Spartacus

Stanley Kubrick, 1960 (7.9*)
Memorial Day War-athon #4
Kirk Douglas plays the Roman slave Spartacus, who fought for his freedom, then organized a massive army of ex-slaves that actually fought against a Roman army legion. This epic, around three hours long, is the first of this scale from director Stanley Kubrick, who previously cast Douglas in his anti-war classic Paths of Glory.

Though it's lacking in the riveting story of Lawrence of Arabia or Gandhi, this is still a historical epic of the same scale, and another based on a real historical person - and though not as grandiose as those films, it's still an epic worth seeing. This is, of course, an American slant on the story, a man's gotta have his freedom, or give him death, that kind of patriotic story. It also came out a year after Ben-Hur, so Biblical era epics were hot property, these were merely two in a river of these (Ten Commandments, Quo Vadis, Greatest Story Ever Told, The Robe), with Cleopatra to follow and perhaps kill the genre with one blow.

This actually won four Oscars®: Peter Ustinov for supporting actor, costume design, art direction, and cinematography. It won 8 awards overall out of 13 nominations

This is likely to remain the most famous of all of Kirk Douglas' film roles. It's also an interesting work in the filmography of Stanley Kubrick, the one Hollywood-style epic unlike all his others, now that we have a restored and uncut edition, it's more like his original film.

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Inherit the Wind

Stanley Kramer, 1960, bw (8.3*)
A Tennessee science teacher, played by Dick York of Bewitched fame, goes on trial for teaching evolution in school. Acting great, and two-time Oscar® winner Fredric March, prosecutes the case. Spencer Tracy, also a two-time Oscar® winner, defends the teacher.

This is obviously a thinly disguised version of the famous "Scopes-Monkey Trial" of 1925. In fact, the films four screenwriters actually used some of the original trial transcripts for dialogue, they just changed the name of the characters.

The amazing part of this film is, of course, the acting from the two leads, who battle back and forth like heavyweight boxers. Fredric March, due to makeup designed to make him resemble William Jennings Bryan (see photo bottom), is almost unrecognizable. Thanks to their performances, this is one of the best legal films ever made. Fans of either actor, or of this rather specious reason for a trial, will love this classic film.

Here's a good description of the real trial at a legal site that reviews famous trials

Clarence Darrow (l.) and William Jennings Bryan (rt.),

at the famous 'Scopes Monkey Trial'

Note: just to show how much hype surrounds this non-issue, the fundamentalists actually invented the concept that Darwin said we descended from apes - he said "man and apes are parallel branches on the tree of life". On top of that, Charles Darwin didn't even invent the theory of evolution, his uncle did. Naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace actually sent him an essay describing the same theory in 1858 before Darwin had published his own theory.

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The Apartment

Billy Wilder, 1960, bw (8.4*)
Best Picture (AA, BAA, GG)
One of Wilder's most successful films, one which netted him three Oscars® individually - as producer of the best picture, for director, and for his screenplay, co-written with I.A.L. Diamond. This was half of the six Oscars® he won in his career, and the only one for producer of the best picture.

Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, an insurance company employee going nowhere. But a single man with a bachelor pad has something a cheating married excutive can use for assignations, so he willingly loans out his apartment to further his career in the office, primarily to a sleazy Fred MacMurray, in another of his typecast-defying roles (like in Wilder's Double Idemnity, likely why he was included in this cast).

One night he's left with the problem of Shirley MacLaine to solve, and the two become platonic friends. It's this friendship that gives depth to an otherwise shallow story of marital infidelity. My only problem with this film is that Wilder is usually either clearly comic (Some Like It Hot), or clearly dramatic (Sunset Boulevard), with no gray area. In this film the tone primarily wavers, it begins kind of light, but turns pretty serious midway in. For this reason alone I don't consider this as highly among Wilder's filmology as do others, as the serious tone kills the humor, and vice-versa. I prefer the three others above that I've mentioned (with links to my reviews).

No. 91 on the IMDB 250. 5 Oscars® - picture, director, editing, screenplay, art direction (also BAFTA for best film and a Golden Globe for comedy film). Just to show the confusion of the film's tone, at the Laurel Awards, MacLaine won for dramatic actress, Lemmon for actor in a comedy! 22 awards overall

Wilder is one of the great directors, here's a small list of his best films:
The Front Page, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Lost Weekend, The Spirit of St. Louis, One Two Three, Ace in the Hole, The Seven Year Itch, Sabrina, Some Like It Hot, Witness For the Prosecution, The Fortune Cookie.

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La Dolce Vita

Federico Fellini, 1960, Italy, bw (8.4*)
Palm D'or Award, Cannes
This study of moral decadence and boredom among a group of wealthy film personalities is for many the best by legendary director Federico Fellini - it's certainly my favorite. Not as confusing as some others, like 8 ½, it is a simple, plotless story that puts us in the position of papparazzi with a motion picture camera giving us glimpses into unique personalities, primarily those in entertainment.

Led by Marcello Mastrianni and Swedish bombshell Anita Ekberg, we get to see the kind of life we imagine others live on a day-to-day basis. Depending on your moral mindset, this is either a depraved life of decadence or a glittering night life of fun and frivolity with the 'beautiful people'.

This film says a lot about the human condition, as most of us are trapped in a humdrum daily routine like Marcello, from which we imagine escaping to our own personal fantasies of happiness. Some may be bored by this, as it is lengthy at 170 minutes, but many find it a unique work of creative genius. Those who have trouble with Italian neo-realism should probably avoid this. For those who don't, also check out Antonioni's L'avventura, and De Sica's Umberto D.

Winner of 7 awards out of 14 nominations, including the Palm D'or at Cannes.
Awards page at IMDB

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Era Notte a Roma

Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1960, bw (8.0*)aka Escape By Night
An important wartime film from Italian director Rossellini, who is perhaps not in the same league as Fellini and De Sica, but still a worthy entry into both WW2 and Italian realism genres. Rossellini is better known for his affair with Ingrid Bergman and producing offspring Isabella with her, but he also belongs on that short list of important Italian directors to emerge after the war.

In this story, three Allied prisoners, one English, one American, one Russian (how appropriate!), all escape and flee into the Italian countryside. There they are protected by locals out of a sense of Christian charity, and are smuggled into Rome, where they are hidden in an attic by black marketeer Esperia, wonderfully and credibly played by the beautiful Giovanni Ralli, who won best actress at the San Francisco Film Festival, and who dominates this film. The soldiers promise to leave as soon as possible rather than endanger Esperia, who risks a Nazi firing squad, but get trapped as they are surrounded by Nazis and collaborators, while being helped by Allied partisans fighting as anti-fascists.

Beautifully shot in black and white, with many dark but clear night shots very expertly lit. This has the feel of the ominous paintings of Italian De Chirico. The film bears the innacurate and misleading western title of "Escape by Night", while the accurate translation is "It Was Night in Rome", a more fitting description of the film's action. Don't be fooled by the misleading marketing that implies romantic interest in Esperia by the Allies, that's just bogus PR as the film is thankfully not that trite or soapy.

Quote: "Before the war, everyone was a fascist; once the Allies invaded Italy, no one was a fascist"

Note: the Russian soldier is played by Sergei Bondarchuk, who went on to become a director, who helmed the incredible 7-hour version of War and Peace in the late 60's

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Ocean's Eleven

[Both versions]
Lewis Milestone, 1960 (6.4*)
In the original, we had the somewhat appealing, though often obnoxious original Rat Pack starring, of course led by Frank Sinatra as the mastermind (what else) behind robbing three casinos in Las Vegas at once. Danny Ocean, fresh out of prison, and eleven of his cronies. I think part of the appeal of that idea is that the whole group already robbed Vegas with huge salaries for being mildly entertaining on stage together, and adding Hollywood legitimacy to a criminal enterprise, based on bilking tourists at every turn.

The script had some light humor attached to an intricate robbery heist, which had a couple of plot twists along the way. Nothing terrific, just some entertaining fluff allowing Sinatra to play the gangster, and also the brains of the outfit. You had to be able to stomach Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr, and Joey Bishop in order to enjoy this heavily plotted film, but it's ok late night tv fare.

Stephen Soderbergh, 2001 (5.8*)
The curiousity here is why the remake? Other than, of course, that Hollywood never met a remake it didn't like (Vanishing Point, Bad News Bears did not need remakes, maybe Seabiscuit did). First of all, no modern rat pack. The cast assembled is George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Eliot Gould, Carl Reiner, Julia Roberts, and some unknowns, while Andy Garcia is being robbed. An affable but hardly daunting criminal group, and a waste of some Oscar-winners with little to do here - and certainly not an organized 'gang' like the rat pack.

Second, the original was hardly a classic, had no pace and plodded along until the major setup all happens at once. For the remake, the usually reliable Stephen Soderbergh updated the time, the casino names, made it the Bellagio, and two others who share that vault that they are robbing. They changed the plot, so if you're a fan of the original, it's not the same story, but you'd guess that ahead of time, else no surprises in the movie at all. There was also never a sequel to the first, thankfully, now they've already made a sequel to the mediocre remake, Ocean's Twelve - more of the same tedium, too boring to remember. This could get old very slowly, like the pace of the remake - if anything they found a way to slow down the original.

These films show what happens when they aim for the 'mass appeal audience'. The original is worth one viewing at least. As Sinatra would later say when playing solo, "I miss the boys."

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Peeping Tom

Michael Powell, 1960 (6.8*)
I'm recommending this for fans of both Psycho and the Powell/Pressburger films, such as A Matter of Life and Death (aka Stairway to Heaven), The Red Shoes, and Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. However, it's far more similar to Psycho than the other films of Powell's. This is an eerie story about a psychopathic film cameraman, who carries a handheld film camera around to photograph everyday events, almost as an obsession.

We find early in the film that his father was a scientist, who specialized in fear, especially in children. It apparently left Mark, played icily by Carl Boehm, with a decidedly Peter Lorre voice (it's uncanny!), a bit scarred emotionally and also voyeristic. He also enjoys watching people's emotional reactions, and especially on film. Of course, we also know early on he's a bit homicidal as a result, so the suspense comes in seeing if he will kill the women he's close to or if he's too close to bear hurting them.

For Powell, it's a bit overt compared to his more artistic films. As inspired by Psycho, it's actually quite good, as for me that film degenerated into a near laughable conclusion, while Peeping Tom never does that at least. Well filmed like all of Powell's, just not one of his best efforts to me.

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L'avventura

Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1960, Italy, bw (9.6*)
Cannes Special Jury Prize
This is one of the more pleasant film surprises of my lifetime. Not being an Antonioni fan (Blow Up, Red Desert, Zabriskie Point - all overblown bores, in my opinion), I avoided this film since college, over 40 years. I finally gave in and saw the excellent Criterion version, and watched the commentary. I was entranced by this hypnotic film, titled "The Adventure", in which nearly every scene is a masterpiece of composition, lighting, and B&W cinematic beauty. This may be a difficult film for the public, it's a little slow and measured, but as a visual artist myself, I can't think of a better composed b&w film.

The story is basically a missing person scenario, a commentary on relationships, and a romantic triangle, with some subtly erotic stops along the way, all done with visual cues and acting, not with plot or dialogue, both of which are scarce. A group of idle rich take a small yacht to an tiny uninhabited Aeolian island near Sicily, and the fiancée of the main character, Sandro (played by Gabriele Ferzetti in one of his 104 film roles!), goes missing, and while searching for her together, feelings develop between him and her best friend Claudia, subtly played by Antonioni's wife Monica Vitti. The island scenes are starkly beautiful, and took months to film, with the crew lugging heavy equipment by hand over a craggy, volcanic rock surface.

The Cannes film festival gave it a special jury prize for "beauty in film, a new way of looking at cinema" - to say the least! Along with Bertolucci's "The Conformist", this is now my favorite Italian film, I can see why it's an all-time top 100 critically (39th overall, 15th for foreign language). A must for fans of cinema art, but for fans of plot and action, and a nice pat story, this may be disappointing, so down a star for that alone when I wanted to give it a 10; this is its only fault.

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Elmer Gantry

Richard Brooks, 1960 (8.2*)
This terrific expose of organized religion and revivals exploiting the faithful masses was based on Sinclair Lewis’ novel, set in the midwest in the 20’s. Burt Lancaster was never better, winning his only Best Actor Oscar as the title character, a grinning salesman enlisted by a revival preacher, Sister Sharon (well played by Jean Simmons) to help “sell the Lord”. Her minions were in a bar, and heard a sales pitch he was giving and said “this is the kind of man we need”!

I forgot how scathing an attack this was on "the business of religion", arguing over appearance fees, how many people they can add to churches, etc.. One preacher objects, "Is filling churches the aim of religion -there were once only 13 Christians, was it a failure?" - and the greedy materialist totally misses the point, "Kee-rect! today it's a world-class enterprise, successful in every country!" This is an especially appropriate film to see after the Bush-led “Christian right” has led our country to the brink of financial disaster and collapse. It’s a primer on how the masses are duped by the media, business, and government working in collusion to take what little money we have left. Arthur Kennedy is a reporter out to expose the phoniness of the whole industry, and Shirley Jones won a supporting actress Oscar as a prostitute. Down a star for just being so pessimistic. 5 nominations, 3 Oscars (add Screenplay for Brooks to those above)

Quote: "What I great night, I get drunk, then I get saved - drunk and saved!" – a sinner
Quote2: “It’s about time you played ball on God’s team, and that team’s captain is none other than Jesus Christ himself” – Elmer Gantry
Quote3: “but the law allows them to collect money and invest it in real estate, tax-free – and who knows what they do with the money?” – Arthur Kennedy
Quote4: “Can he save people? Boy, I’ll say – standing up, laying down – he’s got a lotta ways to save you!” – Shirley Jones

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