I said I'd do it, and now I have...

I recently finished reading my way through J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels.

I had already seen the movies, so I pretty much knew how things would turn out. And so the did; the movies, as it turns out, were in the main faithful to the books. I know that there were arguments among diehard fans of the books about what was left in, what was left out, and what was changed. As I read the books, I was aware of some of the changes and omissions, but they mostly didn't bother me as I read. My philosophy about books into movies, whether I saw the films first or read the books, is that what is on the page and what is on the screen are two different worlds. It's how I'm able to enjoy the television series "Bones" and also enjoy the books written by Kathy Reichs that provided the inspiration for the series, which share pretty much nothing but the name of the title character.

This, of course, is not the case with the Harry Potter books and films. The thing that surprises me, really, is that the films are so like the books. It was a difficult thing to achieve, I think, in the face of the fact that in adapting such a long and complex (yes, despite being written for a young adult audience, the books as Rowling wrote them comprise a pretty complex whole) series of books for the screen meant that it would be necessary to pick and choose the details to be retained and those to be omitted. I've only seen a couple of other films based on books that I've read, that have been able to retain the illusion that it was the book up there on the screen. It is an illusion, of course, in all cases, and the ability to create that illusion is a rare and wonderful thing.

However, as faithful as the films were able to be to the books, enough had to be left out that there were things in the story told by the movies that I just didn't understand, even after repeated viewings. Which is why I've finally read the books. Friends who had both read the books and seen the films had told me that things would be much clearer after I read the books.

They were absolutely right.

Now, I have to say that some of the explanations came in bursts of info-dump that Rowling might have been able to find other ways to accomplish. On the other hand, I'm glad those scenes were there. I don't know how many times, while I was reading, I found myself saying to myself (sometimes out loud), "So, that's what that was about." Or, "Now I understand why that happened that way." Now, however, I need to go back and watch the films from the perspective of having read the books.

The quibble about the info-dumps, I hasten to add, is just that: a minor quibble. I think that J. K. Rowling accomplished something quite amazing in her books. While writing for a younger audience, she was able to weave a story that has also kept millions of adult readers entranced over a period of many years. She has been quoted as saying that she came up with the idea for the story of the Boy Who Lived while on a train in 1990. The first volume was published in the UK in 1997 and in the US in 1998. The final book was published in 2007. She managed, as far as I could see in my reading, to retain the consistency of the story she was telling through all that time and work, and especially through all the hype as the books found and audience and became so immensely popular.

I'm glad I read the books. I'll probably read the series again. But, to be honest, I'm also glad I waited to read them until well after all the books had been published. I would have hated waiting between books to see what happened next. I'm going through that right now with another series of books I've been reading, and it's driving me a bit crazy that the third book won't be out until mid-July. It's driving me so crazy that I've recently re-read the first book and am working my way through the second book again now. If I had known when I picked up the first volume, "A Discovery of Witches", by Deborah Harkness, I would have just left it alone until all the books had been published, as I did with the Potter series.

Movie Monday: The "1968 Was a Good Year in Film" Edition

1968 was a really good year for movies. A really, really good year.

It was the year of "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Funny Girl", "Bullitt" and "The Thomas Crown Affair", the Zeffirelli version of "Romeo and Juliet", "The Lion in Winter", "Rosemary's Baby", "Planet of the Apes". And those were just some of the big money makers. There was also "Hell in the Pacific", "Monterey Pop", "Will Penny", "Yellow Submarine", "Paper Lion", "Hellfighters". Among the kids' movies, there was "The Love Bug", "Blackbeard's Ghost", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".

It was also, by the way, the year that the MPAA's movie rating system was put into use, although not until November 1. The original ratings were G (for general audiences), M (for mature audiences, R (Restricted), and X - which meant that no one under 18 was allowed to see the movie at all. I'll have to do a post about my thoughts concerning the rating system one of these days. But today is not that day.

But I digress...

I turned 12 in 1968, but I saw a good selection of these films when they first were released and then finally came to my local theater, which could take a few months in those days, when we didn't have multiplexes and there were only so many prints of a film that made their way from theater to theater, one week at a time rather than opening in multiple theaters in a town and sometimes staying on for weeks and weeks and weeks. In fact, it was a Really Big Deal the next year, when "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" came out and was held over at the (one and only) theater in the town where I lived for a second week.

I did get to see "2001: A Space Odyssey" before it went into general release and was only on at a few select theaters. My father, as I've written about here before, as a big science fiction geek and we went on a family outing to the closest theater where it was playing (that was about a 30 mile drive) in limited release. That never happened, so it means that my father really wanted to see it badly.

That was an interesting experience. By that time, I'd seen a lot of science fiction movies, but I'd never seen anything like that before. This is one of the trailers that was in theaters as "2001" started to get around to theaters:



1968 was also the year of "Planet of the Apes". That wasn't nearly as innovative a film, but still, it got my attention as something that was deeper than just a story on the screen. Something else got my attention that night at the movies, though, and that was the second feature, "Five Million Miles to Earth". It had come out the year before in the UK, where it was made, under the title "Quatermass and the Pit" and even then was the theatrical remake of a UK television serial that had been shown on the BBC at the end of 1958 and the beginning of 1959. In 1968, though, it started making the rounds of American theaters; seeing it on a double bill with "Planet of the Apes" was the beginning of my love of British science fiction:



Not that "Planet of the Apes" was a bad movie. It was very, very good and, for my money, much superior to the 2001 remake. As I said, it was more than just a sci-fi action film; it was an allegory addressing the racial tensions that the United States was then experiencing. That's one of the cool things about science fiction - it can address touchy issues that would be difficult to talk about in other formats. Here is one of the original trailers for the film:



"Planet of the Apes" starred Charlton Heston. It was not the only film Heston had in release that year. He also starred in "Will Penny", a western. It is a stark, realistic film in which he portrays an aging cowboy who hires on to ride the boundaries of a ranch over the winter but instead finds love with a woman he is supposed to have evicted from the cabin she and her son are living in on a remote part of the ranch. Also starring Joan Hackett and Donald Pleasance, "Will Penny" is a wonderful film, one of the first Westerns I ever saw that I really liked. Here's the trailer:



Steve McQueen also had two films out in 1968. The first out was "The Thomas Crown Affair", a bank heist film that starred McQueen and Faye Dunaway. McQueen plays a rich man who plans and hires a crew to carry out a bank robbery just for the fun of it, to see if he can do it - and if he can get away with it. Dunaway is the insurance investigator who goes after him - in more ways than one. Here is a scene from the middle of the movie, after Dunaway's character has started playing both sides of the street, so to speak:



Later in the year came "Bullitt", the movie with what I consider the best car chase scene in the history of film. In this film, McQueen is on the right side of the law, playing a police detective who has gotten caught up in a political game that he isn't altogether sure he wants to be involved in. For a lot of people, "Bullitt" is all about the big chase scene. Here is the scene after the chase:



And then there was "Romeo and Juliet". Another good film. This is the Franco Zeffirelli version, the first time the Shakespeare tragedy had been filmed with actors playing the title roles who were near the ages the characters were actually supposed to be. I was twelve at the time, so of course I cried through the whole movie the first time I saw it. Which, of course, meant that I had to go see it again so that I could actually see the thing. I've seen it many times since, and it hasn't lost its appeal. Here is the first meeting between Romeo and Juliet:



There just isn't enough room to show clips and/or trailers from all the good movies that came out in 1968. And that is a good thing, really - it's nice to know that there's just one year of movies that could take awhile to explore fully. So, my advice to you on the first Movie Monday of 2014 is to go find a movie from 1968 to watch...and then another one...and then another one. There's enough there to keep you busy for quite a while.

Movie Monday: The "Calendar Girls" Edition

Because I've got a migraine, today's Movie Monday is going to be short and sweet.

If you haven't seen "Calendar Girls" (2003) yet, do so at your earliest opportunity. No,, really. It might look like a chick flick. It might actually be a chick flick. But, even if you don't particularly like chick flicks (I don't much like them myself, actually), you still need to see this movie.

The performances, from the likes of Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Penelope Wilton, and a whole lot of other British actors, are fabulous. The story is moving without being cloying. It's also very, very funny.

"Calendar Girls" is based on the true story of what happened when a group of middle-aged women from a village in England decided that they would produce a pin-up girl calendar, with themselves as the models, to raise money for a sofa for the visitors' room at their local hospital after one of the women's husbands died of leukemia. That's all. Just enough to buy a sofa. Except that their project kind of got away from them, they found fame if not personal fortune, and learned, just like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz", that there's no place like home, family, and friends.

Here's the trailer for the film:



I hadn't seen "Calendar Girls" until the past weekend, when my roommate turned it on, on OnDemand, sat me down, and told me that I had to see it. I was skeptical, but I sat and watched and I'm so glad I did. So, my whole purpose today is to pass this forward. Go. Sit down. Watch the movie. It's very, very good.

And, oh, yeah. From the research I've been able to do, the calendar the women produced did raise the money to buy the sofa. In fact, it turned into calendars for several years, all still dedicated to raising money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Research, a UK charity dedicated to funding research into blood cancers. To date, the calendars have raised over three million pounds toward the goal of eradicating those cancers.

Just goes to show, great things can come from initially modest ambitions.

Movie Monday: The Books into Movies Edition

I spent a good bit of time over the holiday weekend watching the later films in the Harry Potter series, and my roommate spent a good bit of that time explaining things in the plot that didn't quite make sense to me because I've never read the books. Well, I read the first book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", and liked it a lot, but I've just never gotten around to reading the other books. Finally, I asked her, "Will I understand the movies more if I read the books?"

Her answer, of course, was "Yes". So I guess I'm going to have to do that soon.

The whole experience got me to thinking about movies made from books, and how they can be frustrating sometimes. From what I understand, the Harry Potter series is a case in point. I've heard a certain amount of discussion about things that were left out of the films, and how that has displeased some fans of the books. But it makes sense. There is a lot of stuff in a story that takes seven books, some of them very long books, to tell. There is no possible way that everything in the books could have been portrayed in eight movies, even eight relatively long movies (the shortest, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" (2011)is 130 minutes long, while the longest, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002), runs 160 minutes).

This is reminiscent of "Gone with the Wind" (1939), which runs 220 minutes (excluding the overture, intermission, and other add-ons), while the book is 1,037 pages long in it's original (1936) edition. Now, I had read the book before I saw the film in this case, and I found it the most amazing thing - although there were clearly whole pieces of the book missing from the film, it felt like everything was there, very much as in the book. It will be interesting to see what is missing and switched around in the Harry Potter books as opposed to those films. I have no clue how the filmmakers managed to do that, but they did in the case of GWTW.

"Gone with the Wind", with its story of the Civil War and it's aftermath, told from the perspective of those who ultimately lost the war, has become controversial for its portrayals of some ugly realities of the time and for what are now recognized as simplistic portrayals of the conditions of those held as slaves during that time. But it remains a remarkable film, just as it was remarkable when it was made. This also actually reminds me of the Harry Potter films in a way, for in its time, GWTW was as eagerly anticipated as each of the Potter movies before they were released. Here is a trailer for "Gone with the Wind", prepared after it won multiple Academy Awards:



Another film that I found the same sort of apparent completeness was "Silence of the Lambs" (1991). I had read Thomas Harris's novel of the same name, which was published in 1988, and liked it a lot. So, when the film came out I went to see it, not with very high hopes that it would live up to the book's suspense. However, it seemed like the film followed the book as closely as films ever do follow their source material. The film also managed to keep me on the edge of the theater seat right to the end, even though I knew what was going to happen. That's some pretty good filmmaking there..

Of course, you can disagree, as Siskel and Ebert did, about "The Silence of the Lambs", as evidenced in this clip from their old movie review show. Siskel did not like it, while Ebert said that it mostly worked on its own terms. I do find it interesting that, toward the end of the clip, Siskel criticizes Jodie Foster's work in the film, considering that she went on to win a Best Leading Actress Academy Award for the role:



When I saw "The Trouble with Angels" (1966), I had no clue that it was based on a book. It probably said so somewhere in the credits, but when I was ten years old, I didn't really pay that much attention to the beginning and ending credits of films. As a matter of fact, I didn't know that it was based on a book until earlier this year. I was curious about the book, which was published in 1962 but takes place in the 1930s (it is a memoir, not a novel), so I requested it from the library and read it. I was amazed that the movie, although updated to the 1960s, followed the events in the book and even played down some of the events as reported by the book's author, Jane Trahey. Here is a scene from near the beginning of the film:



So, although films that originated as books can be very different from their source material, I've had some good experiences with films that seemed to follow their source material faithfully enough to be recognizable and to be nearly as good, if not as good, as the book. Sometimes, as was the case with "The Godfather" (film, 1972; based on the novel of the same name by Mario Puzo, 1969), the film is much better than the book. Certainly, it contains what might well be the most effective opening scene in any film, ever:



On the other hand, there is "Raise the Titanic" (1980). When I read the book "Raise the Titanic!" (1976), by Clive Cussler, I spent nearly the whole time I was reading thinking, "This is going to make a great movie." It was a very good book that I stayed up all night reading because I just could not put it down. When I heard it was being made into a film, I was very happy - until I went to the theater and saw it.

It is one of the worst movies ever made. There were something like 17 writers who worked on the script, which is a sign that things are not going to go well. It was horribly miscast - I will refrain from naming the cast to protect the innocent actors who got roped into making this thing. And it was just, well, awful. As proof, I offer this trailer, from the original release:



Just in case you don't believe me, even on the evidence of the trailer, that this movie is really bad, the fill film is available on YouTube. But if you go there, don't say I didn't warn you.

Movie Monday: The November 1963 Edition

If you follow along here at all, you've probably tripped to the fact that I'm a huge "Doctor Who" fan. This means that this past weekend was a big one for me, with the 50th anniversary of the first showing of the first episode of the series in the UK. Along with this came not only a new episode, "The Day of the Doctor", but a made-for-TV movie, "An Adventure in Space and Time", which told the story of the making of that first episode and what came after with the first Doctor. And it is an interesting story, which included having to reshoot the entire episode and having it air for the first time on November 23, 1963, the day after the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy.

It's kind of amazing that the show survived, with all it came up against - immediately, with the world focused on the death of a president and in the longer term with the worsening health of William Hartnell, who portrayed the First Doctor. But, the producer, a woman when very few women were allowed such a powerful position in the entertainment industry, demanded a re-airing the next week, when the show garnered a huge audience. "An Adventure in Space and Time" is a very good movie, and can be viewed enjoyably even if you don't know anything about "Doctor Who", I recommend it. I also recommend "The Day of the Doctor", but you'll enjoy that more if you are a fan.

The thing is, this whole situation with "Doctor Who" debuting the day after such a huge and devastating historical event got me to thinking about what was showing in US theaters in November of 1963, especially those films opening just before or after the assassination of JFK. I did a little digging, and found some interesting information. At least two films that debuted shortly before the assassination, "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (which opened on November 7) and "McLintock!" (which opened on November 13, just nine days before the assassination), went on to become the third and eleventh top grossing films, respectively, in the US that year. On the other hand, "Soldier in the Rain", which some critics have said deserves to be a much better-known film, had its box office hurt by its being released on November 27, just a few days after the assassination, when many people were still in shock over the death of JFK.

"It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" was a huge film at the time, with an all-star cast headed by Spencer Tracy and including an ensemble of top comic actors and cameo appearances by a huge list of familiar faces. The story revolved around $350,000 in stolen cash (a lot of money in those days) and the efforts by the group of people who stop to aid a dying victim of a car crash, who also happened to be one of the suspects in the taking of the money. The dying man reveals the location of the money just before kicking the bucket (literally), and they are off to see who can get to "the big W" the quickest and claim the money for themselves. It really is a movie that has to be seen to be appreciated, and it is very, very funny. Here is the original theatrical trailer for the film:



"McLintock!" is one of my favorite John Wayne movies. It starred Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in a loose adaptation of "The Taming of the Shrew". O'Hara is Wayne's estranged wife, who has left him two years earlier over his alleged philandering, but has returned to gain custody of their daughter, who is returning from college in the East, and to get Wayne's character to agree to a divorce. You have to see the rest of this Western comedy, which was directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, who went on to direct several of Wayne's films. Here's a scene from near the beginning of the movie:



And here is the original trailer for the film. It isn't particularly a politically correct film (well, it was 1963 after all), but it's proof of something that I've been trying to convince people of for a long time...that John Wayne was a pretty good comic actor:



"Soldier in the Rain", which starred Steve McQueen and Jackie Gleason as unlikely friends in the Army, was released on November 27 and, as I said, didn't do particularly well at the box office. The screenplay was written by William Goldman, from his own novel of the same name. Goldman went on to write films like "The Princess Bride" (again, from his own novel) as well as to win two Academy Awards, for Best Original Screenplay for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and Best Adapted Screenplay for "All the President's Men". The director was Ralph Nelson, who also directed several award-winning films, so the film had a good pedigree - just not a release at a good time. This is the closest I could find to a clip that gave a good flavor of the film:



My recommendation. See all of these movies if you can. Oh, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Movie Monday: The Disney Live-Action Films Edition

It came to my attention that today is the anniversary of the release of the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, "Steamboat Willie", in 1928. It's a silly little trifle, just over 7 minutes long, and probably nobody who saw it on November 18, 1928, thought that it would be the first step to an entertainment empire. But, it has been said that "It all started with a mouse," and today we are still watching films, animated and live action, from Walt Disney Studios.

Of course, "Steamboat Willie" has come under some criticism over the years for scenes like the one in which Mickey slings a cat around by its tail. And, in reality, criticizing Disney films for one reason or another has become another long tradition. Still, it is an historic bit of film, and not just because it introduced The Mouse that no one dares mess with in a serious way. "Steamboat Willie" was the first animation with synchronized sound. It is also on the Library of Congress's National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

And so here, on the 85th anniversary of its release, in its entirety, is "Steamboat Willie":



The anniversary kind of got me thinking, since it is Movie Monday, about Disney films in general, and how they kind of get short shrift from some people for various reasons. Various of the films have come under criticism for being insensitive to various groups, for being simplistic, for being "kids' stuff", which is not the same as being simplistic, and so on and so forth. I think I might have written here before how some people have taken to watching some of the more recent animated films frame by frame to find images that they find offensive for whatever reason.

But, you know, Disney Studios have made some fine films over the years. Or, at least, they've made some films I really liked on first viewing and continue to like as I've seen them over and over again, over the years. Yeah, there have been bad Disney films, and Disney films I haven't liked. But there are those that have held up, at least for me, over repeated viewings. And so, in chronological order, here are some of the Disney live action films that I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy. This is not an exhaustive list, but just a few that come to mind immediately when I think of this collection of movies.

I haven't seen "The Living Desert" (1953) in years. Decades, probably. In fact, the last time I specifically remember seeing it was when I was in the third grade and saw it at school, appropriately enough when I lived in Arizona for a couple of months. But, given the chance, I'd sit down and watch it again. It is a documentary about desert life forms that won the Best Documentary Feature award at the 26th Academy Awards and also won the International Prize at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival. It is also on the National Film Registry. Here is just a taste from the introduction of the film:



"The Parent Trap" (1961) is one of my favorite films in the world. That only goes for the original; I didn't really like the remake (from 1998) all that much, although it had its moments. But, the original film is one of those films that I will sit down and watch whenever I find it showing on television. You probably know the story: twins separated as babies when their parents divorce, who discover as young teenagers at summer camp that they actually have a twin. They hatch a plot to return to the parent who they haven't grown up with and then a further plan to get their parents back together. This could have been anything from a pedestrian film to one that was painful to watch. But the way the story is handled, and the performances from all involved - the film stars Hayley Mills, Maureen O'Hara, and Brian Keith - make into something else entirely, a really good film. In this clip, the girls discover that they are, indeed, sisters:



And then there is "Mary Poppins" (1964), which starred Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. The film was nominated for 13 Academy Awards, the most of any Disney film, and won four, including the Best Actress award for Julie Andrews. The also won best actress awards at the Golden Globes and from the New York Film Critics Circle. It was the top box office film of 1965. This, of course, is the story of Mary Poppins, the magical nanny with the carpetbag that had to have been a TARDIS (some of us argue that she had to have been a Time Lord) because it was clearly bigger on the inside that it was on the outside. After all, she pulled an entire floor lamp out of it, among other things. Here is the original trailer for the film, including a glimpse of the tea party that ends up floating up around the ceiling, which is my favorite part of the movie:



Jumping ahead a decade, Disney released "Island at the Top of the World" in 1974. Not a lot of people, I've found, remember this film, and it didn't get very good reviews when it first came out, although I understand that it has become more appreciated over time. This film is an action-adventure that revolves around an Arctic expedition. There are erupting volcanoes, there are whales...and there is an airship. I like airships, so I was probably predisposed to like this movie, and I did. Here is a clip from the film:



I have not, on the whole, liked the more recent Disney movies as well as I have liked the older ones. I'm not sure why, and there are exceptions: I've liked the Pirates of the Caribbean films, and the National Treasure movies are good despite the presence of Nicholas Cage who, as I've said before here, bugs the crap out of me. One of the 21st century Disney movies, however, that I like immensely, is "The Princess Diaries" (2001), starring Julie Andrews, Anne Hathaway, and Hector Elizondo. I'm not sure what it is that I like so much about this film, which is clearly targeted at teenage girls. I haven't been a teenager in a very, very long time. But I do like it. Here's the trailer:



And then there is "Oz the Great and Powerful" (2013), which got what can be kindly called mixed reviews, but which I liked a lot once I got over the hesitation to see it based on those reviews. It is the story of how the Wizard got to Oz, and it is a beautiful film to look at. It stars James Franco (who also kind of bugs the crap out of me, but not nearly as much as Nicholas Cage does), Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, and Michelle Williams. But be warned, the Flying Monkeys are even more horrific than they were in "The Wizard of Oz". The trailer doesn't show a good view of the Flying Monkeys, but the small glimpse is enough for you to get the idea:



And, to end on, there is a new Disney film that I just became aware of recently that has premiered in the UK but hasn't been released in the US yet - it will be out next month - "Saving Mr. Banks" (2013), which stars Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks. It tells the story of P. L. Travers (played by Emma Thompson), who wrote the "Mary Poppins" books, with an emphasis on the efforts of Walt Disney (portrayed by Tom Hanks) to secure the rights to the books so that he can make a film based on them. I'm really excited to see this film, which has been getting good reviews after it's London premiere. After seeing this trailer (I've previously only seen the short TV ads for the film), I'm even more enthusiastic to see "Saving Mr. Banks":



I know some of you out there are saying, "But what about the animated films?" Just be patient and stay tuned; I'll write about those in a future edition of Movie Monday.

Movie Monday: The Thanksgiving Movie Edition

Last Friday, I wrote about how Black Friday seems to be getting more attention this year than Thanksgiving Day in the media. And I stand by that statement.

Which is why I decided to devote Movie Monday this week to films in which Thanksgiving Day plays a significant role. I've probably highlighted all of these films around here before, but this is a good time to do so again.

There certainly aren't as many Thanksgiving movies as there are Christmas movies, but in looking around and doing some research, I found more than I had imagined I would. I haven't seen most of those movies, so I thought I'd focus on a few that I have seen. Not all of them are movies that you probably really associate with Thanksgiving.

The first of those is "Miracle on 34th Street" (1947, and the several remakes). That's a Christmas movie, right? All about Kris Kringle and whether the Jolly Old Elf is real or not. Well, yeah. On the other hand, the action revolves around the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a drunk Santa, another Santa who isn't thrilled with his instructions to entice customers to do all their Christmas shopping at Macy's, the second Santa's claims to be the real Santa Claus, and the near-universal parental dilemma over what to tell their children about Santa's reality or lack thereof.

This movie, which has become a classic, stars Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle, and a young Natalie Wood. It is one of the few holiday classics that I can stand to watch. Some of the reasons include that the scenes in the film of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade were actually filmed during the 1946 parade and that the scenes in Macy's were actually shot on location in the Macy's flagship store on 34th Street in New York City. These facts tickle the history geek in me. Other trivia about the film includes the fact that this was Thelma Ritter's screen debut.

It is also fascinating to me that although this is a holiday film, it was released in May because 20th Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck was convinced that more people go to the movies in the summer than during the holidays. Because of the time of year the film was released, there was a great deal of effort expended to hide the fact that it was a holiday movie ahead of its release. This trailer, from 1947, shows the lengths that the studio went to, to keep the theme of the film a secret:



And here is a short scene from the film:



Another film that doesn't really scan at first glance as a Thanksgiving film is the 1978 documentary "The Last Waltz", which was The Band's final concert before their breakup in 1976. What makes it a Thanksgiving film? Well, it was filmed on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976. Other than that, it probably really isn't a Thanksgiving film in the strictest sense of the term. However, it's a really good film, one of Martin Scorsese's music documentaries, and I like it a lot. I'll take any opportunity I can to share a bit of it. This is the clip I always think of when I think of this film:



But, there are Thanksgiving movies that really are about Thanksgiving and all the angst that Thanksgiving dinner means in some families. The one that captures this the best, I think, is "Home for the Holidays" (1995), starring Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft, Robert Downey, Jr., Dylan McDermott, Claire Danes and Charles Durning, and directed by Jodie Foster. Holly Hunter plays a woman going back home for Thanksgiving at a bad time in her life. She's just been fired, her teenage daughter has decided that she would rather spend the holiday with her boyfriend's family - and not only that, she's planning on having sex with him. "Safely" - and her family is about as dysfunctional as families get. Add to that, her brother brings home a friend for dinner than none of the family has ever met before. Here's the trailer:



Seriously. See "Home for the Holidays". It's a good movie - and it will make your own dysfunctional family seem absolutely normal and sane by comparison.

And then there's "Alice's Restaurant" (1969), the film version of Arlo Guthrie's famous (and famously long) song of the same name, which tells the story of the Thanksgiving he got arrested for littering. The story told by the song is there, and fairly reliably translated (and mostly true), and Arlo plays himself. More drama, more fictional, is added into the mix, but it remains a good movie. If you know the song, you probably want to know that Officer Obie is played by William Obanhein, the real Officer Obie. If you're a fan of folk music, you might also want to know that Lee Hays, bass singer with The Weavers, and Pete Seeger play themselves.

As this clip shows, "Alice's Restaurant" the movie preserves as its centerpiece "Alice's Restaurant" the song. There's much more here, and this is only part of the song. Really. The movie is very Sixties, but it's also very good at being what it is:



So, in the next couple of weeks, in the run-up to Thanksgiving Day, take a couple of hours out of your busy schedule and see a Thanksgiving movie. You know, before the onslaught of Christmas movies takes over the airwaves and the cable channels.

Movie Monday: The Cher Edition (or "Acting Singers, Part Two")

Yesterday, for Music Sunday, I wrote about a few singers who have also acted in films. There are many more singers and musicians who have tried their hand at acting, with greater or lesser frequency and success.

One singer who has also acted, and with a great deal of success, is Cher. While she first entered the consciousness of most people as half of Sonny and Cher in the 1960s and then showed she could act while she and Sonny starred in "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour" from 1971 through 1974, by the early 1980s she was regularly appearing to good reviews in well-received films. She has also acted on Broadway, also to good notices.

Cher made her Broadway debut in the play "Come Back to the 5 and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" in 1982, to good notices, and then also appeared as the same character, Sissy, in the film version the same year; both were directed by Robert Altman. The story revolves around the 1975 reunion of the local James Dean fan club in a small Texas town near where Dean's last film, "Giant" was filmed in 1955. This clip shows the first ten minutes of the film, including the first of several flashbacks:



In 1982, Cher appeared with Meryl Streep and Kurt Russell in "Silkwood", the story of plutonium plant worker and union activist Karen Silkwood, who died under mysterious circumstances in 1974. For her performance as a friend of Silkwood's, Cher was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress and won a Golden Globe in the same category. Then, in 1985, she starred in "Mask" as the mother of a teenager (Eric Stoltz) suffering from a rare disfiguring disorder called craniodiaphyseal dysplasia. Again, Cher was nominated for a Golden Globe for the performance and she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for the role. Here's a clip from near the beginning of the film, as she shows up to enroll her son in school:



Cher appeared in three films in 1987, "Suspect", "The Witches of Eastwick", and "Moonstruck". "Suspect" didn't get very good reviews, but I've always liked it despite some plot holes you could drive truck through. In the film, Cher plays a public defender who is representing a deaf/mute homeless man (Liam Neeson) who has been charged with murder. One of the jurors (Dennis Quaid) on the case decides to investigate the murder on his own (a definite no-no that jurors are always instructed not to do), and Cher's character gets involved in the illicit investigation. In "The Witches of Eastwick", she stars with Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Jack Nicholson (as the Devil). In "Moonstruck", she plays a widow who is engaged to one man but falls in love with his younger brother after her fiancé goes to Sicily to care for his dying mother. "Moonstruck" is my least favorite of Cher's films that I've seen, but that's probably largely to do with the fact that her co-star is Nicholas Cage, who irritates the hell out of me. The film was a huge critical success, was the fifth highest-grossing film of the year, and won three Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay for John Patrick Shanley, Best Supporting Actress for Olympia Dukakis, and Best Actress for Cher. So, clearly, mine is a minority opinion regarding "Moonstruck". Here is the theatrical trailer for the film:



Some of Cher's other films include "Mermaids" (1990), "Tea With Mussolini" (1999), and "Burlessque" (2010). Here is a clip from "Tea With Mussolini", which also stars Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Lily Tomlin, and Joan Plowright, and was directed by Franco Zefferelli:

Questions...and answers

I've been running into a lot of casual misogyny lately, and it's kind of driving me crazy.

It doesn't really surprise me, I suppose. I've had experience with these sorts of attitudes ever since I was young because I started very young to answer the question, "So what do you want to be when you grow up?", with answers that were not considered the "right" answer.

You see, back in the Sixties, when I was growing up, little girls were still most often expected to answer that question with, "A mommy."

But that answer never came out of my mouth, as far as I can recall. Depending on when the question was asked, the most common ways I answered that question were, "A teacher." Or "A writer." Or "An astronaut." For a long time, I was convinced that I was going to be the first woman on Mars. Oh, well. For awhile, while I was a teenager, my answer was even, "Color commentator for broadcasts of Dodger games." No, really. I love baseball, as those of you who follow along here might have noticed, and I thought that would be a very cool job. I still think that would be a very good job.

Often, when I came up with one or another of those answers, the follow up question was, "But, don't you want to get married and have babies?"

Sigh.

I wasn't quite sure why everyone seemed so certain that being something else and being a wife and mother were mutually exclusive propositions. After all, my dad always told me I could be anything I wanted to be. My mom, not so much - I greatly disappointed her by never giving her any grandchildren - but even she didn't try to discourage me from the other plans I had.

As the women's movement gathered steam, gradually I ran into less and less of those attitudes, at least in some venues. On the other hand, I even left a church at least in part because they kept trying to shove me into that "wife and mother" mold to the exclusion of doing anything else. But, out in the world away from that particular circumstance, people seemed to be more willing to concede that a woman might want to do something else. Or something else, too. Sure, there was talk of glass ceilings and the mommy track, but it was at least admitted that women could do other things if they wanted to.

Now, though, I see more of the attitude that women should "know their place." And, yes, granted, that never really went away completely. But even in situations where women are part of the workplace, I see more of the same "know your place" attitudes directed at women - and not always just by men - than I did for a while. There is expectation - still? again? - that women are supposed to be deferential to men just because they are men. There is a lot of "mansplaining" going on, in which men seem to assume that women don't really know anything and have to have every little thing explained is overly simple terms, much like things must be explained to a child.

Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

I don't know. Maybe it's just where I live. But the fact is, I run into this crap on a regular basis, and seemingly more now than I did, say, ten or fifteen years ago.

When I came on this video clip shared on my Facebook page today, I decided I needed to talk about this and to share the clip. This is from several years ago, 2006, I think, but everything in it still holds true today. And it seemed appropriate since it grew out of the evolving answer to one question that writer and director Joss Whedon keeps getting asked and explains the evolution of his answer when asked. The question concerns why he keeps writing "all those strong women characters". Bear with the introduction to get to his explanation. It's worth the few minutes to get to the meat of what he said:

Movie Monday: The "Right There in Black and White" Edition

Several times, I've had people tell me that they just won't watch a movie that is in black and white. Won't do it. Has to be in color for them to even think about watching.

I have to be honest, here, and say that I just don't understand that sentiment at all.

I mean, look at how many great movies they are denying themselves. And not even old movies. Of course they'll miss "Casablanca" and "It Happened One Night" and "The Passion of Joan of Arc" and "King Kong" (the original" and "The Mummy" and "Dracula" (both of those the originals, too). There is "Double Indemnity" and all of the other film noirs that came out of the 1940s and 1950s. And virtually all of the films from the silent era, although there are some partial exceptions. The list could go on and on and on.

But they'll also miss out on movies like "Ed Wood" (from 1994) and "The Elephant Man" (1980) and "Schindler's List" (1993). Well, "Schindler's List" has a bit of color in a couple of scenes, but is primarily in black and white. There's even the very new version of "Much Ado About Nothing" that was made in black and white.

I love black and white films. Some of my favorites are in black and white, in fact. There's "The Mummy" (1932), which I mentioned previously. And "Casablanca" (1942), also referred to above. And, from more recently, there is The Beatles' first film, "A Hard Day's Night" (1964). I just watched that again the other night and enjoyed it as much as I do every time I see it.

The thing is, it isn't just the story content of those films that make them so good. In the best films, the black and white photography itself is gorgeous, especially if you're seeing a good print. A couple of examples are probably in order.

First, here's a scene from the final moments of "Casablanca":



In this scene from "Stagecoach" (1939), there is a much bigger problem between the quality of scenes shot in the studio versus the beautiful photography of scenes shot on location in Monument Valley than there is with the fact that the film is in black and white. This isn't even the best quality black and white photography I've seen in films, but the location photography is beautiful even so:



Here is the trailer for "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951). This clip shows how black and white photography handles different environments - daylight, nighttime, inside, outside - and how well it does so. Bear with the few seconds of blank screen near the beginning of the clip. It is intentional:



Although this scene from "A Hard Day's Night" makes my point about black and white photography, I'm mostly including it because it is one of my favorite scenes in the film:



And, finally, I'm including this short clip from the most recent black and white film that I know of, Joss Whedon's production of "Much Ado About Nothing":

Movie Monday: The "I've Seen That One, and That One, and, Oh, That One, Too" Edition

I found this really cool book at the library the other day, Son of the 100 Best Movies You've Never Seen" (ECW Press, 2008; 304 pages), by Richard Crouse. Crouse is a Canadian film critic who, I assume has written another (first) book about great unseen films. Considering the "Son of" in the title of this one and all.

I picked up the book primarily to see which films Crouse had listed that I haven't even heard of, much less seen. It was no surprise at all that there were some films listed that I haven't heard of. Quite a few in fact.

A few stood out, just because of their titles. "Amphibian Man" (1962)? "The Brown Bunny" (2003)? "The Cars That Ate Paris?" (1974)? "Switchblade Sisters" (1975)?

To be honest, I'm a little surprised that I had never heard of "The Brown Bunny". Apparently, it set off a feud between the filmmaker, Vincent Gallo (who also starred), and renowned film critic Roger Ebert after Ebert called it "the worst in the history of Cannes" after it was shown at that festival. The feud went so far as for Gallo to put a hex on Ebert's colon, and ended only when Ebert softened his opinion of the film after he viewed an edited version. This is the sort of story that usually comes to my attention, one way or another.

The other thing that surprised me about the book is that I have actually seen several of the supposedly unsuccessful and/or obscure films on Crouse's list.

Six of them in fact.

Those six are: "The Astronaut Farmer" (2006); "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" (2002); "Fantastic Voyage" (1966); "The Last Laugh" (1924); "Serenity" (2005); and "Titicut Follies" (1967).

I only saw two of the films - "Titicut Follies" and "The Last Laugh" - because they were shown in college courses I took. "The Last Laugh" is a German silent film that I saw in a film history class. Directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Emil Jannings, it is an exquisite look at how some people become so defined by their occupations that when they lose their job they disappear, even to themselves.

"Titicut Follies", on the other hand, is a documentary that takes a harsh look at conditions in a Massachusetts asylum for the criminally insane. It is such a harsh film that it was banned and virtually unseen from shortly after its release in 1967. The actual ban, which was handed down y the Massachusetts Supreme Court and allowed showings only to a few selected medical, legal, and education professionals, was lifted in 1992. Even then, however, filmmaker Frederick Wiseman kept his film mostly out o the limelight for years, although it was shown once on PBS after the ban was lifted. Now, of course, it can be found on YouTube.

I saw "Titicut Follies" in a class on the anthropology of images. I probably would never have even heard of it otherwise. It is difficult - sometimes nearly impossible - to watch, but it is a brilliant piece of filmmaking.

Neither "The Astronaut Farmer" nor "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" did very well at the box office, even though they were meant to be mainstream commercial films. I can kind of understand that lack of success in the case of "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind". It is an odd film, based on the memoir of the same name by game-show entrepreneur Chuck Barris. In the 1960s and 1970s Barris created such iconic game shows as "The Dating Game", "The Newlywed Game", and "The Gong Show". In his memoir, Barris claimed that he used his shows as a cover or his other job - as an assassin for the CIA. Who knows whether he really meant for any of the memoir to be taken sseriously. And, of course, the CIA claims they have no knowledge of him as an employee of any kind.

Still, it made a marvelous concept for a film. After floating around in development hell for a while, it got made with George Clooney directing (and playing Barris's CIA handler), and Sam Rockwwell and Drew Barrymore starring as Barris and his love int4erest. As I said, it's a odd film, but in a good way. Here is the trailer for the film, with a little taste of it's oddness:



I'm a bit more puzzled about why "The Astronaut Farmer" didn't do any better than it did at the box office. Starring Billy Bob Thornton, the film tells the story of an astronaut in training who was cut from NASA before he was able to go into space. Not to be denied, the builds his own rocket in his barn, risking everything he has to do so. Nobody notices until he starts shopping around for rocket fuel, which sets alarms going off at the FBI and the FAA. After numerous setbacks and near-disaster, he starts over again and eventually, with a launch crew consisting of his family, he manages to launch himself and his rocket into space.

A little unbelievable? Yeah, but it's one of the best "triumph-over-adversity" films I've ever seen. Thornton hits all the right notes as Charlie Farmer, and the supporting cast (which includes Bruce Willis in an uncredited role) do their jobs well. There is a message, but it is a good one: that you can do anything you set your mind to. This is a message that more people need to hear and believe right now, I think. But, I'll get off my soap-box and show you the trailer for "The Astronaut Farmer":



The final two movies on Crouse's list that I've seen - "Fantastic Voyage" (1966) and "Serenity" (2005) - are both science fiction.

"Serenity" is the film that gives closure to the Fox television series "Firefly", which was cancelled after just eleven of its episodes had aired but that still managed to find a devoted, if initially small, audience. "Firefly" came and went so fast that, as much of a science fiction fan as I am, I missed it on its initial run. I caught up later, but I still wish I had found it when it was new.

Yeah, it's premise is unusual - basically it's cowboys in space, and the ragged losers of a war for their part of the universe against the huge military corporation that won - but it works. When creator, writer, and director Joss Whedon puts a herd of cows on a spaceship for transport, or has a train robbery conducted out of a spaceship, you believe it. Or at least I did. The film features the same crew of outlaws, miscreants, and refugees as the series, and it feels like a bigger, better episode, just transferred to the big screen. And, just like the series, the movie will make you laugh and it will break your heart.



And then there's "Fantastic Voyage". I saw this one when it first was released in theaters in 1966, which made me about ten at the time. Even then, I could see that the story had plot holes you could drive a space ship through. Even so, it holds the viewer's attention (and, yes, I have seen it again since I was ten). The effects in the film, which tells the story of a miniaturized submarine and it's medical crew voyaging through the human body, were state of the art at the time - it won two Academy Awards, for Visual Effects and for Art Direction, Yes, it is very much a film of its decade. But given the shape the world is in, in this decade, a trip back to that less complicated time (well, relatively) isn't such a bad prospect.

The book Crouse wrote is fun. I'd recommend tracking it down. I know, I plan on finding the first volume, to see what is on that list and how many of those films I've seen.

Movie Monday: Corriganville, Iverson, and the rest...Movie Ranches of the Santa Susana Mountains/Simi Hills

Today, I was going to write a simple little post about the movie ranches around the area where I grew up in Southern California. A little research has convinced me that it is impossible to write such a post, because there are and were more separate ranches around the area than I knew existed, and because their histories are very much entwined.

I knew about Corriganville Movie Ranch, of course. I grew up within just a few miles of that ranch, went by the entrance on a constant basis, and even visited there in the old days when it was open to tourists on weekends and holidays. I also knew about, but knew less about, the Iverson Movie Ranch, which is farther to the east, at the north/northwest end of San Fernando Valley, in Chatsworth. And everybody knows about Spahn's Movie Ranch, one of the smaller movie ranches, due to it's involvement in the whole Charlie Manson thing. I even knew about the newer Big Sky Movie Ranch, farther west in the hills north of Simi Valley, California.

But I didn't know about the Bell Moving Picture Ranch, later renamed Bell Location Ranch and I didn't really know about the Lasky Movie Ranch/Ahmanson "Lasky Mesa" Ranch, either.

As I said, Corriganville is the movie ranch I'm most familiar with, since it was within a couple of miles of the first house I lived in and maybe four or five miles from the house I finished most of the rest of my growing up in. The land was acquired by Ray "Crash" Corrigan, an actor and stuntman, in 1937. By the end of that year, movie makers had begun to use the land as a location for their films. Besides being used as a filming location, Corrigan opened the ranch to the public in 1949, where they could go on weekends and holidays to see stunt shows and the western town, frontier fort, and village he had built as a backdrop for films. The attraction remained open to the public until 1965, when he sold the ranch to Bob Hope. Hope subdivided part of the land and built homes there. Additionally, some of the land was used for motorcycle racing in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Wildfires in 1970 and 1979 destroyed what remained of the movie sets Corrigan had built.

Segments of many of the old Western and adventure TV series in the 50s and early sixties were filmed at Corriganville. "Gunsmoke", "Bonanza", "Wagon Train", "The Lone Ranger", "Wanted: Dead or Alive", "Have Gun, Will Travel", "The Adventures of Superman", "Hopalong Cassidy", "The Roy Rogers Show", "The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin", "The Adventures of Superman" (1951), and many more were filmed in part or completely there. Lots of western films, most of which you've never heard of were also filmed there over the years. Some of them were really bad - the one that comes to mind immediately because I saw it once on late-night television is "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" (1966). But, parts of "How the West Was Won" (1962), "Fort Apache" (1948), "Duel in the Sun" (1946), and "The Inspector General" (1949) were also filmed there. For a time in the early 1950s, the ranch even had it's own show, a children's variety show, called "Crash Corrigan's Ranch" was also filmed there.

In fact, that children's show may have been referenced in the 2006 film "Hollywoodland", a drama that examines the mystery of the death of "Superman" actor George Reeves. At one point Reeves (played by Ben Affleck) appears, in his Superman costume, in a show for kids at an unnamed western-themed tourist attraction. At the time I first saw the film, I did not know about the variety show that came from Corriganville, but I immediately connected the movie ranch with the on-screen scene in my mind. I have no evidence that this was the show being referenced by the film-maker, but it fits the time-frame and the fact that parts of some episodes of the Superman series were shot at the ranch.

The Iverson Ranch is at the other end of the Santa Susana Pass and was active as a movie ranch from at least 1912 to the late 1960s, when it was cut in half by the building of the Simi Valley Freeway. Many early series were shot at Iverson - in fact, it seems that many of those shows went back and forth frequently between Iverson and Corriganville. Many of the early Republic Pictures serials were also shot at Iverson. IMDB lists 951 titles of movies and television series episodes that were shot at Iverson over the years. Among the series shot there were "Perry Mason", "The Rifleman", "The Big Valley", "Wagon Train", "The Lone Ranger", "Whirlybirds", and "The Real McCoys". Among the films that were at least partially filmed at Iverson were "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940), "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948), "The Jazz Singer" (1927), the 1927 Ramon Navarro version of "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ", "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1936), the Laurel and Hardy film "Flying Deuces" (1939), "The Cattle Queen of Montana" (1954), which starred Barbara Stanwyck and Ronald Reagan, and "They Died With Their Boots On" (1941), directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland. And this is not to mention the many B-movies filmed there.

Here is a sample of the sort of scenery at both Iverson and Corriganville, in the opening for "The Lone Ranger":



In between Iverson and Corriganville, there were the Spahn Ranch, located along Santa Susana Pass Road, which was a minor player in the movie-location game and only became really famous after Charlie Manson and his group took up residence and used it as a base for their killing spree. I couldn't find reference to too many films being shot there, but parts of "Duel in the Sun", mentioned previously were also shot there, as well as something called "The Creeping Terror" in 1964, and an 8-day quickies shoot of a film called "Satan's Sadists" (1969), which was actually filmed while Manson and his followers were living there. The only surprise about "Satan's Sadists" is that it actually starred a name actor, Russ Tamblyn, who had previously been in such classics as "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954) and "West Side Story" (1961)

South of the Santa Susana Pass Road (which played a part in last week's Movie Monday post, coincidentally) was also Bell Moving Picture Ranch, later renamed Bell Location Ranch. I couldn't find too many references to things filmed there, either (more research is obviously in order), but Paul Newman's film "Hombre" was filmed there at least in part in 1967), as was "Carson City" (1952), and the Star Trek episode "A Private Little War".

To review, between Corriganville, Iverson Ranch, Spahn Ranch, and Bell Ranch, movie ranches extended along both sides of the Santa Susana Pass all the way from the western end of San Fernando Valley to the east end of Simi Valley, straddling the Los Angeles County, Ventura County line. In addition, somewhat to the south, was the Lasky Movie Ranch/Ahmanson "Lasky Mesa" Ranch. I couldn't find much information on Lasky either, but among the movies with scenes filmed there were two Errol Flynn films, "Santa Fe Trail" (1940) and "They Died With Their Boots On" (1941). Again, films were jumping from ranch to ranch for different scenery. And oh, yes, another small movie you may have heard of, "Gone With The Wind" (1939) was also filmed in part at Lasky.

This leaves Big Sky Movie Ranch, which is further west than the other ranches I've written about today, nestled in the less-rocky hills north of Simi Valley. Big Sky is probably best known as the main location for filming of the television series "Little House on the Prairie", which ran from 1974 to 1982. It's history doesn't go as far back as the other ranches I've mentioned, although some scenes for the old Western shows "Bonanza", "Rawhide", and "Gunsmoke" were filmed there. It was also the location for the 1983 mini-series "The Thorn Birds", and the 200 - 2005 HBO series "Carnivale". Additionally, scenes from more recent films, including "Coming to America" (1988) and "Transformers" (2007) were also shot there.

I really didn't mean for this post to get so long. And the thing is, I've barely scratched the surface of the subject here today. Still, this quick outline is enough to illustrate the sheer amount of movie-making that went on within just a small region of Southern California. There are other ranches in the larger area around Southern California, but I don't think there is anywhere where there are so many of them within such a concentrated area.

Movie Monday: The "I'm Really Looking Forward to this Movie" Edition

I have just one thing to say today, and that is that I want to see this movie:



This is "Rush", directed by Ron Howard and starring Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt and Daniel Bruhl as Niki Lauda, rivals in Forumla I racing in the 1970s. In 1976, Lauda was nearly killed in a crash at the German Grand Prix. Just a month and a half later, Lauda returned to racing, coming fourth in the Italian Grand Prix.

That's all. I'm really looking forward to seeing this movie when it comes out in late September. I can't remember the last time I was so looking forward to a new movie.

Movie extra: The "Artists and Models" Edition

I've never liked Jerry Lewis, nor much of anything he's been in. I don't think he's particularly funny, and his recent insistence that women shouldn't do comedy because it "diminishes" their "qualities to the lowest common denominator" both puzzle and offend me, and not just on behalf of the all the really funny women in the world. I'm not sure it says much about him that he thinks it's okay for men to diminish themselves in that way, or that they are already so debased that it doesn't matter what they do.

Yeah, I know, he's an old man now, and I probably shouldn't say bad things about him.

If that's true, then this is my mea culpa. This evening, I happened to watch "Artists and Models", a 1955 film he made with Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, and Dorothy Malone. Ordinarily I wouldn't have watched it, but my roommate turned it on so that her 5-year-old granddaughter could watch it. But, we were eating dinner and it was either watch the movie or go eat by myself. I've been eating alone all summer while my roommate has been on vacation, so that wasn't an option that I really liked. And so I watched the movie.

It was hilarious.

No, really. It's that laugh-out-loud kind of funny that is difficult to come by, in my experience.

It still had too much of Lewis's mugging. That isn't my taste in comedy, and it doesn't look any better these days on Jim Carrey than it did when Lewis was doing it on a regular basis. And I find his "Hey, Lady!" voice, which he uses in this film, to be particularly grating. But, even with all this, I laughed out loud repeatedly during the film and recommend it just on that basis alone.

Also, any movie that can find comedy in the Cold War and the popular culture of the 1950s is my friend, and this film manages to do that. They send up the furor over what comic books were supposedly doing to the sensitive minds of children with style and bite, and they poke fun equally at the Soviets and at US overzealousness in rooting out all the Reds under all the beds. And there's a quick, blink-and-you'll-miss-it, tip of the hat to "Rear Window", one of the top grossing films of the year before "Artists and Models" was made, that is just hilarious. There is also a scene that begs the question of whether whoever invented the game "Twister" was watching it when they first thought of the idea for the game. They also manage to send up the then-fledgling space race as they laugh at both the spying of the Soviets and at the sometimes comic overzealousness of the US in guarding against that spying.

Here's the trailer for the film, courtesy of YouTube:



It really is a funny film, and you should see it. It doesn't make me like Jerry Lewis any better, to be honest, but it proves that him just being in a movie is not necessarily a reason for me to avoid it completely.

Movie Monday: The "See a Sixties Movie" Edition

I've been sitting here for awhile trying to figure out what to write about for this week's Movie Monday post. The problem is, I haven't seen many movies lately, certainly no new films, and nothing I have seen has really been worth writing home - or anywhere else - about.

But then, while I was looking at the onscreen cable guide during a break for ads in the "Criminal Minds" marathon I was watching (I've been watching a lot of "Criminal Minds" lately; good show), I saw that "Cactus Flower" was going to be on Turner Classic Movies in about half an hour. It took no time at all to decide that the "Criminal Minds" marathon could go on without me for a couple of hours.

I first saw "Cactus Flower" when it was originally released in 1969. I loved it then and I've loved it ever since. It is a flat-out funny movie, for all that it starts with Goldie Hawn's character attempting suicide by turning on the gas in her kitchen. Her neighbor quickly smells the gas, however, and puts a stop to the attempt by kicking out the window and coming to the rescue with a little mouth-to-mouth (this is where the comedy begins). Talk about a "meet cute" beginning; this is definitely an unexpected twist on that tired old concept.

It turns out that Hawn's character was trying to kill herself because her boyfriend, a womanizing dentist, won't leave his wife to marry her. The boyfriend (portrayed by Walter Matthau), as it turns out, isn't even really married; that's only what he tells the girls he dates so that he won't have to get seriously involved with them. Hawn's character gets the idea that the only reason he won't leave the (nonexistent) wife is for the sake of their (equally nonexistent) children. So, the girlfriend insists on meeting the wife. The dentist enlists his assistant/receptionist (portrayed by Ingrid Bergman) to pose as his wife, and she in turn borrows her nephews so that it will appear that they have children. The receptionist enjoys the role; it turns out she has been nurturing on the dentist for some time. Lie builds on hilarious lie until things get quite out of control.

I'll admit that "Cactus Flower" is a film of its time, being made as it was when the world was quite a bit different than it is today. I still find it very, very funny. And it is notable for a couple of reasons. First of all, this was Ingrid Bergman's first Hollywood role in twenty years (she'd been, in effect, banished from Hollywood in the late 1940s for having had a child out of wedlock, something that one just didn't admit back then, even in Hollywood - maybe especially in the Hollywood of the time), and she is wonderful as the receptionist. Additionally, it was Goldie Hawn's first real role in a film (she'd been in one film previously, but only as a chorus dancer in a Disney film), having previously been known only for her featured role as a ditzy blonde in the sketch comedy series "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" on television. It was an impressive performance, winning her an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress her first time out.

Here is the original trailer for the film, from 1969:



Well, I'm going to finish watching the movie now.

Movie Monday: The I Try to Make a "Desert Island Movie Discs" List Edition

Some people count sheep when they can't sleep. Some people take sleeping pills. Or drink warm milk...or something a little stronger.

I make lists. That usually works.

However, one night last week when I couldn't sleep, I started trying to put together a list of which ten movies I would take along if I was going to be stranded somewhere for a considerable length of time and could only take a limited number with me. It's sort of a variation on "Desert Island Discs". I do the same sometimes with songs, albums, books, author's collections, that kind of thing.

That usually works.

However, with the movie list, I started arguing with myself mentally and ended up laying there at least another hour and a half before I could make my mind shut up enough so that I could go to sleep, having come to the conclusion that a list of ten was impossible.

It started out easily enough, with three irreplaceable films: "A Hard Day's Night" (1964), "The Right Stuff" (1983), and "The Day The Earth Stood Still" (the original, from 1951; I haven't seen the new version). And then there is the original, Boris Karloff, version of "The Mummy" (1932), which has, as I'm sure I've said here before, has been a favorite since I first saw it when I was all of five years old.

So far, so good, right?

Well, yes. But things started going downhill from there.

I decided that there had to be a Steve McQueen film on the list. "Bullitt" (1968) came to mind. Wonderful movie, great chase scene. But then I thought about "The Thomas Crown Affair" (also 1968, as it turns out). I love that movie, too. And then there's "The Cincinnati Kid" (1965). Also very good. But then there's "Junior Bonner" (1972), starring McQueen, Robert Preston, and Ida Lupino, and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It's one of the most underrated films of the Seventies, in my opinion, and I've loved it ever since I first saw it in the theater when it was first released.

Okay. I couldn't pick, so I set that aside for awhile and attacked the list from another direction.

Silent movies. I really would want to have one of those along, and there are some silents that I've really enjoyed. I've written here before about "The Unknown" (1927), starring Lon Chaney and Joan Crawford, and directed by Tod Browning. It's an amazing little (it only runs 50 minutes or so) horror film. But then there is "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928), and of course "Phantom of the Opera" (1925), also starring Chaney. Carl Theodor Dreyer made "Vampyr" in 1932 and it isn't really a silent film, but it was Dreyer's first and contains little dialogue, and so I always think of it as a silent. And then "Metropolis (1927) comes to mind. Again, how to choose?

Musicals.

I like musicals, which those of you who read here regularly probably already know. There would need to be at least one of those on the list. "Singin' in the Rain" (1952) is a favorite. So, God help me, is "Mary Poppins" (1964). But, so is "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" (1970) and "Funny Girl" (1968), both Barbra Streisand films. Another Julie Andrews musical, "Victor Victoria" (1982), is also definitely on the list of possibilities. Less traditionally, among the alternatives for a place on the list would have to be "Tommy" (1975) and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (also 1975).

It went on like this, with different categories of films. Dramas. Comedies. Westerns. Science fiction. Well, there is already one science fiction film on the list, but there are so many more good science fiction films that I could potentially want on the list as well. You can probably see why I gave up. And I won't go on with more examples of my thinking that night, because this is already getting to be a longish post.

But I do have a question for all of you. If you were making a list of the ten (or fifteen, or twenty) films you would want with you if you were going to be stranded somewhere for awhile, which ones would you take? Leave your list in the comments.

Movie Monday: The Silent Edition

People don't really pay much attention to silent films these days. To be truthful, there are people now who won't even watch black and white films. It's got to be in color, with lots of loud explosions and chase scenes and casts of thousands (even if most of the thousands are computer-generated these days, rather than being actual human beings).

On the other hand, an argument can be made in favor of black and white, silent films. This is one of those arguments, one of the best:



That is a scene from Carl Theodor Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928), and it is amazing. I had read about this film for years and didn't believe the hype. Then, a few years ago I got to see the film in a showing on Turner Classic Movies. It was late at night. I didn't think, going in, that I would be able to stay awake for the whole movie. And then it began, and I was entranced. I can't really describe the film. You have to see it.

I'd been interested in silent films even before I saw "The Passion of Joan of Arc", but it was mostly an historical interest. I would have rather read about the silents than watched them. I mean, really. A lot of silent films are odd to watch after seeing films as they are today. But some of that sometimes has to do with technical issues, including films that are shown at different frame-per-second rates than they were filmed in, which can make the movement in them look unnatural. Additionally, the acting can look, well, silly; exaggerated and melodramatic. Part of that is the convention of the time, and part of it is probably the natural exaggeration of stage acting, which was where many film actors came from. This includes Maria (or Renee, depending on the source you consult) Falconetti, who played Joan in Dreyer's film.

Although Dreyer's next film, after "The Passion of Joan of Arc", was a sound film, it was made very much like a silent film, with little dialogue and with dialogue cards as were used in the silents. That film was "Vampyr" (1932), a horror film that is just as amazing in its own way as was "The Passion of Joan of Arc". Vampyr, with it's visual effects and story (taken from a Sheridan Le Fanu story), is a unique visual experience. Notable for the time, it was shot entirely on location rather than in the controlled environment of a studio:



Another of my favorite silent films is one I happened on quite by accident, again late one night on TCM. I started watching, intending to just watch for a little while and then go to bed. I ended up watching the whole film not that it was that long, just over an hour. This was "The Unknown", from 1927, directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney, Sr. (not to be confused with his son, Lon Chaney, Jr., who, among other roles, played the Wolf Man several times in various films).

If you recognize Browning's name, that's probably because he also directed "Dracula" (1931) - yes, that one, with Bela Lugosi - as well as the cult film "Freaks" (1932). And, if you don't recognize Lon Chaney's name, you've been missing out on some of the classics of silent film, with "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925) and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1923). But those are just the most remembered of some 162 films (according to IMDB), some of them lost and only one of them a sound film, and that a remake of an earlier silent film he had starred in.

The thing about "The Unknown" is that it is incredibly dark. It is the story of Alonzo the Armless, and that's all I'll say about that because I want you to see it, and to experience it the way I did, knowing nothing about the film. Chaney's performance in the film might seem melodramatic to those of us used to seeing acting in today's films, but Burt Lancaster, not a bad actor himself, has called this performance by Chaney "the most emotionally compelling" performance ever put on film. And Joan Crawford, who starred opposite Chaney in "The Unknown", has been quoted as saying that she learned more about acting from watching him work on this film than from any other experience in her career.

Really. Go see a silent film. You can find some of them in their entirety on YouTube, including both "The Unknown" and "The Passion of Joan of Arc".

Movie Monday: The "Parent Trap" (1961) Edition

I watched part of "The Parent Trap" last night. Not the remake, but the original film released by Disney in 1961. What is known in my universe as the "real Parent Trap."

Not that there is anything wrong with the remake, which starred Lindsay Lohan and Dennis Quaid. It isn't a bad movie. I just isn't the movie that I grew to love as a child. There's just something missing. I don't know what that something is, just that whatever it is, it isn't there.

The original version, if you haven't ever come across it, stars Hayley Mills as Susan and Sharon, identical twins who don't know each other exist until they end up at the same summer camp as adolescents.

Now, stop right there. How could this be possible? Well, their parents divorced shortly after the twins were born, with each parent taking one child. They live on opposite coasts, and neither parent talks about the other or about their marriage. It sort of makes sense in a pre-Internet world. Anyway, it's a Disney movie. Disney has managed to get away with all sorts of things over the years that other studios wouldn't have been able to make work.

Anyway, Susan and Sharon don't like each other much and a series of pranks against each other eventually gets out of hand at a dance with the boys from the camp across the lake (no, I'm not telling what the prank is; you have to watch the movie), and so they are moved into an isolated cabin with the hope that they will resolve their differences. They end up figuring out that they are sisters (not telling you how they do that, either...watch the movie) and hatch a plan to trade places so that Susan can meet her mother and Sharon can meet her father.

Yes, again, I know this is far-fetched. That's what the willing suspension of disbelief is all about.

There is also, of course, the hope that Susan and Sharon can somehow get their parents back together. Only when Sharon arrives in California, she discovers that Mitch (played by Brian Keith), her father, is engaged to a younger woman. The wedding is coming up soon. Alarmed calls go back and forth across the land, and back in Boston Susan ends up 'fessing up to her grandfather (played by Charles Ruggles) that she's not Sharon after he overhears her talking to Sharon on the telephone in the middle of the night. Here's that scene:



Back in California, Mitch's housekeeper, Verbena (played by Una Merkel, who is wonderful) thinks that something is up, but hasn't quite figured out what it is.

At any rate, when the truth comes out in Boston, Maggie, the girls' mother (played by Maureen O'Hara) sets out to return Susan to her father and to bring Sharon home, after some shopping and a make-over instigated by Ruggles' character, who has a pretty good idea that Maggie is still in love with Mitch.

Much hilarity ensues once everyone is in California. Not the least of that hilarity comes from Reverend Mosby, who is slated to perform Mitch's wedding ceremony. As Rev. Mosby, Leo G. Carroll is wonderful in his amused reaction to the whole situation. Vicky, the woman Mitch is going to marry (played by Joanna Barnes), and her mother, who are mostly just interested in Mitch's money, are not nearly so amused, which is also pretty funny. As is the camping trip...but I'm not going to say any more about that.

You have to see the movie.

Yes, the story is unbelievable. Yes, the movie was made in the early Sixties and looks it. Doesn't matter. It's still a good movie and you should see it.

I feel compelled to mention, under the circumstances, that the film's title song was performed by Tommy Sands and Annette Funicello, who were making the film "Babes in Toyland" at the time. Funicello passed away today at the age of 70, and judging from my FB feed, will be sorely missed.

Anyway. Yes. Go see the original version "The Parent Trap". It's on Showtime right now if you've got it. Otherwise, find a copy. It might mostly be a reminder of a slightly more innocent time. But that isn't a bad thing from time to time.

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I also want to mention the passing of film critic Roger Ebert, who died last Thursday, also at age 70. I didn't always agree with Ebert's movie reviews, but I always enjoyed reading them or listening to them on "At the Movies". It was so obvious that he loved film - loved watching them and loved talking and writing about them. I understand that while he was a Roman Catholic, he wasn't convinced of the existence of God. However, ever since I learned of his passing, I've had this mental image of him arriving at the Gates of Heaven to find St. Peter with a huge smile on his face and two huge "thumbs-up", welcoming Ebert to heaven with a huge bowl of popcorn and an invitation to the movie theater that never closes.

I'm going to miss seeing Ebert on my Twitter feed.

Movie Monday: The John Garfield Edition

It's John Garfield's birthday today, or would have been had he not died of a heart attack at the age of 39 in 1952. The actor, known for roles in movies such as "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946), "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947), and "Destination Tokyo" (1943), had a history of heart trouble that started when he had scarlet fever when he was a child. Being blacklisted in Hollywood after refusing to name names when called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) did not help his condition and may have had a hand in his early death.

Garfield started acting in school as part of therapy for a speech impediment. He made his Broadway debut in 1932. That play, "Lost Boy", only ran for a couple of weeks, but soon found himself in other roles. Eventually, Hollywood began to try to entice him to Hollywood, but Garfield resisted until he was turned down for the starring role in "Golden Boy", a role he had really wanted. A couple of studios offered screen tests, but talks over a contract got hung up when he wanted a clause inserted that would give him time off for future stage work. Finally, Warner Brothers agreed, signed him, and put him in "Four Daughters" (1938), in the role as a troubled young composer who disrupts the lives of the family who runs the boarding house where he rents a room. Garfield was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor in a Supporting Role in the film. Although he lost to Walter Brennan in "Kentucky", I think you can see in this clip from the film exactly why he was nominated:



Garfield was also nominated, this time as Best Actor, for his work in the 1947 film "Body and Soul", in which he plays a boxer who gets mixed up with some crooked promoters:



Again, Garfield lost the award, this time to Ronald Colman in "A Double Life". Also nominated that year were Michael Redgrave (for "Mourning Becomes Electra"), William Powell (for "Life With Father"), and Gregory Peck (for "Gentleman's Agreement"), so he was in good company. Garfield, by the way, was also in "Gentleman's Agreement". A controversial film about antisemitism, "Gentleman's Agreement" ended up winning Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (Elia Kazan), and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Celeste Holm).

As I mentioned earlier, Garfield also starred in "The Postman Always Rings Twice", which just might have the most enticing first five minutes of a film in the history of Hollywood. See for yourself:



I dare you not to go out and find that and watch the whole film. The only reason that I'm not going to spend the next couple of hours doing just that is that I've got some other things to do first.