhythm” (2004)
• # 9 on AFI’s Greatest Movie Musicals list (2006)
• In 1993, An American in Paris was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

 Genre:  Musical

 Running Time:  1 hour, 53 minutes

 Format:  DVD, Blu-ray

 Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John – 3 Stars, Beth – 3 Stars)

John's Take 

So, this “screening” of An American in Paris was going to be the first time that I had ever watched the film all the way through from the beginning to the end.  I had seen bits and pieces of the film before – the ballet scene at the end of the film is usually part of any Film 101 college course after all – but never all the way through.  In addition, I have always been a bit of Gene Kelly fan, so I was kind of looking forward to finally sitting down and seeing all of it.

Let’s start out with the highlights.  First, the transfer to Blu-ray was fantastic.  The film is really quite gorgeous to watch. I send out a well deserved ‘Kudos” to the folks that worked on the restoration of the film.  They even did a nice job restoring the film’s original Mono soundtrack – the dialogue is clear and the musical numbers sound much “fuller” than one might expect from mono.

Second, Oscar Levant’s rendition of Gershwin’s Concerto in F is absolutely my favorite part of the film.  This is due in part to manner in which Vincente Minnelli shot that scene.  The shot is framed in a manner that really emphasizes Oscar’s hands just pounding on the keys of the piano.  Really the whole scene is just wonderful rendition of someone daydreaming about performing their favorite music.

Third, the “making of” featurette included on the disc is really quite excellent.  If you ever wanted to get a quick introduction in what critics are always going on about as far as things like “visual style” and what exactly Art Directors really do, then you will want to check it out.  The feature isn’t real long, but it does an excellent job of telling the story behind the movie and giving examples of how artistic elements are woven into films – such how the styles of various French Impressionist painters are used to affect the look of this film.

And of course, the final ballet at the end of the film is just fabulously done.

Now, for the stuff that, while not necessarily bad, certainly felt “out of sorts” for a lack of a better description.

For one, the film has surprisingly dark undertones.  You never get the feeling that anybody really ends up living happily-ever-after.  Milo and Henri certainly aren’t very happy.  We can assume Henri goes on with his American tour, but we never really know what happens to Milo after she wanders off to drown her sorrows in champagne after being dumped by Gene Kelly.  Oscar Levant’s character, Adam, just kind of stumbles off back into the party thus we never really know what becomes of him either.  Even in the case of Gene Kelly’s and Leslie Caron’s characters, we, the audience, know that the two of them really don’t know each other that well since they spent most of the movie keeping secretes from each other.  To paraphrase the “making of” featurette, An American in Paris kind of has a Graduate sort of ending.  The guy gets the girl, but you are kind of left with an ‘OK, what do we do now?’ sort of feeling.  Not exactly the sort of thing you expect from a classic MGM musical.

Second, there is no dialog for the last 20 minutes or so of the film.  Granted it is the ballet that everyone always remembers and praises about the film and I even singled it out for praise earlier in this post, but nearly 60 years later, it still feels… well, odd.  I remember having a discussion with someone about this film who said of the ending, “If it is so great, why hasn’t it been copied more often?”  There may be a small grain of truth hidden in that question. I s Hollywood so stunted artistically that it can’t find ways to recreate / reuse that type of visual style, or do we simply confuse uniqueness with art?  Maybe a little bit of both.

Ultimately, it comes down to this.  Beth and I both liked the movie, but we didn't think is was great.  Parts of it we thought were brilliant.  Parts of it we thought were just OK.  It certainly one of the prettiest films on the list, but overall there are films on the list that are better.  We both give An American in Paris a rating of 3 Stars. 

John

BETH'S TAKE:

It's not that I didn't like this movie..it was just "OK". I felt there was absolutely no chemistry whatsoever with Gene Kelly and Lise Bouvier. The relationship between the two was not believable by any means. And even though they ended up together at the end...I didn't believe that they would stay together. The 20 minute ballet scene at the end, although very good...was a bit too long for me. But as I stated...the movie was "OK" LOL

97. Wuthering Heights (1939)

Stars:  Laurence Olivier (Heathcliff), Merle Oberon (Catherine), David Niven (Edgar Linton), Flora Robson (Ellen Dean), Geraldine Fitzgerald (Isabella Linton)

Director:  William Wyler

Awards / Honors

• 1 Oscar Win - Best Cinematography (Black & White - Gone with the Wind won for Color)
• 7 Additional Oscar Nominations - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Laurence Olivier), Best Supporting Actress (Geraldine Fitzgerald), Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Art Direction, Best Orginal Score
• #73 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1998)
• #15 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions list (2002)
• In 2007, Wuthering Heights was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Romantic Drama

Running Time:  1 Hour, 43 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray -- see below)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

If you are wondering why this is not a very long post, it is because, once again I staging a little protest in hopes that I can actually get Beth to create a post on a blog that was, in fact, her idea to start with.  I choose to do this now because: 

1. She liked this movie a little more than I did, so it makes sense she would have something to say about it.
2. Perhaps now that we are actually married, she will take a little time away from all of the other social networking sites she spends time on and actually contribute to “our” blog because I ask her too.  Ultimately, I do not hold out much hope, but one can always dream….

One thing, I will mention, however, was the difficulty that I had actually tracking a copy of this film down.  It wasn’t available on Netflix – it is listed on the site, but only with the “Save” option indicating that it isn’t currently available.  It wasn’t available at our local Blockbuster.  Best Buy didn’t have a copy of it either. Ultimately, I had to track down a non-regionalized copy on Amazon.com that was intended for the South Korean market (the packaging is a mix of English and Korean, and Korean is the sub-title option).  Not sure why it was so difficult to track down.  Usually that indicates some sort of “repackaging” deal, such as an “anniversary” or upcoming conversion to Blu-ray, is going to be announced soon.  However, since the next major anniversary for this film is still four years away (75th), and there is no mention on websites such as Blu-ray.com concerning a Blu-ray release, I am left sort of confused.

If anyone happens to know more about why this movie is currently “not available”, please leave a post and let me know.

Oh… and I give Wuthering Heights a rating of 3 Stars.

John

BETH'S TAKE:

I think I am a little late with "My Take" on this film...John posted his thoughts in August 2010...it's now January 2011...Sorry sweetie..better late than never though right?? LOL

John's right, I did like this movie alot. I wanted Heathcliff and Catherine to get together so badly. He truly loved her..and she loved him...but he was just never going to be good enough for her in her mind. She married Edgar for the wrong reasons...it was so "Gone With The Wind-ish" for me :). Edgar and Heathcliff deserved better than Catherine..but she have charm about her which drove them both crazy!

Oh and P.S. I wonder if Bill Cosby got his name "Heathcliff" (on the Cosby Show) from this movie...HMMM, not a very common name LOL

101. Titanic (1997)

Stars:  Leonardo DiCaprio (Jack Dawson), Kate Winslet (Rose DeWitt Bukater), Gloria Stuart (Rose Dawson Calvert), Billy Zane (Cal Nathan Hockley), Kathy Bates (The Unsinkable Molly Brown), Bill Paxton (Brock Lovett)

Director:  James Cameron  

Awards / Honors

• 11 Oscar Wins - Best Bicture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, Best Original Song ("My Heart Will Go On"), Best Art Direction
• 3 Additional Oscar Nominations - Best Actress (Kate Winslet), Best Supporting Actress (Gloria Stuart), Best Makeup
• #25 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills list (2001)
• #37 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions list (2002)
• #14 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs list - "My Heart Will Go On" (2004) 
• #100 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list - "I'm king of the world!" (2005)
• # 83 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (2007)
• #6 on AFI's 10 Top 10 list - Epic Films (2008)
• Titanic is approximately the 6th highest grossing movie of all time, accounting for inflation (see Box Office Mojo)

Genre:  Historical / Romantic Drama

Running Time:  3 Hours, 14 Minutes

Format:  DVD (Not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3Stars)

John's Take

Of the 20 or so films on this list that I hadn’t seen before starting our little film Odyssey, this was the only film that I was actively dreading.  I really expected to hate this movie, and part of me really wanted to hate this movie.  I recognize that there is a certain level of irony in a situation where I write a review that focuses on how “backlash” can have an adverse effect on how we perceive a film (Dances with Wolves below) and that it ends up getting posted between two reviews where my perception of the films and / or its fans have been clearly affected by backlash (this one and Pulp Fiction).  So, I promise to try to not let any of the preconceived notions that have been become firmly entrenched in my mind over the years affect my review of this movie.

As I said, I really didn’t want to like this movie.  In fact, over the years, I have has actively tried to avoid this movie like it was a plague carrying rodent.  Why?  Well because I felt betrayed by James Cameron.  Here was a man that made great “guy movies” like The Terminator, Rambo, First Blood Part II, Aliens and True Lies and he goes and makes a giant chic flix?  I was appalled.  I strongly suspected that James Cameron had been replaced some sort of alien shape-shifter that was secretly trying to emasculate all men as part of a plot to take over the planet.  Part of me was certain that if I watched the movie that it would somehow suck all of my testosterone out of my body in much the same way a vampire might suck out all my blood.  Side Note: Speaking of blood-sucking, I currently feel the same way about the Twilight movies as well, but at a level about ten-fold of what I felt about Titanic. 

Having now watched it, I must reluctantly admit that Titanic wasn’t all that bad.  It wasn’t the greatest movie I had ever seen but it was certainly better than films like A Place in the Sun or All the President’s Men.  Also, I haven’t noticed any drop in my testosterone level, but the jury is still out on the vampiric properties of the film.  Until those test results come in, I am giving the movie a ranking of 3 Stars.

Having said all that, one important question remains – how did this movie become one of the highest grossing movies of all times?  Look, I realize I am a male so maybe it is just biologically impossible for me to understand, but can some woman out in the Inter-verse please try to explain this to me?  Unfortunately Beth is no help in this case.  She kind of feels the same way about the movie as I do (she hadn’t seen the movie either).  While I am certainly not a fan of chic flixs in general, I am not without a certain level of appreciation for some of them. I like Steel Magnolias, Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, and the Mother-Of-All-Chic-Flixs Gone with the Wind, for example.  Still, I don’t understand why did women go and see this movie over and over again?  At the time of the film’s release my friend Rob explained it as “some sort of bizarre mother / daughter rite of passage”. Is that it?  Because really, I just don’t understand.

So, again, women of the Internet, please, please tell me why you all spent so much money on Titanic?  I really want to know, because there is got to be some way to use that information to my advantage. 

I won’t even discuss all the Oscars, other than I believe part of the reason why The Hurt Locker beat out Avatar for Best Picture was The Academy’s way of making up for all the awards that it heaped on Titanic.  Like an NBA or NFL ref calling a ticky-tack foul later in a game to make up for a bad call they made earlier in the game.

OK, some of my preconceptions are starting to reemerge, so let’s just end this post before it starts to get out of control.  Again, the movie was far better than I thought it was going to be.  In fact, I would go on to say that I actually kind of enjoyed it.  That being said, I truly don’t understand how Titanic became one of the highest grossing; most award winning movies of all time.  It is good, but it is not that good.  I also wouldn’t include it as one of the all-time best.  The only explanation I can come up with is that James Cameron has indeed been replaced by an alien – we will just have to wait and see.

John

BETH'S TAKE:

When this movie first came out in 1997 I said that I wouldn't see it...everyone knows what happens...the ship sinks.

But now that I have seen it, I am glad that I did.

The side story with Jack and Rose is very sweet. Kate Winslet did an awesome job on the part of Rose. I am not a huge fan of Leo, but he was pretty good also. I must say, the movie made me think of all of those families that were less fortunate and were made to stay on the boat until the more fortunates were rescued. Just horrible!

Bonus Film: El Dorado (1967)

Stars:  John Wayne (Cole Thornton), Robert Mitchum (Sheriff J.P. Harrah), James Caan (Mississippi), Ed Asner (Bart Jason), Charlene Holt (Maudie), Paul Fix (Dr. Miller), Michele Carey (Josephine 'Joey' MacDonald), Arthur Hunnicutt (Bull Harris)

Director:  Howard Hawks

Awards / Honors

• None of any note

Genre:  Western

Running Time:  2 Hours, 6 minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 1/4 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 2 Stars, Jeff - 4 Stars, TJ - 4 Stars)

John's Take

From the movie Get Shorty:

[Bo Catlett is pointing a gun at Chili Palmer’s head]

Bo Catlett:  This time there ain’t any John Wayne and Dean Martin shootin' bad guys in El Dorado...

Chili Palmer:  That was Rio Bravo.  Robert Mitchum played the drunk in El Dorado; Dean Martin played the drunk in Rio Bravo.  Basically, it was the same part.  Now John Wayne played the same part in both movies, he played John Wayne...

Bo Catlett:  Man, I just can't wait for you to be dead!

And that ladies and gentlemen pretty much sums up everything you need to know about the movie El Dorado.  Just take the movie Rio Bravo, replace all of the cast members except for John Wayne, and you are finished:

          El Dorado (1967)                           Rio Bravo (1959)

Robert Mitchum (Harrah)  replaces  Dean Martin (Dude)

James Caan (Mississippi)  replaces  Ricky Nelson (Colorado)

Charlene Holt (Maudie)     replaces  Angie Dickinson (Feathers)

Arthur Hunnicutt (Bull)      replaces  Walter Brennan (Stumpy)

Ed Asner (Jason)              replaces  John Russell (Burdette)  

The plots are basically the same – a sheriff needs to defend his jailhouse from a well financed group of criminals.  Just certain elements of the story get mixed around.  For example, Mitchum is the drunken sheriff while Martin was the drunken deputy.  Ricky Nelson is high proficient gunfighter where James Caan is a horrible shot (but very good with a knife), etc.

By just looking at the actors involved in the films, you might assume that El Dorado is the superior movie.  I mean, Mitchum, Caan, Asner – those are pretty good actors, so it is probably the better of the two movies, right?  Nope, you would be wrong.  El Dorado isn’t nearly as good as Rio Bravo.  That is not to say that Rio Bravo is necessarily a cinematic masterpiece, but of the two, Rio Bravo is clearly the better film.  

Supposedly director Howard Hawks purposely planned a “trilogy” of movies all based around the same basic premise of a besieged sheriff (Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Rio Lobo).  While that may be partially true, I personally there is a little bit of film history retcon going on as well (i.e., it was basically just easier to keep remaking the same movie).  I mean, this is the same guy that directed films like Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Sergeant York and The Big Sleep.  El Dorado and Rio Lobo were the best “re-makes” he could come up with?

Is El Dorado a terrible movie?  No, it has its moments, and it can be fairly funny at times.  Some of that comedy is unintentional, but hey, it works so why knock it.  It is just one of many examples of a movie that would have failed horribly without John Wayne’s involvement.  Granted, as Chili says, he just spends the whole movie being John Wayne, but as is often the case in his movies, that John Wayne mystique is usually sufficient to make the occasionally ridiculous dialog and plot elements just a tad bit more palatable.

So how did this movie end up on this blog?  Well, Official Friends of Beth and John’s Movie Odyssey, Jeff and TJ, are big fans of this movie (or more accurately put, fans of some of the ridiculous dialog in this movie – “He was limping when he left…” “He was limping when he got here!!”), and they were coming over to watch Pulp Fiction with Beth and I.  They had no interest in watching All the Presidents Men, however, and TJ wanted to take the opportunity to see El Dorado on my 65 inch HD television.  So we delayed our viewing of All the of President’s Men until the next day, and watched El Dorado instead.  Was it a good trade off?  Not really, but hey at least it was funny…

And it gets a ranking of 3 (weak) Stars from me.

John

107. Giant (1956)

Stars:  Elizabeth Taylor (Leslie Benedict), Rock Hudson (Jordan "Bick" Benedict Jr.), James Dean (Jett Rink), Mercedes McCambridge (Luz Benedict)

Director:  George Stevens

Awards / Honors

• 1 Oscar win - Best Director
• 9 Additional Nominations - Best Picture, Best Actor (Rock Hudson), Best Actor (James Dean), Best Supporting Actress (Mercedes McCambridge), Best Writing (Adpated Screenplay), Best Art Direction, Best Music (Score), Best Costume Design
• #82 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1998)
• In 2005, Giant was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Romantic Drama

Running Time:  3 Hours, 21 Minutes

Format:  DVD (Not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

I was a little apprehensive about watching Giant.  This is because, at first glance, Giant looks a great deal like the movie A Place in the Sun.  Both films are melodramas (i.e., chick flics).  They both star Elizabeth Taylor, and they are both directed by George Stevens.  As I have documented earlier, I really didn’t like A Place in the Sun, so let’s just say that I wasn’t expecting much from Giant.  Toss in the facts that we had just finished watching Yankee Doodle Dandy, which was a bit of a disappointment, and that Giant clocks in at just under 3 ½ hours long, and I was fairly certain that I was going to be on the receiving end of some snarky comments from Beth.  She seems to like to blame me when the movies are not very good – as if I had something to do with making them.  I try pointing that fact out to her, but usually I just get “Well, it was your idea to watch it…” in response.  In other words, if Giant ended up being as bad as or worse than Yankee Doodle Dandy, I was going to have to put with about a week’s worth of “You wasted six hours of my weekend… Six hours I will never get back…”comments. 

Luckily for me, Giant turned out to be pretty good, or at least a lot better than I had expected, and thus I was spared any snarky comments.  However, while I was watching the movie, it felt like there were one or two things tugging at me – distracting me, if you will.  It wasn’t really until I got ready to write this post, that I finally was finally able make sense of distractions.

The first distraction was the “implementation”, of James Dean’s character Jett Rink.  Traditionally in “melodramas”, this character would have the diamond-in-the-rough whose true value as a human being would come to the surface through the love and attention of the female lead, and eventually the female lead ends up with this character.  In other words, if the story in Giant had followed the traditional chick flic formula, then the story should have gone something like this:

1.  Conservative, sexist, bigoted Rock Hudson brings young, liberal, open-minded Elizabeth Taylor – his new bride – home to his cattle ranch after a whirlwind courtship.  There she meets skulking, mumbling James Dean.

2.  James Dean instantly has the hots for Elizabeth Taylor.  Elizabeth Taylor instantly sees through the uneducated, stalker-like exterior of Dean to his heart of gold and is surprised by how attractive she finds him.

3.  Rock Hudson inexplicably senses this and takes steps to separate the two.  Hudson and Taylor’s relationship hits hard times due to their differing world views (i.e., Hudson acts like a jerk).

4.  Elizabeth Taylor can’t quite seem to shake her interest in Dean, however, and seeks him out.  The two talk, and they both feel that there is chemistry between them.

5.  Due in part to the encouragement of Taylor and to a series of convenient and fortunate events, Dean becomes just a wealthy, if not more so, than Hudson. 

6.  Dean arrives during a major fight between Taylor and Hudson.  Dean confronts Hudson; rescues Taylor from his sexist, bigoted clutches and Dean and Taylor live happily ever after.

Except that is not what happens.

Oh, don’t get me wrong Giant is most definitely a chick flic, so bullet points one through five go off without a hitch.  However, at the point of the film where Dean is supposed to come in and win Taylor away from Hudson, he doesn’t.  I mean, he shows up to confront Rock Hudson alright, except he is drunk off his ass and acting even mumbleier, skulkier, and stalker-like than ever before.  He flaunts his new wealth to Hudson and is all “Hey, baby – buy you a drink?” to Taylor.  In other words, the underdog just won, but instead of riding off with the girl, he acts like such an ass that he permanently pushes Taylor back into Hudson’s arms.  This would have never happened if John Cusack had been playing Jett Rink, I assure you. 

At this point you are probably thinking the same thing that I was thinking – “Ah, this must be the event that triggers a change in Hudson’s ways.”  Nope.  Rock Hudson pretty much spends the next two hours of the movie being just as sexist and bigoted as he was at the beginning of the movie.  Oh, sure he sort of gets over his anti-Mexican stance once his son marries a Mexican woman and she gives birth to his grandson, but you sort of get the feeling that this change of heart more applies to just Hudson / Benedict’s immediate family in a no-one-messes-with-a-Benedict sort of way than to Mexicans in general.  The daughter-in-law and grandson are more than welcome at the house at Thanksgiving, but I suspect that Uncle Pedro showing up might be a different matter.  All the while, James Dean’s character just continues to get creepier and more pathetic as the film goes on.  And what of Taylor’s character?  She just seems resigned to the fact that she is never going to change Hudson and will just take whatever small victories come her way.  In short, the film starts off traveling down the well-traveled chick flic highway, only to suddenly swerve off the road into the underbrush of what-the-heck-is-going-here?

Then there was the second thought / distraction that kept buzzing around in my head.  Have you ever seen the “Mirror, Mirror” episode of original Star Trek series?  It is the one where, due to a transporter malfunction, evil duplicates of Spock, etc. are brought to the Enterprise from a parallel universe.  Well, that is what Giant is.  It is the Mirror Universe version of Gone with the Wind.  Yes, I know that it will take you a moment to wrap your head around that concept.  It took me a little while to work through it as well.  Let me run through some of the evidence and I think you will see that I am right.

Take Scarlet O’Hara and Leslie Benedict, for example.  Both are the female leads of their respective movies, and both come from rich families, but where Scarlet is self-centered, greedy, and culturally insensitive; Leslie is kind-hearted, generous, and concerned for the well-being of those around her.  Scarlet marries for gain, all the while pining away for the man she can’t have.  Leslie, while perhaps a bit hasty in her choice of husbands, works hard to make family work and never spends much time worrying about “what if”.  Put a goatee on Vivian Leigh and you definitely have “Evil Leslie”.

Then you have Rhett Butler and Jordan "Bick" Benedict.  Rhett is devil-may-care roguish charmer, where Bick is the uptight stuffed-shirt.  Rhett has a reputation for being a bit of a womanizer, where Bick would always be a perfect gentleman.  Rhett was the black sheep of the family where Bick was always the heir-apparent.  Rhett was usually kind to those less fortunate than himself.  Bick would have a hard time even seeing them.  Rhett leaves Scarlet.  Leslie leaves Bick.

Now let’s compare Jett Rink and Ashley Wilkes.  It is safe to assume that Ashley was educated at the best schools, while Jett is self-educated.  Ashley is noble and gentlemanly.  Jett is, well, creepy.  Jett wasn’t afraid of hard work, while Ashley never worked a day in his life.  Ashley started out life rich but ended up relatively poor.  Jett started out poor but ended up ridiculously rich.  Ashley couldn’t get Scarlet to leave him alone, and Jett can’t get enough of Leslie’s attention.

I could go on and on.  One movie takes place in the green, relatively fertile lands of Georgia while the other takes place in dry, dusty lands of Texas.  One movie has a happy ending, the other one doesn’t.  It is as if someone sat down with a copy of Gone with the Wind and proceeded to write a second story by making all of the characters and situations nearly the exact opposite of those in the original work.  I am not crazy here.  If you think about it some, I am sure you will come up with even more parallels.  I think Giant may in fact be physical proof of parallel universes and it has been sitting right here under our noses for over fifty years now. 

So, are all these things bad things?  No, not really.  They did upset my concept of how chick flics are supposed unfold, however.  The characters end-up acting a little sort of like real people – attitudes are not changed, just tempered; the underdog doesn’t get the girl; being poor doesn’t necessarily make you the good guy and being rich doesn’t necessarily make you the bad guy; etc..  I expected something very cliché and ended up watching something just slightly different.  As ridiculous as it may sound, however, those moments of “realism” did prevent me from enjoying the movie as much as I would like.  I found the tiny, tiny bits of reality mixed into a stereotypical Hollywood melodrama to be a bit distracting at times.

I may need to see this movie again to really determine exactly what my “final ranking” for this movie is.  However, since I went to see Letters to Juliet recently and there is a small possibility that Beth is going to force me to see Sex and the City 2, I will probably hold off on that lest all my testosterone be completely drained from my body.  In the meantime, Giant will just have to settle for a ranking of 3 Stars from me. 

John

 

 

 

108. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Stars:  James Cagney (George M. Cohan), Joan Leslie (Mary Cohan), Walter Huston (Jerry Cohan), Richard Whorf (Sam Harris)

Director:  Michael Curtiz

Awards / Honors

• 3 Oscar Wins - Best Actor (James Cagney), Best Music (Score), Best Sound Mixing
• 5 Additional Oscar Nominations - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Walter Huston), Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Film Editing
• #100 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1998)
• #71 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs list - "Yankee Doodle Boy" (2004)
• #97 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list - "My mother thanks you.  My father thanks you.  My sister thanks you.  And I thank you." (2005)
• #18 on AFI's 100 Years of Musicals list (2006)
• #88 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers list (2006)
• #98 on AFI's 100 Years.. 100 Movies list (2007)
• In 1993, Yankee Doodle Dandy was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Musical

Running Time:  2 Hours, 6 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

Neither Beth nor I had seen this movie before, so we were kind of interested in seeing whether or not this movie lived up to all the hype.  The idea that Yankee Doodle Dandy, the story of legendary Broadway producer / writer / performer George M. Cohan, is a true classic is near universal in its acceptance.  As it says above, this movie is on 6 AFI movie lists (including being on both of the 100 Years… 100 Movies lists), won three Oscars and was nominated for 5 more.  It was one of James Cagney’s favorite movies, and as I understand it, this movie became the first colorized film because it was Ted Turner’s favorite.  After watching it, I can tell you that I am not necessarily in agreement with James and Ted.

That is not to say I don’t like the movie at all.  It wasn’t horrible.  I didn’t hate it.  I sort of liked it a little actually.  If I wasn’t doing anything, and someone said, “Hey, let’s watch Yankee Doodle Dandy.”, I wouldn’t say no.  However, I certainly didn’t love the film either.

The term “a perfect storm” has become something of a cliché.  Everything from the economical meltdown to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico seems to be characterized as a “perfect storm” lately.  This movie, however, begs the question:  What is the term for something that should have become a “perfect storm”, but somehow didn’t quite become one?  An Imperfect Downpour?  A Flawed Tempest?  A Marred Cyclone?  Personally, I think I like “A Reproachable Squall”.  That’s what I am going with – Reproachable Squall. Yankee Doodle Dandy should have been a perfect storm of a movie, but it kind of just turned into a reproachable squall.  How so?  Well, let’s take a look… 

The first element of the potential storm front would be the film’s star James Cagney.  He was just one of those people that the camera loves.  To me, he is undoubtedly a film legend (the American Film Institute agrees, listing him #8 on their list of male screen legends, for example).  I can watch Cagney films such as The Public Enemy, White Heat, and Angles with Dirty Faces all day long.  In other words, I love me some James Cagney.  Throw in the fact that Cagney was himself an old stage / vaudeville performer with the same half-sing / half-talk style that Cohan had, and his performance should just knock my socks off. 

The second element in this potential brew-up would be the film’s director Michael Curtiz.  Not exactly a household name like Steven Spielberg, I grant you, but Curtiz was probably one of the prolific film directors in Hollywood, directing 100 or so films.  Heard of a little movie called Casablanca?  He directed that.  How about Errol Flynn classics like The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk?  He directed those too.  All you Rocky Horror fans out there might have heard of a little horror movie called Doctor X (… will build a creature…).  He directed that as well.  He directed the James Cagney classic Angles with Dirty Faces, White Christmas with Bing Crosby and King Creole with Elvis Presley.  His directorial debut was the 1912 Hungarian movie, The Last Bohemian and his final film was The Comancheros starring John Wayne in 1961.  Curtiz’s career spanned silent, black & white dramas to Technicolor musicals and touched on everything in-between.  In other words, the man knew how to direct a movie.  Definitely sounds like someone capable of putting together a classic to me.

The third element would the subject of the movie, George M. Cohan himself. Known as “The Man Who Owns Broadway”, Cohan had an incredibly interesting life, the kind of up-by-your-boot-straps, rags-to-riches, story that everyone loves.  He did everything there was to do in theatre.  He was an actor, a singer, a dancer, a writer, a producer, a director, and a choreographer.  He created songs like “The Yankee Doodle Boy", "Give My Regards to Broadway", "Harrigan", "Mary's a Grand Old Name", "You're a Grand Old Flag" and the World War I classic "Over There".  He even owned his own theatres.

So we have three “high pressure systems” (great star, great director, great subject) all converging on an area of “low pressure” – the start of World War II.  Production on this film started in late November / early December, 1941.  In other words, just a few days before the attack on Pearl Harbor.  In response, the cast and crew resolve to make the most uplifting and patriotic film they possibly could.

So, you have the talent, you the subject, and you have the leadership all coming together in a time of fear and uncertainty.  The result of such unique confluence of motion picture conditions must have produced one of the most perfect cinematic storms of all time, and most film experts would agree that it did...

In my case, however, it simply seemed to rain just a little.

I know that I am flying in the face of commonly held belief, but I don’t think this is really a great movie.  Cagney’s performance was just OK, not great to me.  Despite Curtiz having a flair making films that have a quick pace, the movie seems to just plod along.  The film is two hours and 6 minutes long, but it felt much longer than that.  In addition, as with most bio-pics, the film takes a few liberties with the facts of Cohan’s life.  Throw in a short, but completely unnecessary blackface scene and I just ended up being radically underwhelmed.  Ultimately, the film has a hard time getting past my “for-its-time” caveat test.  Thus, I am left with no choice but to declare Yankee Doodle Dandy a reproachable squall of a movie.  Not completely without merit, but certainly not living up to what it could have been and most people seem to think it is.  It gets a very weak ranking of 3 Stars from me.

John

112. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Stars:  Charles Laughton (Captain Bligh), Clark Gable (Fletcher Christian), Franchot Tone (Ensign Byam), Maria "Movita" Castaneda (Tehani), Mamo Clark (Maimiti)

Director:  Frank Lloyd

Awards / Honors

• 1 Oscar win - Best Picture
• 7 Additional Oscar nominations in 5 different categories - Best Director, Best Actor (Charles Laughton), Best Actor (Clark Gable), Best Actor (Franchot Tone), Best Writing (Adpated Screenplay), Best Music (Score), Best Film Editing
• #86 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1997)
• #19 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains - Captain Bligh, Villain (2003) 

Genre:  Drama

Running Time:  2 Hours, 12 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 4 Stars, Beth - 2 Stars)

John's Take

This was a film that neither Beth nor I had seen before we started our little Odyssey.  Now that I have seen it, I am left with a single question:  Is it possible to really like a movie, but not have anything to say about it?  Because when it comes to Mutiny on the Bounty, I got nothing.

I have been thinking about what I was going to write about this movie for some time now. I  thought I might write about how this was the first movie where Beth and I really had divergent opinions.  I really liked it.  She really didn’t.  I could write about that.  As I started putting words to paper, however, I remembered that her response to the question, “Why didn’t you like it?” immediately after watching the film was “I don’t know. I just don’t”.  That didn’t really leave me a lot to write about, so I sort of ditched that idea.

Then I thought that it might be interesting to write about how Movita, one of the female leads of this film, ended up becoming getting to married to Marlon Brando in the late 50’s and they remained married until Brando starred in the 1962 re-make of Mutiny on the Bounty.  Marlon would go on to marry his co-star Tarita Teriipia, who was played Fletcher Christian's Tahitian wife in the ’62 version of the film.  An odd little coincidence to be sure, but I couldn’t figure out how to stretch that out to 1000 or so words.

It then occurred to me that I could write about how this is first time I had ever seen Clark Gable without a mustache.  I think it is pretty safe to say when most people picture Mr. Gable in their minds; they see him with a mustache – ala Gone with the Wind, It Happened One Night, etc..  But then, while a clean-shaven Clark Gable is a strange little aberration, it is hardly worth a thousand words. 

There is also the fact that Mutiny on the Bounty was the last movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture without winning an Oscar in any other category.  This is despite the fact that Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, and Franchot Tone were all nominated for the Best Actor award, yet the trophy still managed to end up in the hands of Victor McLaglen for his role in The Informer.  Again, a weird occurrence, but I wasn’t sure how to stretch that out to a full post.

I could always just fall back on the old “stand-bys”; how the acting is great, the cinematography is spectacular, the writing superb, etc., etc..  The problem is that none of those things are really true.  They are all executed well, mind you, just not spectacularly.  You can find better examples of any of those cinematic elements in the movies that preceded this one in the list.  So, I guess that idea is out as well. 

So where does that leave us?  I guess that leaves us with the answer: Yes, it is possible to really like a movie, but not be able to say much about it.  That is because it is possible that the film does all the little things just well enough to make the whole endeavor an enjoyable experience, but does not do anything well enough to make any one element truly stand out.  Mutiny on the Bounty is one of those films.  It is a film has lots of little flourishes and interesting little facts surrounding it, which all combine to make for a great movie, even if you might not be sure why it is great.  I give Mutiny on the Bounty a rating of 4 Stars.

John 

Bonus Movie: Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Stars:  Boris Karloff (The Monster), Colin Clive (Henry Frankenstein), Valerie Hobson (Elizabeth Frankenstein), Ernest Thesiger (Doctor Septimus Pretorius), Elsa Lanchester (The Bride, Mary Shelly), Dwight Frye (Karl)

Director:  James Whale

Honors / Awards

• In 2008, Time Magazine included Bride of Frankenstein in its "ALL-TIME 100 Movies" list
• The 1996 book The Entertainment Weekly Guide to the Greatest Movies Ever Made includes Bride and considers the film to be superior to Frankenstein.
• In 2008, the Boston Herald named it the second greatest horror film after Nosferatu. 
• In 1998, famous film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum included Bride of Frankenstein on his "Alternate 100" list created to respond to the 1997 AFI 100 Years... 100 Movies list.
• In 1998, Bride of Frankenstein was added to the United States National Film Registry, having been deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Horror
Running Time:  1 Hour, 15 minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

Why the “bonus post”? Because the DVD we got from Netflix not only contained Frankenstein, it also contained Bride of Frankenstein.  Since we received two movies for the price of one, we decided to watch Bride of Frankenstein as well.  Plus, I was a little bit curious to discover if I had actually seen the movie as I remembered that I did in childhood, or was my mind once again creating a false history for me as it did with Frankenstein.

I was relieved to discover that my memories of Bride all fairly matched up to the film I saw.  The two noticeable exceptions being that I still remember Frankenstein’s name being Victor, not Henry, and his assistant is still not named Igor.  In fact, his assistant isn’t even a hunchback in this film, but just a guy with metal leg braces named Karl (although still played by the same actor, Dwight Frye).  Apparently, it isn’t until the third movie, Son of Frankenstein, is the character of “Ygor” introduced.  Odd that Igor would go on to become such an iconic element of Frankenstein when it wasn’t introduced until later in the series. 

It is a fairly commonly held opinion that Bride of Frankenstein is one of those few cases in Hollywood films where the sequel is superior to original film.  In general, I would agree.  However, while many would spend a great deal of time discussing the improved visual effects, the more complex use of imagery, more pathos for The Monster, etc., I am here to tell you that you can ignore all of that if you want.  A great many of those statements / interpretations of the critics are true, at least to one degree or another, but there is one specific cinematic element that is lacking in the first film but is present in the second that often gets overlooked or simply brushed aside by the experts:

Bride of Frankenstein has a music score.  Frankenstein basically does not.

Other than over the opening and closing credits, Frankenstein has no “background music”.  Bride, on the other hand, is full scored.  What different does that make?  It is score that causes that triggers or reinforces the emotions that the filmmaker wants you to experience.  For example, when the villagers are trussing The Monster up all crucifixion-style, the story or imagery may evoke an emotional response of pity from you, but the little subconscious cue you get from hearing the “sympathetic music” is what really drives the emotion home, as well as ensures that you are experiencing the “correct” emotion – pity for the creature, instead of relief that the creature has been captured.

I have no idea why there was no musical soundtrack for Frankenstein. I remember something from film history classes in college about how in the “early days” some filmmakers didn’t use musical scores because they felt that it would confuse the audience (i.e., “The man and the woman are alone in a big empty field, so where is the music coming from?”).  I am not sure if I am remembering that correctly (especially since these two movies seem to be messing with memory), or that James Whale was such a director even if it is true, but it would be interesting to find out why there was no score in the orginal film.

So, long-winded film critics / writers drone on all you want about the myriad of perceived reasons why you believe that Bride is superior to the original film.  Your points may have some amount of merit, but there is a simpler answer to why Bride of Frankenstein is better – It is the music stupid.

As far as a rating is concerned, I agree that Bride of Frankenstein is better than Frankenstein.  However, Beth and I agreed that we would keep our individual rankings to whole number values.  In other words, individually we wouldn’t give movies ratings of 2 ½ Stars or 4 ½ Stars, etc.  While Bride is certainly better than Frankenstein, it is not sufficiently better to warrant an increase of a full star.  Like its predecessor, Bride of Frankenstein is a really good “popcorn movie” – even better than the original – but it still just receives a rating of 3 Stars.

John

114. Frankenstein (1931)

Stars:  Boris Karloff (The Monster), Colin Clive (Henry Frankenstein), Mae Clarke (Elizabeth), John Boles (Victor Moritz), Dwight Frye (Fritz)

Director:  James Whale

Honors / Awards

• #87 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1997)
• #56 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills list (2001)
• #49 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list - "It's alive! It's alive!" (2005)
• In 1991, Frankenstein was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Horror

Running Time:  1 Hour, 11 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

Frankenstein was a film that I was sure I had seen before.  If you had asked, I would have said that I had seen it years before on some locale television station’s weekend Creature Feature show, most likely WFLD's Son of Svengoolie in Chicago, but then isn’t that when we all saw Frankenstein for the first time?  Do they even have Creature Feature shows on local TV anymore?  I moved to Saint Louis some time ago and I don’t seem to remember seeing a Creature Feature-like show when I moved to the area.  I wonder if Son of Svengoolie is even on the air anymore?  Probably not.  I feel old now.  Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  Beth gets some popcorn ready.  I pop the DVD we had gotten just a couple days earlier in the mail from Netflix into the Blu-ray player.  The movie starts and I sit back to enjoy some childhood memories.

The credits appear first.  One thing that older movie have over new movies is that you don’t have to sit through a 10 minute scroll of all the names of every single person that had even the tiniest bit of involvement in making the film.  Is my life better that I know that the director’s bagel wrangler was named Boris?  Not really.  Anyhow, I got a big kick out of the fact that in the credits where it lists the actor that plays The Monster, we get to see a big question mark (The Monster ……….. ?) instead of Boris Karloff’s name.  It is like – Where they discover such a monstrous and hideous thing? Is it even human? Bwha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

It is these cheesy-little touches that make these classic horror movies so much fun.  I wish I had been around for the days back when movie promoters would do dopey things like make you sign “waiver” before they would let you in the theater because the movie was just so scary that you may die of fright.  Despite my love of such things, truth is, I am really a big wuss when it comes to horror movies.  For example, I didn’t sleep for two days after seeing the original A Nightmare on Elm Street.  After getting mocked mercilessly by friends after seeing Children of the Corn via peering through my fingers, I ended up having to develop a technique for watching horror movies without appearing like I was looking away from the screen or closing my eyes.  I had to survive the high-school dating scene after all, and jumping from your seat and screaming like a little girl every time something happens on screen doesn’t do much to inspire the girl you are with to make-out with you.  I may share this technique with you all sometime, but for now it will remain a little trade secret.  I may have to use it with Beth sometime in the future, who knows.  My point is that despite the fact that I usually get scared silly at horror movies; there was something about the cheesiness of those old-time promotions and low-budget television shows that made horror movies palatable to me.  I was just born a little too late to fully enjoy them.  Ah well.

The other thing I noticed from the short list of credits is that Doctor Frankenstein’s name is Henry in the movie. I seem to remember it being Victor like in the book. Oddly enough, Doctor Frankenstein’s best friend in the book is named Henry and in the movie his name is Victor. I wonder why the change?  It seems so pointless. I already realized long ago that besides the title, the novel Frankenstein and any number of Frankenstein movies don’t have very much in common. I had to read the book in college and I don’t remember ever seeing any movie version that actually ever told a story that even resembled the one in the book. Supposedly that version with Robert De Niro playing The Monster came close, but I haven’t seen that so I can’t comment. Anyway, I certainly don’t remember Frankenstein being called Henry. Nor do I remember the scene where Elizabeth is talking to Victor about her concerns about the good doctor.  But then again, these scenes aren’t something that my 10 to 12-year old mind would have retained anyways.  I would have been busy trying to will the movie to get to the good part with the monster.

So, then the scene shifts to the good doctor Frankenstein and his little hunchback buddy Fritz…  Fritz?  Isn’t his name supposed to be Igor?  I mean everyone knows that, right?  Isn’t that the basis of one of the jokes in Young Frankenstein – the whole “eye-gor”, “e-gor” thing?  Wow.  Fritz.  Really?  I don’t remember that either.  OK, so well, Henry and Fritz (?) rob some graves and then head off back to the tower…  Tower?  I seem to remember them being in a full-blown castle, not just a tower... 

It finally dawns on me – I, in fact, have never seen this movie before!  I had seen scenes from this movie.  I have heard people talk and discuss this movie.  I had read about the movie, and I had seen perhaps a dozen or so other Frankenstein movies – such as the later Universal and Hammer series films, but I had never actually seen the original film.  Yet, I would have bet money just 25 minutes earlier that I had seen the movie a couple of times.  I was suddenly going through a little internal crisis.  I had just realized that a memory from my childhood was in fact a lie – a lie that my very own mind had constructed, which made me feel even worse.  How many more lies about my life had my mind constructed on it own?  Something had to be done about this.  So I did the only thing I could do at that moment.  I brought this trauma that had just descended upon me to Beth’s attention.

She, as Official Friends of Beth and John’s Movie Odyssey may have already guessed, didn’t seem nearly as concerned about my newly discovered revelation as I was.  She sort of grunted an acknowledgement that she had heard me say something; gave me a only-you-would-be-concerned-about-this look and turned back to watch he movie.  I was left to work through this crisis on my own as the movie, which I could have sworn I had seen, played on before me.  As I watched the film, the idea that my entire life might be a big lie – just like Quaid in Total Recall – was soon replaced with another thought.  Sure, this is a fairly entertaining movie, but why was Frankenstein on a list of greatest American movies?

I realize that it didn’t make the cut on the ’07 version of the list, but why pray tell was it on the 1997 version of the list in the first place?  Was it that someone over at the AFI decided that the list needed at least one of the Universal Classic Monster Movies (Frankenstein, Wolf-man, Dracula, The Mummy, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc.) to be complete, and this was the one that everyone could agree on?  I think that has to be it.  I really need to find someone over there that can answer these questions for me, but until then, I going to go with that as an answer.

Frankenstein, along with the other classic monster movies, were all very successful films.  They are all films that we remember from childhood (instances, like mine, of your own subconscious deceiving you aside). They may have even ushered in an entire genre of popular film, but being important and historic isn’t the same thing as being “great”.  While I was watching Frankenstein, I didn’t see anything in that film that would make think “I am watching one of the greatest movies of all time”. That doesn’t mean I don’t like the film, but then I like Team America: World Police as well and I wouldn’t put that on a list of 100 greatest films either.  Hopefully, someone out there in the Inter-verse can give me some sort of explanation on why this movie would be considered one of the greatest of all time.  I would very much like to hear it.  I imagine that it is going to be fairly difficult to do without using the “for-its-time” caveat, however.

In the end, I liked Frankenstein, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it again.  Ultimately, what we have here is the second occurrence of a film that was included in one of the AFI 100 greatest American movies list – the first being A Place in the Sun – that probably shouldn’t have been. The reasons for their exclusion, however, are polar opposites. Despite the fact that I found A Place in the Sun to be a pretty crappy film, I could at least sort of see where at one time it may have been considered great, and some older members of the Institute just included it on the original list in some sort of knee-jerk, force-of-habit reaction.  Frankenstein, on the other hand, is still a pretty entertaining little film (I mean, who doesn’t get a kick out of watching the “It’s alive!” scene with the Tesla coils and all the other devices shooting electrical arcs everywhere?), but it didn’t strike me as anything more than a fairly good “popcorn movie”.  I enjoyed watching the movie; I just don’t think it is in the same league as many other films on these lists and probably shouldn’t have been included.

Then again, the movie did bring back childhood memories of weekend nights spent watching a man in bad Halloween make-up and a top hat talk to a floating plastic skull with a green mustache. That has to be worth something. Of course that is assuming that the events I remember even occurred at all…

Damn you, Frankenstein!  3 Stars.

John  

117. The Jazz Singer (1927)

Stars:  Al Jolson (Jakie Rabinowitz), May McAvoy (Mary Dale), Warner Oland (Cantor Rabinowitz), Eugenie Besserer (Sara Rabinowitz), Otto Lederer (Moisha Yudelson)

Director:  Alan Crosland

Awards / Honors

• 1 Oscar Win - Special Achievment
• 2 Additional Oscar Nominations -Best Writing (Adpated Screenplay), Best Engineering Effects
• #90 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1997)
• #71 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list - "Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet!" (2005)
• In 1996, The Jazz Singer was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Genre:  Drama / Musical (mostly a silent film with recoded musical numbers and limited recorded dialogue)

Running Time:  1 hour, 29 minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

OK, we are finally up to the first really famous / infamous film on the list – 1927’s The Jazz Singer.  This is one of those movies that many people have heard of – most likely when they took a “Film 101” class their freshman year of college – but few have actually seen.  Speaking anecdotally, this is because most professors don’t want to expend the effort needed to deal with the baggage associated with movie in a class that is essentially just easy credits for the participants and is almost always run exclusively by TAs.  Sure, they will spend a few moments talking about how it is important technically / historically, but it is usually too big a hassle to actually show it.  That is a shame, because despite being over 80-years old, I believe that people would find it a great deal more entertaining than one might think – even considering the issue surrounding the film.

Like it or not, you cannot watch, or talk about this film (and a few other films our big list of 125) without talking about the star(s) performing in blackface.  While I could easily write 1000+ words just on this subject, let me just sum up my personal views on the subject:

I find the act of performing in blackface, at best, an odd thing to do and slightly uncomfortable to watch. At worst, I am downright offended by it. Ultimately, it depends on the performance.

For example, Fred Astaire’s performance in blackface in Swing Time (I will talk about that more in the next post) is not fundamentally different in manner or intent than Jolson’s in The Jazz Singer.  However, I find Astaire’s performance much more offensive than I do Jolson’s.  Why?  I am not sure, but I do.

For those of you that find the whole concept offensive, I totally understand. I am in no way trying to defend the practice in any manner.  The portrayal of African Americans and other minorities in American film during the first half of the 20th century was often down-right disgusting.  However, the film contains what it contains.  Did the use of blackface strike me as odd, unnecessary, and did it negatively affect my overall impression of The Jazz Singer?  Yes, those scenes are a little on the creepy side.  However, did I find the scenes offensive?  No.

And least you think that elements or themes of a movie taking on lives of their own outside the intention of the filmmakers is something that only happens once the film is viewed through the prism of the passage of time, think again.  If fact, it is easy to find a number of parallels can be drawn between an 83 year old movie like The Jazz Singer and the most recent “king of the blockbusters” – Avatar.

How you say?  Well, for one thing, both films are considered the technical marvels of their day.  The Jazz Singer is most often recognized as the film that gave birth to the “talkies” and heralded the end of the age of silent film.  Avatar has achieved its acclaim through though its use of computer animation and 3-D effects.  However, the similar places in history these two films share have as much to do with the promotion of the two films as it does with their actual advances.  For example, there had been a number of short films that had released prior to The Jazz Singer that used the same Vitaphone sound technology.  Nor was the Vitaphone technology the only type of its kind around.  Fox Studios had been using / experimenting with their own Movietone process and would release their own full-length motion picture, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (# 106 on the Odyssey list), just months later which used it.  Likewise, Avatar was hardly the first movie to feature 3-D effects (which have been around for decades) or computer animation / motion capture (The Lord of the Rings anyone?).  Despite all of that, there is no question that these movies changed how films would be made going forward – whether they were truly “the first” or not – due to the perfect mix critical and financial success they enjoyed (the full impact of Avatar still waits to be seen, but there certainly has been a short term effects – such as the quick adaption to 3-D of Clash of the Titans and the rash of 3-D movies slated to be released this year).

However, both movies are also more than just platforms for their technology.  They both have something to say, and surprisingly for two such radically different movies, some of the themes of their respective stories are surprisingly similar.  The Jazz Singer is, at its core, a story concerning the struggle between cultural heritage and cultural assimilation.  Avatar touches on similar themes, although seen through the prism of colonialism and cultural / environmental exploitation.  Surprisingly, both films also suffer from similar faults. The themes of both these films can get lost in the noise caused by viewers offended by certain elements of both films – the aforementioned blackface performances of The Jazz Singer and the “only-a-white-man-can-save-indigenous-peoples” element perceived in Avatar (i.e., Dances with Smurfs).

So what am I trying to go with all of this?  I believe that one does not have to resort to the dreaded “for-its-time” caveat, to say that The Jazz Singer is a pretty good movie.  However, looking at it with a modern sensibility, I think you have to use that caveat if you are trying to make an argument that it is a great movie.  So, as far I as I am concerned, the film will just have to settle for being a pretty good, cinematically historic motion picture that deserved to be removed the 2007 AFI list of greatest American movies.

And lest you think that this sort of fade from cultural prominence can’t happen to modern films, don’t forget the loose ties that this movie shares with the ridiculously successful Avatar.  It easy to dismiss some of the criticism directed at Avatar as simply backlash.  Remember, however, that hardly anyone found The Jazz Singer offensive in 1927. "The film received favorable reviews in both the Jewish press and in African American newspapers such as the Baltimore Afro-American, the New York Amsterdam News, and the Pittsburgh Courier"  (Wikipedia), as well “white” newspapers.  Any negative comment concerning Al Jolson in blackface would have been seen then as simply “backlash”.

So, as a film that is showing its age, I give The Jazz Singer – 3 Stars.

John