On Golden Pond

Mark Rydell, 1981 (8.4*)
A beautifully acted, slow-paced, adult family film about an elderly dad's attempt to come to terms with his estranged daughter while he still has a chance. Henry Fonda turned in the performance of his career, and was rewarded with his only Oscar® for acting. Daughter Jane Fonda was a supporting nominee in a role that she said was very hard to face day in and day out, as it was too close to reality for comfort. One can only imagine what Henry thought of his 'commie hippie' kids, who made drug (The Trip, Easy Rider) and soft core porn films (Barbarella, The Game Is Over) when young.

Katherine Hepburn got her record fourth Oscar® for her performance of Fonda's wife, in one of her best performances as well; she's credible and touching without over-sentimentality. In fact, more modern dialogue injects plenty of humor (and "face sucking") into what could have been a dreary play on the end of life, of love lost and love maintained.

Note: Henry was too ailing and near death to accept his Oscar®, so Jane did and gave one of the most touching speeches in academy history.

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Sleuth

Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1972 (8.1*)
This engaging mystery play by Anthony Shaffer becomes an acting tour-de-force for it's two stars, Laurence Olivier, as a man whose wife is having an affair with a younger man, and Michael Caine, as the wife's lover. Olivier invites Caine to his home for a drink and what follows is an intellectual game of oneupmanship as the two battle wits in what is perhaps the best performances of each actor as they skillfully play off each other and the incisive repartee.

You could call this an experimental play, as it's an all dialogue piece for two actors, and it's underlying uniqueness is also perhaps it's major weakness. Rather lengthy at nearly three hours, if one tires of the one room setting or the voices of Olivier and Caine, then there's really no escape within the film. However, there are enough twists in the plot puzzle to keep more mental movie fans riveted throughout as the film is basically a crime mystery.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz is the brilliant director of 1950's best picture and director winner All About Eve, which also featured two actors sparring throughout, Bette Davis and Anne Baxter but also a terrific supporting cast.

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A Raisin in the Sun

Daniel Petrie, 1961 (8.6*)
Winner of the Gary Cooper Award at Cannes

One of the first major plays to deal with the frustrations and economic plight of lower-class black families in urban America, from author Lorraine Hansberry, makes an emotional tour de force film for a terrific cast, led by Sidney Poitier as the sole-surviving adult male of the family, Walter Lee Younger. He shares a small two-bedroom tenement apartment in Chicago with his wife, his son, who is forced to sleep on the couch, and his mother and sister, who share the other bedroom.

Even though he has a steady job as a chauffeur for a wealthy white family, the other adults are forced to engage in part-time work in stereotypical jobs, such as kitchen, maid and laundry work. His sister, a part-time student, has dreams of becoming a doctor, while Sidney has dreams of making it big in some emerging business opportunity, as a friend did in dry cleaning.

Most of the film takes place in the small apartment, so we feel both the claustrophobia and despair of their situation. The mother immigrated there from the deep south when a teen, in order to escape racism and to find some opportunity for advancement out of poverty, which until her husband's death has been an elusive and unattainable dream.

The play and film begin as a glimmer of hope is on its way in the form of a life insurance check for ten thousand following the death of his father, who also lived in the apartment for most of his adult life as well. His mother, played by Claudia McNeil in a Golden Globe and BAFTA nominated performance as the new head of the family, hasn't decided yet what to do with all the money, while the rest of the family dreams what it could mean to each of them. Along the way we get to see a very young Lou Gossett, Jr., and Ivan Dixon in small parts as romantic interests of the sister.

It may seem a little stagy, but it's obvious that director Petrie wanted to keep the feel and intimacy of the play. At times it seems a bit overemotional perhaps, with some acting bordering on histrionics; nevertheless, the entire cast turns in excellent, heart-rending performances, led by Poitier and Ruby Dee as his wife. This is a tough pill to swallow, but if you've grown up poor or within a minority, it feels right on target and gives honest expression to the plight of the economically deprived in this over-abundant yet unequal nation. Given the current economic climate, it truly seems that some things never change.

Quote: "God seems to have only given black people dreams, but also their children in order to provide hope for those dreams."

Note: This was the first Broadway play written by a black woman and directed by a black man.

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Throne of Blood

aka Spider's Web Castle
Akira Kurosawa, 1957, Japan, bw (7.9*)
In spite of the lurid title, this is another of the great Japanese director's early masterworks, it's not really a horror film. Based on Shakespeare's Macbeth, Kurosawa made it entirely Japanese, building his castle on Mt. Fuji, and mixing elements of Japanese theater into the film. Kurosawa even trucked in the black volcanic soil of Fuji into the studio lot to film the castle interiors.

The story involves the castle of the title, surrounded by a maze-like forest that adds to its protection. One day while lost in this forest, two military leaders who are lifetime friends receive a prophecy from a ghost that leads them into their own web of power seeking and mistrust, as they are each to become castle lords themselves. No medieval Japanese film can avoid war, and this has some beautifully filmed battle sequences, once again using stark black-and-white cinematography to show the power of horses and soldiers in battle, much like his earlier classic The Seven Samurai.

His new favorite actor Toshiro Mifune is featured in this one as well, though this film is not quite as artistic as Seven Samurai, it adheres to the Shakespearean story, so it's a bit more melodramatic and staged looking in comparison, though that's an honest cinematic interpretation of the play. With some haunting and huge-scale images, it's still a great example of the early Kurosawa style, and a worthy entry into the pantheon of Shakespeare transformed to film.

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Bye Bye Birdie

George Sidney, 1963 (7.0*)
I recently saw this again in widescreen, first time since it bored me as a child. This time I understood it, and the ws format allow you to see the dancers rather than imagine them offscreen! It’s basically a campy satire of bad Elvis musicals, the story is even about every girl’s favorite heartthrob rock star being drafted! (when I was a kid, only girls liked Elvis, at least after his Sun Records rockabilly days). The music is really all over the map, a little rock, even more ‘boogie woogie’, a little jazz, some of that a little bluesy, and some typical Broadway-style songs. In that regard, it loses a star for not having a very cohesive score; after all, it’s a musical comedy.

The ‘not quite rock’ star is Conrad Birdie (Jessie Pearson, in the film’s weakest performance, too bad they didn’t get George Chakiris from W.S. Story) but before going into the army, he’s making a farewell appearance on Ed Sullivan, and giving a good-bye kiss to high schooler Ann-Margret, head of his fan club. Dick Van Dyke, who does some of his typical silly/stiff dancing (a la Mary Poppins), has written a song for Conrad to sing on tv that he hopes will save his sagging composing career, while his lady, Janet Leigh, in a rare musical dance performance, can’t pry Dick away from his mother, Maureen Stapleton, in a hilarious role that also includes singing.

Meanwhile, star Ann-Margret’s boyfriend Bobby Rydell, added as the only pop music star of the group, is freaking with jealousy over Conrad getting to kiss his girl on national tv. Some of the songs are worth the fast forward, but the musical play introduced the pop hits “Kids (what’s the matter with kids today?)”, sung by the hilarious Paul Lynde, and “Put On a Happy Face”, which is done on film with animation overlays. There also ground-breaking special effects in the opening number, “Telephone Song”, in which gossip gets around the whole town in a musical minute.

The real dazzler, however, is the eight-minute “I’ve Got a Lot of Livin to Do” (photo right), which begins with Conrad singing, then slows to a jazz-blues rhythm for Ann-Margret’s section, then goes uptempo into a jazzy boogie-woogie for Rydell’s comeback to her. It all ends with the whole chorus doing an exhuberant yet goofy modern jazz ‘bunny dance’ - it looks like Jerome Robbins (West Side Story) meets early Bob Fosse, and was so good that I played it three times in a row. It's also a clever parody of the gym dance from West Side Story, even copying the lighting used!

Her dancing and singing garnered Ann-Margret a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress; she kinda steals the movie, but there’s not much musical competition. This works if you don’t expect much, and get into the ‘campiness’ of the take-off on Elvis’ bad musical movies. Ironically, after this, Ann-Margret starred with Elvis in Viva Las Vegas!, and of course, stole that film as well. See my post on her here, at: Film Goddess. She was actually born in Sweden, and came to the U.S. at an early age.

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The Great White Hope

Martin Ritt, 1970 (8.2*)
This is a hard-hitting and Pulitzer prize-winning play by Howard Sackler about boxer Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight champ. James Earl Jones recreated his Tony-winning Broadway role, and it rightfully made him a star – he even looks like a good boxer, not an actor boxer (like Stallone).

Jones was nominated for an Oscar®, and should have won. Jane Alexander as his mistress was also nominated. The film is primarily about the racism throughout American that brought up each new “great white hope”, or inferior Causasian boxers, in attempts to dethrone Johnson. This is really a tough film to watch, especially with liberal use of the N word (even from Johnson himself), because you know this man will not get equal treatment or respect, no matter what. Johnson also flaunted his celebrity, with Caucasian girlfriends, expensive coats, taunting chatter to the fight crowds, which made the hatred even worse. (To paraphrase 48 hours, he was everyone's worst nightmare, a black man with a title..)

Martin Ritt (Hud, Norma Rae) bravely exposes social injustice in his films, and was once blacklisted, which he covered in the film The Front, with Woody Allen playing a dramatic lead for Ritt. When I tried to see this film in Georgia just after release, the theater was evacuated for a bomb threat, so the racism exposed in the film still brought out the worst in people half a century later. This is a great sports and boxing film, which must be seen in widescreen, if you can withstand the hatred you’ll witness.

Quote: (when he weighed less then Brady) Can you believe that? The man says I’m lighter than you!

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How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

David Swift, 1967 (8.4*)
Window cleaner Robert Morse, in a career-making musical comedy role, buys a book with shortcut methods to get ahead in the business world and applies them with hilarious success. One of the pointers is to create a name with an initial, so he comes up with J. Pierpont Finch, and joins the poorly run multinational Worldwide Wicket Co.

He starts in the mailroom, then uses the book’s tips to quickly rise to vice president in charge of advertising, and falls for secretary Rosemary Pilkington (Michele Lee). Frank Loesser wrote the songs, Bob Fosse choreographed the dances in this screwball satire of corporate capitalism. Silly, fun entertainment

The Coen Brothers did their own variation of this as The Hudsucker Proxy, without the music, as Tim Robbins is promoted from the mailroom to CEO to drive the stock price down so the board could take over all the shares cheaply.

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Hamlet

Kenneth Branagh, 1996, 4 hrs. (8.6*)
We finally have not only a modern widescreen Hamlet, but the complete four-hour play as well for the first time in cinema history. Branagh has done a terrific and ambitious job here making the play much fresher and more palatable (not exactly a fun romp like Much Ado About Nothing or Merry Wives of Windsor) than previous screen incarnations.

Add to his 70-mm widescreen perspective (a few glorious scenes use this well) about 20 famous actors in cameo parts, and we finally have an entertaining Hamlet indeed. Co-stars Kate Winslet as Ophelia, and Julie Christie as his mother, Derek Jacobi as the king. Look for Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Jack Lemmon, Charlton Heston, Gerard Depardieu, and others.

Quote: To thine own self be true
Quote2: Neither a borrower nor a lender be
Quote3: Doubt the the stars are fire; doubt that the moon's above; doubt that the truth's a liar; but never doubt my love (Hamlet to Ophelia)

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Sweeney Todd

Tim Burton, 2007 (7.5*)
Best Picture (GG)
This has to be seen to be believed, as Johnny Depp shows that he has a David Bowie-esque singing voice in this musical about a barber who murders his victims in Victorian London, while girlfriend Helena Bonham Carter, who also sings quite well, cooks them up into Mrs. Lovett's meat pies that become the popular delicacy in London.

This is not for all tastes, and is actually quite gory, so it will likely appeal to teenagers more than anyone. As a successful stage play, there wasn’t realistic butchery like this, just simulated violence, so it would work better as a musical fantasy in that medium than it does in cinema. Some of the Stephen Sondheim music is actually quite unique and good, and this was one of the biggest musical plays since the 50's. Depp’s awesome range as an actor now has to include musicals.

More: for those interested in the gory story without any music, check out The Tale of Sweeney Todd with Ben Kingsley as Todd (!), and Joanna Lumley as Mrs. Lovett.

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The Madness of King George

Michael Hytner, 1994 (8.6*)
This is an acting tour-de-force by Nigel Hawthorne (Oscar nominee), recreating his stage role as King George at a time when he apparently went mad, often proving himself unfit to rule; he would sometimes pounce on women at court and have to be dragged off them. Many think he was unable to keep the American colonies due to this illness. Helen Mirren shines as his wife, with an Oscar nod for supporting actress (she was robbed!), who stands beside him like a true partner through all the turmoil. It eventually became a major national issue, with Parliament getting involved. This is a terrific expose of a little-known piece of British history

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The Importance of Being Earnest

Oliver Parker, 2002 (7.5*)
Parker once again tackles Oscar Wilde, this time remaking the 40's bw classic. Colin Firth and dedicated bachelor Rupert Everett are best friends. Each has a secret life he has invented to enable getting away: Colin escapes to the city from the country, where he is ward and executor for Reese Witherspoon, while Rupert escapes the city and creditors by fleeing to Colin's country estate. Each man gets into romantic entanglements, Firth with Everett's cousin Frances O'Conner (whose dodgy mother and Rupert's aunt Judi Dench is a stickler for tradition), Everett with Witherspoon. The title comes from Reese vowing to only marry a man named Earnest, even getting the name tattoed on her derriere. This is classic situation comedy, in this case romantic comedy, in which characters will stop at no length to get the mate of their fancy.
Note: In Wilde's An Ideal Husband, the characters all attend a theatre performance of Earnest.

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Mister Roberts

John Ford, 1955 (8.8*)
Western directing legend Ford breaks the mold in perhaps his most accessible film, with a terrific cast and a perfect comedy play that required little transformation to become a comedy classic film. James Cagney is the skipper of a tiny naval vessal used for training, while the real heroes are off killing our WW2 enemies, so he takes his frustrations out on his crew. Henry Fonda is perfect as Cagney's foil, Mister Roberts, second-in-command, who has the crew's respect and affection as they all hate the skipper. He has the perfect well-mannered demeanor with Cagney, which further drives him batty. William Powell, in his last film role, is the ship's doctor, and a young Jack Lemmon won a supporting actor Oscar as a junior officer, always stymied by, and fearful of Cagney and with whom he's always at silent war.

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The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

Jim Goddard, 1982, 8 hrs. (8.8*)
Brilliantly conceived and executed, this filming of the eight-hour stage production by the Royal Shakespeare Company covers four DVD's, and remains one of the greatest theatrical productions in history, accurately adapting a Charles Dickens novel for perhaps the first time in the history of dramatic arts. Only 39 actors portray over 250 roles in this massive production, which gave theatre-goers two ways to see the play: over four weekday nights, two hours per night, or in an all-day Saturday performance with a one hour lunch break! Roger Rees has the title role in a star-making breakthrough - I can't imagine the hundreds of pages of dialogue he had to memorize in order to give this performance in a day. All the actors are superb, and director Jim Goddard involves the audience by having some characters appear from within the audience, and some actors leave the stage to run or walk through the audience.

This is the British stage at its best. Forget all the other versions of Nickleby, if you only see one Dickens novel adapted in your lifetime, this is the one!

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Oliver!

Dir: Carol Reed, 1967 (8.2*)
Best Picture (AA)

Somehow, making a musical based on Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist seemed like a bad idea to me, but then they pretty much pulled it off. A dark, scruffy drama, with a little music to cheer up the young orphans. If only Mark Lester as Oliver could sing! Not sure how they picked him for the part, certainly not on musical or acting ability. However, fellow pickpocket Jack Wild, the Artful Dodger, actually won an Oscar for Supporting Actor, and later starred in a tv show called "H.R. Puff’n’stuff" – no kidding! Ron Moody got an Oscar nomination as Fagin, leader of the gang of street urchins. Alan Bates was pretty evil as heartless Bill Sykes. The music is just average (lots of scales), but the art direction and direction more than compensate. Six Oscars (one honorary)

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Driving Miss Daisy

Dir: Bruce Beresford, 1989 (8.1*)

Best Picture (AA, GG)

Gentle southern comedy about a strong-willed, traditional southern widow, Oscar winner Jessica Tandy, and her chauffeur Hoke, Morgan Freeman, in what should have been his first Oscar winning role, based on Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Oscar nominee Dan Akroyd is the frustrated but loving son, in his best and only Oscar-nominated performance, who talks her into a chauffeur in the first place against her will after she has a minor accident in the driveway. Beresford has used terrific acting to make this a heartwarming and moving film, yet at the same time showing people of different backgrounds and races using kindness and humility to become close and loyal friends . Four Oscars

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The King and I

Dir: Walter Lang, 1956 (8.1*)
Yul Brynner was born to play this part, and got his only Oscar. Deborah Kerr as schoolteacher Anna Leonowens would have been perfect except she couldn’t sing, so they dubbed Marni Nixon over her (she also did My Fair Lady and West Side Story). Otherwise this musical based on a true story of a British teacher hired to educate the offspring of the King of Siam – hence the remake with Jody Foster and Chow Yun-Fat called Anna and the King. One of the better "stagey" musicals (all shot on a sound stage), because of the performances and Rodgers & Hammerstein songs like "The Flower Drum Song" and "Getting to Know You". The King’s arrogant front is slowly worn down by Kerr’s gentility and common humanity, not a bad story. 9 Oscar noms, 5 Oscars
Quote: Is a puzzlement! (Brynner)

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Cabaret

Dir: Bob Fosse, 1972 (8.1*)
Best Picture (BAA, GG)
AFI Top 100
The musical that attempts to duplicate a German cabaret that producer Howard Prince saw in Berlin just after the war. He even says that the lead emcee was perfectly duplicated by Oscar®-winner Joel Gray, who introduces various burlesque acts, including self-proclaimed "decadent American" Sally Bowles, played by Liza Minelli, another Oscar® winner. The film is a good musical, but not much else, the attempted plotlines that sorta included Nazis and sorta avoided them detracted from the "divine decadence" onstage. Won 8 Oscars®, but not Best Picture as The Godfather made the academy members a better offer! 10 nominations, 8 Oscars

Note: The Oscar for Liza made her the only Oscar winner in history whose two parents, Judy Garland and director Vincente Minelli (An American in Paris) also won Oscars.

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Amadeus

Milos Foreman, 1984 (8.9*)

Best Picture (AA, GG)

Although fiction, and a "danged good yarn" at that, Amadeus attempts to tell one possible theory on the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A deranged and senile court composer, Antonio Salieri, brilliantly played by F. Murray Abraham (Best Actor Oscar), claims from the asylum that he killed "the world's greatest composer", then proceeds to tell his story, which becomes this film.

He is generally angry at God for bestowing supreme talent on a "non-believer", while he languishes in mediocrity himself. Tom Hulce (the one who played Pinto in Animal House) has a star-making turn as a free-spirited 'Wolfie', which shows how brilliant and obsessive Mozart was when composing, and how superficial and irresponsible he could be when he wasn't, generally boozing and womanizing nightly like a true Bohemian. Whether you buy this theory or not, the film becomes addictive, as we witness one Mozart masterpiece after another. Best Director winner Milos Foreman's best film. 8 Oscars

Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest also won best picture and director for 1975, and is another must-see American classic.

Quote: Yes,...too many notes. Just lop off a few here and there.

[Updated 12.11.10]

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My Fair Lady

Dir: George Cukor, 1964 (9.8*)
Best Picture (AA, BAA, GG)

One of the best Broadway/London musicals, the score by Lerner and Lowe is untopped, with the best lyrics of any musical, all related to the story. The film starts with a bang the whole point: "Why Can’t the English" (teach their children how to speak). The entire story is about linguistics, that the way a person speaks defines him, and that any type of character can be created if given the right instruction.

This was the premise of the original George Bernard Shaw play "Pygmalion", which was transformed into My Fair Lady by Lerner and Lowe. Rex Harrison creates his stage role here, and is impeccable, winning an Oscar. However, Hollywood gave stage actress Julie Andrews the shaft after she created the Eliza Doolittle role, and replaced her with Audrey Hepburn for the movie, thinking Andrews "not a star" (yet she won the Oscar that year for Mary Poppins!) Hepburn’s singing had to be dubbed by Marni Nixon (who did The King and I and West Side Story as well), so this was the only drawback to the film, which is flawless otherwise. Listen to the London Cast recording with Andrews on CD and you’ll see what I mean and what moviegoers missed. The dvd restoration of this classic musical has the most sumptuous color of any film, there’s even a documentary on the disc about it, with the original art director. One of the best 2-3 musicals ever filmed. 8 Oscars

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West Side Story

Dir: Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins, 1961 (8.6*)

Best Picture (AA, GG)

AFI Top 100

West Side Story shows a tremendous improvement in widescreen dvd, you can finally see all the dancers just like in the theaters! The general premise sounds scary: retell Romeo and Juliet in a modern urban setting with dancing New York street gangs, in this case the white Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks, whom I'll have to admit were much sharper dressers. George Chakiris leads the latter, in an Oscar-winning, charm oozing role; he was also the best dancer, as was his girlfriend Rita Moreno, also an Oscar winner. Not faring as well were lead Natalie Woods, and once again we have to hear Marnie Nixon's voice doing the singing, who also sang for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady; nor male lead Richard Beymer but the rest of the film overcomes their overacting, the soapy parts keep this from being a perfect 10. The highlights are the unique jazz classical score by Leonard Bernstein, and the modern dance choreography of Jerome Robbins, let go midway during production for going way over budget (but it shows!), who shared director's credit and also the Oscar for directing with Robert Wise (Sound of Music), who does the more boring, lame exposition stuff. 10 Oscars

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