This Month on TCM: "Marty" (1955)

On March 31st, TCM is showing Best Picture winner Marty-- the Little Miss Sunshine of 1955. With Marty, Oscar-winning trio Paddy Chayefsky, Delbert Mann, and Ernest Borgnine offered up an uplifting piece of cinema that is forever relevant.


"I'm just a fat, little man. A fat, ugly man," blurts Marty to his mother in a desparate admission of his lifelong dating frustrations. But Marty is ever hopeful. He gets it from the ladies at the butcher shop, gets it from his mother... but he has his friends, he has his work, and life isn't so bad.

In bringing Chayefsky's "kitchen sink" drama from the Golden Age of Television to the silver screen, little is lost of the intimacy by director Delbert Mann (who also did the TV version). Perhaps the only difference is in Borgnine's performance. But maybe this more overt approach over original lead Rod Steiger's internalizations, was necessary for the big screen-- could Steiger have pulled off the joie de vive that Borgnine delivers at the bus stop (after his first meeting with Clara) with such aplomb?

The film starts off with Marty getting lectured about why he isn't married now that his younger brother has just tied the knot. There is no hint of rumors of homosexuality (that would be in today's Marty), but something has got to be wrong-- at the very least isn't he ashamed, everyone wonders? Marty has bigger issues on his mind-- like buying out the butcher shop he works at; but his nagging loneliness hangs over him.

Marty's mother, played by Esther Minciotti, gets word that Marty could get a date by going to local singles scene, the Stardust Ballroom. Although Marty says he's been there many times before, he goes this Saturday night to please his mother (or to get far away from her nagging, perhaps). There he meets "dog" Clara, a schoolteacher who's an over-the-hill 29! They talk and talk, but the film never lags. Borginine's Marty has charm. The film convinces us that he's a "catch." And Betsy Blair's Clara, although painfully shy, seems to agree. Clara calls Marty a "nice guy"-- as much the kiss of death today as it was then. Marty starts to have doubts about Clara, mostly based on how others perceive her.

In an interesting subplot, Marty's cousin Tommy (Jerry Paris) and his wife Virginia (Karen Steele) are having marital troubles due to living with Tommy's mother ("Aunt Catherine," played by Augusta Ciolli). Tommy at one point lecutures Marty. Why should Marty want to get married? He's free from the responsiblity-- why spoil it? Is geting married-- chancing marrying the wrong person, worth the trouble? It might seem to leave a smudge on Marty's rose-colored glasses, but instead it suggests that Marty, who took so long to find his match, may have been luckier than some who perhaps rushed into marriage. And yet, it also shows that everything doesn't end up as one would expect in relationships. This was a necessary shade of gray for Marty's storyline, keeping the potential treckliness of the material as a whole at bay.

And so it goes. The film meets an inevitable conclusion and there are no groundbreaking cinematic moments, but the drama is solid, and the characters are real.

Marty was one of the defining films of the 1950s-- even internationally, as it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It's a "slight" film, without a grandious sweep, an unusual winner for the Best Picture Oscar, and surely the first major success by an independent film.






Marty (1955): An eternally relatable film, done on an appropriately modest scale, which may not be the height of all that cinema has to offer, but an example of what is dramatically possible.

Best Picture 25 Years Ago: "Terms of Endearment" (1983)-- A Review

James L. Brooks's Terms of Endearment is the sentimental journey of a widowed mother who informs her daughter that she "isn't special enough to overcome a bad marriage." It begins, briefly, with Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) worrying irrationally about her newborn girl, flashes quickly to her arrival home following her husband's premature death with little Emma in tow, and soon thereafter arrives at the aforementioned moment in which she expresses her doubts about Emma (Debra Winger)'s choice of husband-- Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels).

The film excels at covering long stretches of time without any uncinematic titles or awkward montages. We follow not only Emma's marriage, children, and home life; but Flap's career as a teacher, as well as her mother's loneliness and eventual adventures with her next-door neighbor, former astronaut Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson). The plot is natural and although it follows for the most part average human experiences it does so just enough off-center to make them original (yes, you may have gone on a date with your next door neighbor after years of ignoring them, but did they drive their car with their feet for fun during it?). That the last third comes a bit out of left field and goes unabashedly for the heart is both the film's weakness and strength and it's palatability is individual to the viewer. Without the end, however, we'd never know just what each of the characters was capable of, and, therefore, in many ways, it's the perfect way to wrap the story. Helping to hold the film together is the memorable theme that plays throughout the score (a now oft-played piece of movie music). Although it seems ever-present, there are many other effective pieces of music throughout, which are expertly placed to stave off lulls.



Its hard not to point out the genuine appeal of Terms of Endearment. The characters are interesting, their problems are ours, and the performances are rich. When Shirley MacLaine triumphantly exclaimed "I deserve this!" as she won her Oscar, she surely meant for career effort in addition to her performance of Aurora. However, this was no pity Oscar. Her repressed, overbearing Aurora manages to be unchanging yet understanding to all around her. The scenes between MacLaine and Nicholson are the most entertaining to watch, these two people who come together for no good reason and who don't belong together, save the fact that they're both barely holding together their individual lives at the moment they hook up. Nicholson is gleeful as Garrett and his occasional off-the-wall expressions and deliverly, which have not always worked for him in every role, serve Emmett well.

There are certain recurring motifs that add cinematic depth to Terms of Endearment : Emma's Broadway show tunes, the aspect of physical distance between the characters, and the telephone conversations. Emma's Broadway songs, which are strictly a part of the first thirty-odd minutes of the film, show her freedom from her mother, but are dropped when it becomes clear that Emma will always need Aurora. Physical distances have a stronger meaning: that Flap and Emma travel apart also represents their crumbling marriage; Emma's distance from her mother goes from the furthest extreme to the closest by the film's end as her need for her returns; Aurora and Garrett meet at the fence between their yards and once the physical distance was breached, they could never really be apart. The phone conversations (upward of ten throughout the movie) strike a rhythm of extreme ups and downs, each is either made due to some particular happiness or because of some crisis. Side quibble: the frequent lack of audio filtering when off-screen phone dialogue is being spoken (and yet this "mistake" can be used to argue that in Terms these conversations are more important than in other movies that use them to just move the plot along).

The screenplay is filled with memorable lines and telling moments. Although not widespread, there is a lot of humor as well. The humor serves as an example of how natural the movie comes across-- life isn't filled with a string of non-stop laughs, but there are many along the way. The conflict between the characters is never over-the-top, never off putting. The film is dated only in its lack of minorities on screen, which is rarely, if ever, an issue anymore.

Terms of Endearment (1983): A perfect case of taking all the norms of filmmaking and of life experience, throwing them just off-center, lining up all the right talent, and creating a satisfying, memorable movie experience.

Last Year's Oscar-winning Best Picture: "No Country For Old Men"

No Country For Old Men is a stark genre piece with the unmistakable quality of auteurs Joel & Ethan Coen. The film is an admirable experiment in shaking audience expectations. It keeps enough expected motifs and set pieces to give it a suspense thriller identity, but the narrative is purposefully derailed along the journey.

The set-up is concise and the three main characters defined immediately: a local Texas man comes upon a drug deal gone wrong and sees an opportunity to run off with the $2 million left behind-- a hired killer is after him, and the town sheriff is behind the two of them. Although he's a supporting character to the action, Tommy Lee Jones' Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is the audience's connection to reality. As Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) reaps havock, Sheriff Bell represents normalcy. His opening narration is a comment on acceptance of life and also to an extent the experience of watching movies ("OK, I'll be a part of this world"). It's as if the Coens, knowing how off-the-wall their material can be, decided that this time around they'd put in someone to represent us (or at least identified it in the source material). Again, with Bell we have a well-known filmic device to hold onto, until the final moments when even he, spinning a tale about a dream he had about his father, enters Coen territory. It's been frequently said the the greatest movies all comment at least in some small way on the movies themselves. This is one of the strengths of No Country for Old Men, and the Coen's style. Their films seem to dare us to reject them: their originality almost always changes our opinion.



The creation of Anton Chigurh in all his glory, from speech pattern to bad haircut, is so inspired as to instantly place him in cinema history. He's unforgettable. What makes him that much more frightening, is, after seeing him stalking his prey-- almost a spectre in his movement and manners-- we also see that he's human, when at one point he must tend to real life flesh and blood wounds.



Another memorable aspect of the production of No Country for Old Men is its sound design-- and it's ability to draw attention to itself. There's the flipping of Chigurh's coin, the squeeking of the suitcase in the air duct, the unscrewing of the lightbulb in the hotel shootout, the thump of the air gun as it punches out a door's lock cylinder, the shattering of glass as a result of explosions and crashes. If you've seen the movie, a list like this brings each of those sounds to life. The effect is not a showy one, it's just another "clue" to the audience that No Country is not typical, plus serves to remind us that we are watching a movie.

No Country for Old Men, perhaps goes overboard in its rejection of the norms of the suspense thriller. The final confrontation is not the one the audience is expecting, which would have been fine if that aspect of the story had been further developed, i.e. the characterization and storyline of Kelly MacDonald's "Carla Jean Moss." Even an experimental film narrative must provide satisfaction and I don't think the audience is satisfied by the fate of any of the charcters or the way the story closes. There's a major "I don't get it" factor if you will.

But despite this overall cloud, it's the kind of movie you feel compelled to watch again, perhaps hoping this time to find that missing piece. Just like the way that RKO studio's tampering of The Magnificent Ambersons seems to somehow fit the movie's own theme of loss, so too does No Country For Old Men's obscurity serve it's own theme of the randomness of the world-- it's imperfection turn's back on itself.

No Country For Old Men (2007): An experimental narrative that toys with audience expectations while providing compelling devices of the suspense thriller, yet whose fulfilment can best be described by its own tagline, "There are no clean getaways."

This Month on TCM: 1949s Best Picture— All the King's Men

On Friday, February 27, TCM is showing Oscar-winner All the King's Men. One of the more obscure winners for Best Picture, the film won the top honors from the Academy but only three Oscars total (the other two, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress).

All the King's Men is based on the Pultizer Prize-winning book by Robert Penn Warren. Make no mistake, the story of Willie Stark is lifted from the life of Louisiana Governor Huey Long— there is one parallel after the next in the Long-to-Stark comparison, with only Long's Senate tenure left out.

All the King's Men, produced and directed by Robert Rossen, runs a dense 109 minutes. Packed into the story is the complete rise of a small town yokel from nobody to Governor and how his political ambitions affect his family and colleagues. Broderick Crawford's Willie Stark is a complete characterization-- he's a lowbrow, crass and impulsive mover-and-shaker, who's very methods transform him from a man of the people to an island unto himself. Crawford and the scripting smartly show Stark in his early scenes already possessing the traits of a hardheaded loudmouth-- when his son appears to have been beaten up for handing out leaflets in his father's behalf, Willie practically beats him again to get the story out of him--setting him up perfectly for his later transformation. The power of Crawford's take on Stark is not in how he changes over time, but rather the ambiguity of his character: his methods are clearly misguided, but his motives are not always selfish.

The film is peopled with compeling minor characters as well. Jack Burden (played by John Ireland) is the newspaper columnist that quits his paper for idealistic reasons and has rejected his stepfather's wealth to join up with Stark; Anne Stanton (Joanne Dru) is the rich girl who sees a possible Governor's wife opportunity as Stark's girlfriend; Adam Stanton (Sheppard Strudwick) is the doctor who makes a deal with the devil for the important construction of a new hospital; Tom Stark (John Derek) is Willie's son, who won't allow his father to run his life; and Sadie Burke (Mercedes McCambridge) is the mercenary political manager who goes where the action is. McCambridge's Sadie is even allowed a purely character scene, when she looks at a photo of beauty Anne and then at herself in the mirror and remarks on the difference between the two in the looks department. Mercedes McCambride was making her screen debut in All the King's Men, but she had a background in Broadway and on radio; Broderick Crawford, too, had a background in Broadway, and although this was far from his screen debut, it was certainly his first "important" film. McCambridge and Crawford excell, the other cast members, although serviceable, hardly seem to be in the same movie.

Although the film sends the message that the ends don't justify the means, it doesn't delve deeply enough into the rich gray area that Stark supplies. Despite the way Crawford plays the role, Willie is so outrightly condemned that the gray turns to black-and-white by film's end. It might have been better to show some of the possible positive results that would have inevitably come from Willie's doubledealings, rather than such a complete demonization of him, barely pausing during his early "honest man" idealogical opening. Additionally, we're not really quite sure what drives him, outside of the accumulation of power.

All the King's Men is never necessarily dull, but it's main detraction is that it does seem to lack spark: scenes with staying power, for example. Perhaps this is why the movie remains so obscure. Generally speaking there are moments in classic films, particularly Best Pictures, that everyone has seen before they actually see the movie-- those endlessly clipped movie highlights. They don't exist for All the King's Men, because the movie offers no real electrifying moments.

On the plus side, the film doesn't date, due, unfortunately, to the recycling of the ills of politics in real life. And, although there doesn't seem to be many actual Willie Starks around per se, such aspects of political life as campaign financing remain just as corrupting to today's politicians as to Stark-- the film even goes so far as to suggest that maybe he could have remained the honest man were it not for this one critical component of all campaigns.

One other criticism of the film-- it's techniques are terribly dated: the frequent low angle shots of Willie, the endless montages and string of newspaper headlines, and the use of a "reporter" as a storyteller. Although all of these characterisitics can be found in Citizen Kane, they are used as familiar devices to allow for the films more revolutionary touches. In All the King's Men these techniques are the key elements to the structure.


All the King's Men (1949): Superior work by lead Broderick Crawford in always timely tale of political corruption, nonetheless lacks memorable dramatic moments and offers a weak supporting cast, save Mercedes McCambridge in a solid screen debut.

Best Picture 25 Years Ago: Gandhi (1982)— A Review

Ambitious filmization of the life of Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi begins with a disclaimer: “No man’s life can be encompassed in one telling. There is no way to give each year its allotted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to shape a lifetime. What can be done is to be faithful in spirit to the record and try to find one’s way to the heart of the man….” This (unnecessary) opener is at odds with both the films’ over-three-hour length and its historical achievement-by-achievement approach to Gandhi’s work: covering his adult life (and his major accomplishment of securing India’s independence from Britain) through to his assassination at the age of 78. The film does offer a singular performance by Ben Kingsley as Gandhi and a cast-of-thousands epic scale.

The narrative gets under way quickly, without (thankfully) any clunky backstory, beginning with Gandhi’s first nonviolent stand against injustice prompted by the young lawyer’s being thrown off a South African train for being “colored” and sitting in first class. This section unfolds swiftly, and, as an introduction to Gandhi’s motivations, serves the film well. Things slow down when Gandhi returns to India, however. The scenes in which Gandhi explores India do not fulfill their intended purpose. The opening of Gandhi’s eyes to the vast country and peoples of India is told to the audience but not effectively shown (we see Gandhi’s travels, but at a distance), and this is a significant misstep of the film as a whole. The film gets back on track when lead actor Kingsley, now in Indian garb and spinning cotton, convinces the viewer of Gandhi’s connection to the land and conviction to its people.

Kingsley’s Oscar-winning performance is legendary in its replacement of any image one may have had of the actual subject: Kingsley is everyone’s vision of the real Gandhi. Of course, what exists of the real Gandhi is little-seen, verité newsreel footage (in long-shot) and Kingsley’s Gandhi exists in widescreen color close-ups (in a film that swept the Academy Awards). But Kingsley became Gandhi not only because his “look” was right, but so were Gandhi’s words as he spoke them. Yes, one feels, this is Gandhi: how he would have spoken and the way he would have reacted to people around him. An officer threatens to arrest Gandhi and Gandhi merely says “on what charge?” and the man withers. Kingsley offers other credible moments. As Gandhi is beaten, burning the British-issued Indian passes, his shaking hand reaches for a last one to throw in the fire before he passes out. When Gandhi lives like a commoner, and is visited by Nehru (Roshan Seth) and his entourage, he takes them through his chores, feeding his goats. Kingsley, with a distinct duck footed walk, gives the impression of a Gandhi both acclimated to his new surroundings and immersed in his own beliefs.

Ironically, the most memorable parts of GANDHI are the violent ones. The massacre at Amritsar is possibly the film’s most memorable sequence, particularly the image of the piled-up bullet shells. Again this serves an irony and must be chalked up to a certain amount of failure upon the filmmakers. The depiction of “justice” should have been more memorable than that of “injustice” in a film about Gandhi.

A flaw of the film is that it doesn’t flesh out other figures around the central one. Biographical narratives are no different than fictional ones: we see more of the central character through three-dimensional supporting characters. Obviously, the expectation of real-life-based films is that nothing is left out and we get the full “story,” but particularly in light of GANDHI’s opening title card, the film should have bucked the system, shown less history and more characterization. The narrative has a reporter’s eye— there’s an outweighing of what Gandhi did over why he did it.

An illustration of the strength of the supporting characters that does exist appears in the handful of moments with Gandhi’s wife Kasturba (“Ba”), played by Rohini Hattangadi. In an early, very short scene we see her brought into Gandhi’s cause (she is at first shocked that he wishes her to perform the work of “untouchables,” but then sees his reasoning); in a later scene she speaks of her husband to Margaret Bourke-White (Candice Bergen) about his thoughts on the injustices to women in society. In between, we see little of her and thereby Gandhi’s sadness at her death offers not much more beyond surface emotions.

Eventually the storyline follows a back-and-forth between Gandhi’s actions and the reaction of an alternating roomful of British officials pondering his latest move. An exemplary cast of Britishers have all-but cameos: including John Mills, Trevor Howard, and John Gielgud (the weight of John Gielgud’s performance does help to illustrate the odds by which Gandhi fought, however). The movie does guide the viewer easily through complex legal, political, and religious issues without appearing to oversimplify history.

GANDHI will probably inspire its viewer to seek to know more about its subject. The film serves as a springboard for further study, if it doesn’t particularly warrant repeat viewings in itself. Gandhi’s words are enough to inspire the viewer into examining injustices in their own life. When minister Charlie Andrews (Ian Charleson) joins Gandhi he asks if Gandhi is surprised by his action, to which Gandhi states: “When you’re fighting in a just cause people seem to pop up, like you, right out of the pavement.”

Perhaps its approach as an epic is the film’s partial undoing: it has an austere quality for such humanistic subject matter. Although, again, Kingsley brings the film back down to earth throughout. It might have benefited by a more intimate approach nonetheless. But as it stands, at the very least, it shines a light on a figure that has seen little treatment on film and deserves much more.

Gandhi (1982): Ambitious film covers several key events in the life of Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi, and if a full-bodied Gandhi does not entirely emerge, a faithful overview of his life is presented with a singular performance by lead Ben Kingsley.

Last Year's Oscar-winning Best Picture: "The Departed" Plus One Line Review's Best Picture Ranking

The set-up of THE DEPARTED is that a bright but troubled rookie cop (Leonardo DiCaprio as William Costigan, Jr.) is recruited to infiltrate Boston crime kingpin Frank Costello’s (Jack Nicholson) organization, and finds that Costello’s own informant within the department (Matt Damon as “Colin Sullivan”) is looking to root him out— now each is trying to unmask the other first. The movie is another venture into the crime drama by Martin Scorsese, who delivers a movie in this genre every five years: GOODFELLAS, CASINO, GANGS OF NEW YORK.

THE DEPARTED is based on the Hong Kong film INFERNAL AFFAIRS (2002), a pulpy little thriller that was a great success in its home country (even prompting sequels). THE DEPARTED has taken this pedigree and expanded on it with a complete Hollywood-style overhaul: and it benefits well from the A-list treatment. Screenwriter William Monahan and editor Thelma Schoonmaker structure the film with overlapping scenes that keep the pace up and emphasize the parallels between the characters (as Frank says early on regarding those who become cops or criminals: “When you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?”).

The ensemble excels, led by pros DiCaprio and Damon, with only, strangely, Jack Nicholson slightly off the mark. Nicholson is never entirely believable in the role of Frank Costello, especially in scenes that include bits where he was obviously “ad-libbing”— when these moments are not invisible, you find yourself seeing just a well-known actor showing off. However, these few moments in the movie don’t do any real “damage” to the piece as a whole.

Mark Wahlberg as no-B.S. special unit Detective Sergeant Dignam is a standout among the supporting players. His portrayal is one of someone who is completely sure of himself: actor and character, alike. He has one of the best lines in the film to illustrate just that: “I’m the guy that does his job. You must be the other guy.”

Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, and Ray Winstone play variations on characters they’ve played in the past yet each fits seamlessly into the framework. The casting (and performance) of Vera Farmiga as psychiatrist Dr. Madolyn Madden solidifies the film. Farmiga is sexy but not overly showy for her character’s profession and her performance avoids cliché: she exudes an intelligence that is both book smart and relationship savvy, yet she errs in her own relationship choices with both men. This reflects her human fallibility and shows a different side to both male lead characters— one that they share — a hope at normalcy.

The plot is labyrinthine and part of the fun is seeing various different principals mixing on-screen. The film is a solid entertainment, even old-fashioned in a way (especially with Scorsese at the helm, he who bills his films as “pictures” and uses such camera devices as an iris shot— a standard of silent movies). The film fits in with Scorsese’s oeuvre, although the camerawork is much more subdued. There are echoes of GOODFELLAS in the very first minutes (Sullivan’s character goes through an initiation not unlike the “You look like a gangster” scenes with Henry Hill.). And there are autobiographical ties (Sullivan was an alter boy, Costello has a penchant for drawing, all the principals grow up in an immigrant culture), a signature song selection, and the defined Scorsese protagonist of a man-in-crisis: but herein its threefold (Costigan, Sullivan, and Costello: each handling the pressure in different ways and gradations).

THE DEPARTED won the Oscar for Best Picture and it was, indeed, the best movie available for the award in a weak year. Scorsese won his Oscar for both career achievement and for turning in a solid moneymaker in his now signature genre.

The Departed (2006): A solid, even somewhat old-fashioned, Hollywood-done-well film with an ensemble of established pros and a labyrinthine plot that never lags.









*****

One Line Review Ranks...
79 Years of Oscar's Best Picture Winners (1927-2006):

















1. Casablanca— 1943
2. Annie Hall— 1977
3. The Godfather— 1972
4. Lawrence of Arabia— 1962
5. All About Eve— 1950
6. The Godfather, Part II— 1974
7. The Best Years of Our Lives— 1946
8. The Bridge on the River Kwai— 1957
9. West Side Story— 1961
10. Schindler’s List— 1993


The Apartment— 1960 (****)
Unforgiven— 1992 (****)
On the Waterfront— 1954 (****)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest— 1975 (****)
Amadeus— 1984 (****)
Dances With Wolves— 1990 (****)
It Happened One Night— 1934 (****)
Kramer vs. Kramer— 1979 (****)
All Quiet on the Western Front— 1930 (****)
Hamlet— 1948 (****)
American Beauty— 1999 (*** 1/2)
Gone With the Wind— 1939 (*** 1/2)
Midnight Cowboy— 1969 (*** 1/2)
The Sound of Music— 1965 (*** 1/2)
The Departed— 2006 (*** 1/2)
Platoon— 1986 (*** 1/2)
Chicago— 2002 (*** 1/2)
You Can’t Take It With You— 1938 (*** 1/2)
Patton— 1970 (*** 1/2)
The Last Emperor— 1987 (*** 1/2)
Mutiny on the Bounty— 1935 (*** 1/2)
Terms of Endearment— 1983 (*** 1/2)
The French Connection— 1971 (*** 1/2)
Driving Miss Daisy— 1989 (*** 1/2)
Titanic— 1997 (***)
Rocky— 1976 (***)
In the Heat of the Night— 1967 (***)
A Man for All Seasons— 1966 (***)
The Life of Emile Zola— 1937 (***)
Gladiator— 2000 (***)
My Fair Lady— 1964 (***)
From Here To Eternity— 1953 (***)
The Deer Hunter— 1978 (***)
Rebecca— 1940 (***)
Out of Africa— 1985 (***)
Marty— 1955 (***)
Going My Way— 1944 (***)
Shakespeare in Love— 1998 (***)
Rain Man— 1988 (***)
The Silence of the Lambs— 1991 (***)
The English Patient— 1996 (***)
All the King’s Men— 1949 (***)
Oliver!— 1968 (***)
Gandhi— 1982 (***)
How Green Was My Valley— 1941 (***)
Forrest Gump— 1994 (** 1/2)
The Lord of the Rings: The ROTK— 2003 (** 1/2)
Grand Hotel— 1932 (** 1/2)
Wings— 1927 (** 1/2)
Gentlemen’s Agreement— 1947 (** 1/2)
Million Dollar Baby— 2004 (** 1/2)
The Lost Weekend— 1945 (** 1/2)
Mrs. Miniver— 1942 (** 1/2)
Ordinary People— 1980 (** 1/2)
The Sting— 1973 (** 1/2)
Braveheart— 1995 (** 1/2)
Crash— 2005 (** 1/2)
Ben-Hur— 1959 (** 1/2)
The Greatest Show on Earth— 1952 (** 1/2)
Cavalcade— 1933 (** 1/2)
Tom Jones— 1963 (** 1/2)
An American in Paris— 1951 (** 1/2)
Chariots of Fire— 1981 (** 1/2)
The Broadway Melody— 1929 (**)
The Great Ziegfeld— 1936 (**)
Around the World in 80 Days— 1956 (**)
Gigi— 1958 (**)
A Beautiful Mind— 2001 (**)
Cimarron— 1931 (**)

This Month on TCM: 1952s Best Picture— The Greatest Show on Earth

On Thursday February 28th, TCM continues its 31 Days of Oscar films, among them Best Picture-winner THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.




A time capsule of ‘50s mainstream entertainment, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH features popular stars, Technicolor photography, and a plot heaping with soap suds— and it was the #1 box office attraction of its year.

There is no doubt that this movie won the Oscar for Best Picture as a reward to Cecil B. DeMille for his pioneering achievements in the medium and for a career of popular movies, many of them epic undertakings, rather than solely on this one film’s own merits. THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH is one of the least impressive Oscar-winning Best Pictures, but it does entertain in that irresistible DeMille fashion— super corny but a big, splashy show.

It tells the epic tale of life behind-the-scenes of the “greatest show on earth,” when a traveling circus hopes to stay in the black by relying mainly on outsider trapeze artist (and ladies man) “The Great Sebastian” (Cornel Wilde) and their own expert female trapeze artist “Holly” (Betty Hutton) who vies for the attention of the crowds and eventually Sebastian himself. Charlton Heston is “Brad Braden,” the no-nonsense head of the company who keeps everyone in check. Heston is a pro handling DeMille’s over dramatics and stilted dialogue (“Holly, this is circus.”)— no wonder DeMille gave him Moses in the even more over-the-top TEN COMMANDMENTS. The others in the cast, particularly Betty Hutton, fare much worse in rising above such lines as Holly’s: “You haven’t got anything but sawdust in your veins!” Also among the troupe is sexy “Angel,” (played by Gloria Grahame) who knows Sebastian from the past, but her trained elephant Ruth is much more interesting and integral to the plot beats.

Framing the film is DeMille’s voice-of-god narration about this “greatest show on earth.” DeMille expertly integrates many real acts (an entertainment bonus) including: a horseback riding dog, the “world’s smallest bareback rider,” and a man who jumps rope on the trapeze; we also see such famed real-life clowns as Lou Jacobs and Emmett Kelly. During Dorothy Lamour’s “Lula Lady” number, when her fellow ladies climb ropes and swing from them, the camera pans across the audience revealing a terrific unbilled cameo, which I won’t reveal— but it adds to the fun. We are also treated to second unit work of how the big top is erected. Additionally, the Technicolor vibrancy— of the cotton candy, the floats, the colorful costumes— is among the film’s main assets. Victor Young’s jubilant score keeps the film “up” as well.

The suspense is old-school Hollywood (Sebastian and Holly are doing their acts without nets!/ Who is the mysterious clown “Buttons” [James Stewart], and why is he never seen without his make-up?…. Hmmmmmm). On top of such diversions as the “Buttons” subplot is one involving gambling cheats at the booths, which only serves to show what a tough guy Brad is and how he keeps the show in line. Then Sebastian is injured!— but is the damage permanent? The plot leads to a big finale, involving the circus train and some none-too-convincing special effects (even for 1952). Can the troupe pull together and still put on a show? Spoiler alert: You bet ya!

The Greatest Show on Earth (1952): One of the least impressive Oscar-winning Best Pictures, but entertaining in that irresistible Cecil B. DeMille fashion— super corny but a big, splashy show— with bonus entertainment value in real-life circus acts of the day.

Capra for Christmas Eve: It Happened One Night (1934)

Frank Capra's films often enter the TV and personal DVD rotation at years-end. It's perhaps the fact that they expose society's materialistic tendencies at the most commercial time of year, combined with those happy, upbeat "everything will be all right" endings that make them perfect holiday fare. The dark corners of Capra's films serve as reminders in the blinding happiness of the holiday season that greed, selfishness, and bureaucratic red tape will be back come January 2nd. Maybe its because of the relative social tranquility of the Eisenhower era that Capra's films of the '50s are his least known, footnotes in film history for producing two Oscar-winning best songs (HERE COMES THE GROOM's "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" and A HOLE IN THE HEADS's "High Hopes"). And his early films lacked the total creative freedom he needed and demanded in his later work. His better-known movies were made in the midst of the Great Depression, through the war, and during the noirish post-war era (from 1933s LADY FOR A DAY to 1946s IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE). Its these ten films (the number excludes his PRELUDE TO WAR documentaries) that are considered his best work, and each is a film classic. Featuring idealistic hereos who work outside the system to make progress within society thereby exposing conformism (even George Bailey is a nonconformist despite giving up his "dreams"), they end in those signature "only in the movies" climaxes, that have kept them popular through the intervening years.

Frank Capra won three Academy Awards for best director during this period, and received three additional nominations. His first win was for IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, which also swept the awards that year.

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT is about an heiress who flees her wealthy father (when he disapproves of her new husband) and falls for a street-smart newspaperman who sees her story as the scoop of the year. Claudette Colbert plays Ellen Andrews opposite Clark Gable's Peter Warren, who doesn't let his newspaper or the Andrews fortune blind him from his ideals. And those ideals lean ultimately toward the romantic side, which is why, aside from the occasional social commentary, the movie exists as a blueprint for the romantic comedy (and the start of the "screwball" genre).

Among the film's funniest scenes is when Peter and Ellen work together to fool detectives by pretending to fight like a married couple. The levity of the film is kept up in clever ways as when, for example, it takes time out for a scene in which the bus passengers sing “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.” The inevitable romance is not forced, and Peter’s stubborn disinterest in Ellen keeps it real (and gives Colbert opportunity to show off some acting chops: especially in a scene when she’s stung by Peter’s insults after a moment when they nearly kiss). Some post-“production code” moments have pre-code flavor, particularly in the dialogue (Peter: “Why didn’t you take off all your clothes, you could have stopped forty cars.”)

It Happened One Night (1934): Eternally contemporary film with a dash of Depression era realism not only defined the era’s screwball comedy genre but provided the blueprint for the modern romantic comedy.