The Artist

Michel Hazanavicious, France-Belgium, 2011 (8.5*)
Best Picture (AA, BAA)

Having won 114 awards so far, second only to Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, you would expect this film to be one of the truly great cinematic masterpieces of all time. For me, it’s a good but not great film, not as good a 2011 film as Malick’s The Tree of Life, or Refn’s Drive, but I’d put it in the tier after that (with Midnight in Paris, The Help, Rango, and Ides of March). Most of the film is silent like it’s 20’s film star, George Valentin – even though it’s more like an enjoyable and rewarding romance in the tradition of classic 30’s films like My Man Godfrey, The Awful Truth, and My Favorite Wife (40’s?). Of course, by now familiarity makes this a fairly predictable ‘boy meets girl’ story.

Director Michel Hazanavicious, who also wrote the screenplay, has created a long overdue homage to films of that era which was also shot in the style of those films, including the same 4:3 aspect ratio of 35mm prints, and of course, black and white cinematography. Of course, we're not forgetting Peter Bogdanovich's Paper Moon, which treaded similar ground regarding creating a visual reference to a classic cinematic style of the past.

The story is nothing new – it combines the boy meets girl story with the “rags to riches” and “riches to rags” stories of it’s two stars. Jean Dejardin won an Oscar (and 13 other awards) for his portrayal of fictitious silent film star George Valentin who bears an uncanny resemblance to the story of Douglas Fairbanks (except for a little average dancing), who was a swashbuckling action star and top box office draw in silent films, but, like many others, who never really made the transition when sound pictures arrived.

His real-life girlfriend, Bérénice Bejo, (photo above) steals the film for me as a young extra, and won seven acting awards for her Oscar-nominated performance as Peppy Miller, who catches George’s fancy in a ballroom dance scene in one of his silent films after stumbling into him outside a movie premiere for all the photographers to catch before that. He’s so immediately struck with her that he has trouble completing a simple scene, but the two part when the filming ends and follow their own career paths.

.. but, of course, George cannot shake her from his mind. At the same time, sound arrives to films, at which he scoffs, like many, thinking it will never catch on with the public – just like I didn’t think 3D would after so many failures in my lifetime.

His studio mogul, played by John Goodman, welcomes the new format but decides to can Valentin, thinking the new younger audience will also want new personalities talking, not aging silent stars. At the same time, Peppy Martin starts moving up the ladder to the stars, and her vivacious personality is a big hit, both within the story, and for Bejo in real life – in fact, for me, her energy, smile, and optimism steal the film as well as Jules/Georges heart.

Uggie is a Jack Russell terrier saved 

from a pound by trainer Omar Von Muller

There’s also a wonderful Jack Russell terrier named Uggie, claiming an award above, who adds welcome comic relief to what could have been a dreary story of the fall of a legend, from wealth to destitution. Uggie was also in Water for Elephants (2011), and What's Up, Scarlett (2005, comma required, lol). He obviously reminds most cinema fans of Asta, the spunky scene-stealing dog from the Thin Man series who starred in 14 films himself in the 30’s and 40’s, including My Favorite Wife.

For me, the one failing here is that half an hour into the film, Georges attends his first sound picture, because it stars Peppy Martin. At this point, director Hazanavicious should have introduced sound into this picture; unfortunately he did not, so we see an early talkie in silence, and we also do not hear the onscreen audiences reactions to the star-making film of Martin’s. By this point in The Artist, the gimmick of silence is wearing thin, and is not helped much by a dream of George's in which he hears the sounds of life but cannot talk himself. The only other sound in the picture is at the very end. I kept thinking that this would be a classic 30’s style film, but those all had sound, so instead this is more like an average 20’s film, very much like a Charlie Chaplin story, with lots of tear-wrenching pathos that keep it on the verge of tragedy, when it could have been more light-hearted and effervescent. It’s touted as a comedy, with a couple of dance numbers that are obviously not Astaire and Rodgers (though still fun in spirit), but spends 90% of it’s time as a tragic drama, relieved by a few humorous touches, mostly in the beginning of the story.

Definitely worth seeing, and an enjoyable if predictable story, but also overrated with this many awards. Malick's The Tree of Life (60 awards, including the Palm D'Or at Cannes) was a bigger hit with critics, and Drive (40 awards) was perhaps the sleeper of the year, both of which seemed closer to unforgettable cinematic art to me. But The Artist was definitely better than the dreariness of The Descendants, and was about on par with The Help, the two other films winning the most awards for the year; also with Take Shelter (31 awards), Woody's Midnight in Paris, and George Clooney’s overlooked The Ides of March.

Let’s hope that for Hazanavicious’ next film, he moves forward with time and adds sound so we can hear the laughter, the dialogue, and the dog barking.

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Outcast of the Islands

Carol Reed, 1951, bw (9.0*)
One of the best adaptations of any Joseph Conrad novel, this is from his Almayer series, about a British merchant (Robert Morley) on a Malayan island paradise. In this tale, an unscrupulous white trader, Trevor Howard, falls in love with a beautiful native islander and basically sells his soul for money so he can entire her away. I and many others think that Howard gave his best performance here, as a weak anti-hero, but really as a typical, self-serving individual.

A terrific cast of veteran British actors includes (along with Morley and Howard), Ralph Richardson, Wilfred Hyde-White, and Wendy Hiller. Conrad had a way of using real action to explore and reveal the depths of one’s character (or a group), such as in this, Heart of Darkness, and The Nigger of the Narcissus. This was one of my favorite novels of his and Reed has done it justice.

There are some haunting images in this that one will never forget, especially some shot in a torrential tropical rainstorm. I would say this is a a must-see, overlooked classic, perhaps Reed’s best film. It received two BAFTA nominations, for best film and best British film.

This is an unjustly overlooked film, and has only been rated by 300 people at IMDB, while dumb, sophmoric comedies have over a hundred thousand. It's due to be released on DVD in 2012. Look for it.

Mostly noted for the noirish The Third man (1949, bw), Reed also directed the Oscar®-winning best picture Oliver! (1967), the musical based on Dickens’ novel, which was a birarre concept but it worked, except for a lead actor who couldn’t sing a lick, but Oscar-nominee Jack Wild was super as Artful Dodger, which led to his own tv show for kids, appropriately named H. R. Puff-n-Stuff. I recently reviewed Reed’s suspense thriller Odd Man Out (1947), with IRA gunman James Mason on the lam.

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Odd Man Out

Carol Reed, 1947, bw (8.8*)
#634, Top Ranked 1000 Films, 2011 Update, all polls.

Master British director Carol Reed made a perhaps even tighter, white-knuckle crime thriller with this gem. In one of his best roles, James Mason shines as a wounded IRA gunman, who is trying to escape a net of British police, and who is both helped and hindered by those along his route.

We are made to feel his personal terror as the camera stays with him, he’s a man alone in an urban war zone and fighting losing odds. This is easily the most intense role of Mason’s long and distinguished career, as he really is noted for cool, collected characters with an experienced and wise demeanor, and normally projects an aura of calm confidence, such as God in Time Bandits (1981) or as heaven’ representative in Heaven Can Wait (1978).

Carol Reed directed some of the best British postwar films. Mostly noted for the noirish The Third man (1949, bw), I liked Outcast of the Islands, from the Joseph Conrad novel, even more. It has a white man in an isolated tropical paradise who sells his soul for money, and it features some of the most haunting images in cinema, filmed during a torrential tropical rainstorm. Reed also directed the Oscar®-winning best picture Oliver! (1967), the musical based on Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist (filmed seriously first by David Lean and later by Roman Polanski).

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The Manchurian Candidate

John Frankenheimer, 1962, bw (8.6*)
#81, Top Ranked 1000 Films, 2011 Update, all polls.

This is the film that set the standard for cold-war thrillers, and also put director John Frankenheimer on the map. The film features a thankfully subdued Frank Sinatra in a dramatic role as a Korean War veteran, who returns to America a changed man. He suspects that a hero from his unit, played by Laurence Harvey, may have been brainwashed by the North Koreans. The problem of course is that the entire story could be in his own imagination, he has no evidence.

As the story unfolds, we find out in short flashbacks a little more of what happened in Korea, while the plot moves toward timed conclusion using the countdown technique, which works well here. One of those 'we have three days to save the free world kind of things', because of a plot already in motion which could have world-shaping implications.

Frankenheimer expertly plays into the hands of the paranoid right-wingers who, led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 50’s, began to suspect a red commie hiding inside every industry and business in the U.S. He creates a nighmarish vision of their worst paranoia, that the communists are able to alter the minds of heroic American citizens and then unleash them on an unsuspecting American public – kind of like what Wall St. has done in the new milennium with even greater success than our enemies imagined.

Frankenheimer was a master at a low-key type of thriller that maintained great tension and apprehension throughout, and events seemed to be moving unhampered toward some bone-chilling conclusion. For me, he went on to make even better thrillers after this one. The Train (1964) bw, with Burt Lancaster, was about a Frenchman trying to stop the Nazis from carting off valuable art treasures back to Germany in a trainload of stolen French culture pilfered from the best museums.

Even better was Seven Days in May (1964) bw, in which Lancaster plays a right-wing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is upset with a left-wing President, expertly played by Fredric March in his last performance, who he feels is weakening the U.S. politically, so he plots a military overthrow of the government, while an officer on his staff, Kirk Douglas, slowly suspects the Chairman. This is eerily similar to the arguments made by the CIA against John Kennedy, who had decimated the branch with massive cutbacks in manpower - Langley was said to resemble a 'ghost town' during his administration.

More recently, Frankenheimer directed the excellent heist film Ronin (1998), featuring Robert De Niro and Jean Reno leading a team to recover a stolen briefcase for a suspected IRA terrorist, Natascha McElhone. This barely noticed film runs rings around the big budget, non-stop car chase films, with an intelligent script that allows for some development of complex characters.

Stick with the original (#81 on the all-time top 1000), the remake with Denzel Washington is ranked 2098th by comparison.

Whoa, is this James Bond or some Korean war vet?

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Sullivan's Travels

Preston Sturges, 1941, bw (8.8*)
[Our post of the top ranked films of Preston Sturges]

A Hollywood director of escapist films decides he needs to experience real life instead of his Hollywooden one. He pretends to be a hobo and hit the road without money or any identity, and of course, with an assumed name, and see how life really is in America at the true grass roots level.

Of couse, he experiences far more than he imagined beforehand, and suffice to say it’s a life-changing experiment. The men he meets give him a new perspective on America and on himself as well. Joel McRea shines in probably his best performance as Sullivan. Veronica Lake (see photo above) provides welcome eye candy, she's quite attractive when she "puts on her face".

I think what Sturges adds is a kind of unabashed honesty that doesn’t seem forced - ok, maybe it is a little corny. That in itself is refreshing, so this film endures as a classic today. It’s also a film about a filmmaker making a film, there aren’t many better that come to my reputed mind. Perhaps only Robert Altman’s The Player (1992), with an altogether different feel, as it’s a serious film with sarcasm, a murder mixed with romance and heavily tinged with cynicism regarding Hollywood and the film industry, where the prime concern is to find a mega-profitable ‘project’, something the public will gobble up.

Writer-director Sturges makes this type of film like no one else except Capra, where comedy, or at least looking at life in a humorous way (it doesn’t have to be gut-busting, insane comedy) is used to get us into a story that then teaches a valuable lesson learned through experience, something you can’t find out any other way, which is your relationship to society and the world.

The Coen Brothers have often cited Sturges as influential on their work. There are similarities of a chase in Raising Arizona (1987) to one in Sullivan’s Travels. The title O' Brother Where Art Thou is the name of the movie that Sullivan wishes to direct in Sullivan’s Travels. There’s a terrific scene of people watching a movie that was repeated with variations in Italian Guiseppe Tournatore’s Oscar®-winning Cinema Paradiso (1988), so the Sturges influence is worldwide, as it should be.

This is a highly underrated comedy at #296 all-time, it’s certainly better than many ranked ahead of it. See the full poll in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls. I’m sure it’s among the top 100 comedies, however.

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The Spiral Staircase

Robert Siodmak, 1945, bw (8.8*)
Even though this now looks like a film of scary movie cliches, back in its time, it was one of those few films that made true cinema suspense and made it artfully. You might call this film an archetype of the modern psycho-killer film, and now it's been remastered.

A serial killer is targeting women around town that have various types of afflictions. A very young Dorothy McGuire, in the performance of her lifetime, plays a mute women, who, alone in a large house during a storm, begins to feel a hidden menace, as if she is perhaps the killer’s next target.

This is Siodmak’s best directing job to me, as it’s a beautifully shot early film noir, with lots of darkness and shadows casting eerie shapes across the living, as if the darkness itself is somehow grasping at the innocents. It’s not often that a film can maintain fear and suspense with any veracity, yet this film manages to and to also be re-shown often over 60 years later and after perhaps a hundred-thousand less artistic imitations.

The entire film was shot on a soundstage, which makes it even more amazing. It had the look of a small film, but it wasn’t - this was a David O. Selznick Production (Gone With the Wind), and co-starred George Brent and Ethel Barrymore.

It’s more often what you don’t show that is more menacing, our greatest fear is the unknown. I think Siodmak’s film is a very good example of that for most of these modern ‘horror’ filmmakers.

It's amazing to me that this film didn't make any of the film polls in our compendium, at all. At IMDB, it's average rating is 7.6, about .4 away from the top 250, so it's likely in the top 1000 there, which they don't post. Our compendium came up with almost 2300 films mentioned in all the polls put together and this wasn't listed once.

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The Third Man

Carole Reed, 1949, bw (8.6*)
Grand Jury Prize, Cannes
[Our 800th film review]

Classic mystery-suspense film from an often overlooked director, who also directed the classic films Odd Man Out, the Oscar®-winning best picture Oliver! (1967), and my favorite, Joseph Conrad’s Outcast of the Islands, a moody and emotional existential drama about white men among tropical Pacific islanders in a hard to reach eden surrounded by ocean reefs.

In this story based on a Graham Greene novel, Joseph Cotton travels to post-war Vienna after hearing of the death of a friend, Harry Lyme (Orson Welles). In his search for exactly what happened, he begins to uncover a web of deceit, and perhaps finds out more than he bargains for when first starting out.

Beautifully shot in noirish black-and-white, it features a chase in the sewers that is reminiscent of that in the novel (and subsequent films) Les Miserables. I can’t reveal too much without spoiling an important part of the mystery for new viewers.

Probably the only negative here for me is the incessant zither music that is more akin to an outdoor café in Istanbul than a mystery – I found it totally intruding on the suspense of the film and also totally unnecessary, not adding anything positive to the experience of this film.

It’s a odd choice, as the only other music I remember in any Reed film was in the actual musical Oliver!, in which someone had the crazy idea of setting Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist as a Broadway musical! (“One boy, one boy for sale!”) It worked in a bizarre modern psychosis kind of way, but did win a directing Oscar for Reed himself, long overdue for better films. Still, all his work is worth seeing, he’s a master.

This is now 23rd all-time on our top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls, and is #68 on the IMDB top 250 (so the critics liked it even more than the public, it's higher on our compendium of polls).This was the Grand Prize winner at Cannes, and won an Oscar® for the cinematography of Robert Krasker.

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The Fireman's Ball

Milos Forman, Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia back then), 1967, bw (8.2*)
I found Fireman’s Ball to be hilarious, it’s like the “fireman’s ball from hell”. A small town fire department decides to have both it's annual ball as well as an 86th birthday celebration for the former fire chief at the same time.

One main attraction is a big group of door prizes, as one's entrance ticket is also a raffle ticket for these. However, as the film progresses, the door prizes slowly go missing one by one. Another big attraction is the annual beauty pageant. Unfortunately there are no beauties, and even those few are unwilling and flee. The elder firemen resort to drafting reluctant participants from the dance floor.

Nothing really goes according to plan in this comedy of errors. There's a hilarious climax that I can't reveal here, but suffice to say it's more irony-laced humor in this early comic classic from Forman. It's not a big-budget major film like his Oscar® winners shot here (Amadeus (1984) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)), but it was a nominee for best foreign language film in 1969.

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The General

Buster Keaton, 1927, bw, silent (9.2*)
For me, Keaton was the real silent film master of comedy, not Chaplin. Keaton’s ingenius stunts and nearly constant movement defined the word pace, his films seemed to speed by like the title subject in this film, the famous Confederate locomotive known as The General, stolen by Union troops in this story based on a true incident. Keaton the engineer is determined to get his train back and the real winner is the audience in this perfect example of a brisk silent comedy.

A classic of the decade and one of the best comedies of all time. Ranked #35 all time on our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls.

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I Vitelloni

Federico Fellini, Italy, 1953, bw (8.4*)
Enjoyable early Fellini comedy film about a group of slackers, ne’er do wells who are content to merely chase women, drink, and dream rather than apply themselves to constructive endeavors.

One of a small group of friends, Fausto Moretti, seduces Sandra, a sister of his friend and companion Moraldo Rubini, then against his intuition, he does the right thing and marries her. After their honeymoon, he takes a boring job as a salesman of religious objects in a small shop that barely has any customers. He still looks at (and goes for) other women, along with his friends. He even mistakes some messages from his bosses wife and tries to seduce her, and is fired.

Still, not much changes in the lives of any of the group. This film is not about going anywhere in particular, but just as much about not making much effort to get anywhere either, and have some pleasures along the road to nowhere if possible. Fellini is merely giving us a snapshot here of a lazy lifestyle, or rather a beautifully photographed cinematic portrait, in the era of the growing beatnik movement, when work was considered the opposite of freedom.

Vitellone is literal for fatted veal calf, but on the dvd, Fellini defines it as aimless, do-nothing guys, or slackers. It is said that this film is autobiographical, at least partially so. It is also given credit for defining the modern term, or usage of slackers as well.

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High and Low

Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1963, bw (9.0*)
Excellent crime thriller from the Japanese master director Kurosawa, in the tradition of his excellent police procedural Stray Dog (1949). A millionaire factory manager, played by Tashiro Mifune, has mortgaged everything to buy just enough stock to take control of his shoe company in order to maintain his high quality standards while other greedy board members insist on putting out a flimsy cheap shoe that will not last a year and forcing their customers to rebuy shoes more often.

That very day, the executive's son is playing with his chauffeur's son and they change cowboy and outlaw outfits, and a kidnapper abducts the wrong child by accident, but still demands a hefty ransom or he'll kill the child. So now Mifune must weigh the dilemna of losing his company by paying the money he needs to save the child, or sacrificing a child, who's not his own anyway, to save his career.

This film also becomes a police procedural as they try to narrow down the kidnappers location in a race against time, as they feel the child is likely to be killed in either case. Other than his classic masterpiece Seven Samurai, my favorite films of Kurosawa's are these gorgeous crime films in black and white, which are detective stories filmed like 40's film noir. His film Stray Dog caused a huge wave of popularity for these films in Japan in the 50's.

This is now # 449 on our 2011 Edition of Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net (all polls)

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The Passion of Joan of Arc

Carl Theodor Dreyer, France, 1928, bw-silent (8.0*)
Director Carl Theodor Dreyer of Denmark has given us a gem of a silent film by extracting and properly filming one of the great performances in cinema history by Renee Maria Falconetti as the teenage warrior Jeanne d'Arc, who led French soldiers of Orleans against the British invaders in the early 15th century. Jeanne claims she was spoken to by God, and told to kill British soldiers. For this she was tried by the Catholic Church, who tried to get her to recant her 'visions', and burned as a heretic at the age of nineteen. Later, as often happens, she was then sainted by the church as a martyr for her faith.

This film only covers her trial and death. Dreyer extracts every nuance and ounce of emotion that Falconetti can likely muster, and he gives us many gut-wrenching closeups of her anguish. In all honesty, I was worried about the actress herself after first seeing this, and later found out that she never acted again.

On rare occasions, someone transcends the medium of their art and creates a timeless work that will stand forever, and Falconetti has done that here. If you want the full story of Jeanne, or you like historical war films, you will likely want to watch the modern, violent, special effects driven film from French director Luc Besson, The Messenger, with Milla Jovovich as Joan. Fans of classic cinema will still prefer Dreyer's silent masterpiece, but both offer different views of this historical heroine.

Ranked No. 34 on our compendium of film polls, the #1 film from France (here is our list of the top ranked films from France), and is now No. 211 on the IMDB top 250, so it's a more popular film on the critics polls than the popular ones, yet it's still recognized by all groups of cinephiles.

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Oliver Twist

David Lean, 1948, bw (8.6*)
Before epic director David Lean turned out massive adventures like Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and The Bridge On the River Kwai, he made his mark by filming two excellent adaptations of Charles Dickens novels in classic black-and-white (like the books), albeit slightly abbreviated to fit the two-hour format. (Great Expectations is the other).

Using autobiographical information, Dickens made his third novel one of serious tragedy for an orphan boy, named Oliver Twist (John Howard Davies), who goes from an orphanage to being sold, to running away and joining a gang of street thieves. In the liveliest part of his story, the street urchins who pick pockets work for a man named Fagin, made famous here by Alec Guinness. The Artful Dodger (Anthony Newley) becomes his mentor. They actually treat young Oliver more like an equal, something he'd never had. He is befriended by Nancy (Kay Walsh), who has a domineering and vicious boyfriend in Billy Sykes (Robert Newton). That's the basic story, but there's obviously a lot more, especially in the Dickens novel, one of his best.

This was also successfully remade as a musical in 1967, as Oliver!, which won the best picture Oscar® and 4 others. If you want Hollywood entertainment, check out that version; if you want a faithful adaptation of Dickens, stick with David Lean.

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The Loved One

Tony Richardson, 1965, bw (8.8*)
Screenplay by Terry Southern and Christopher Isherwood

British director Tony Richardson, his first since best picture Tom Jones two years earlier. For my money, this is a much better comedy, far more rewatchable, still fresh today - I can't say that about Tom Jones, awards or not. Some words used to describe this are dark, cynical, twisted, macabre - but hilarious is usually in there.

The story itself is a pseudo-serious look at the heights to which some people in Hollywood have gone to perpetuate the memory of lost loved ones, both at a super lucrative human cemetary called Whispering Glades (a take on Forest Lawn?), and a smaller pet cemetary, which is working on blasting animals into space, the brain of child scientist Paul Williams.

The film obviously takes a tongue-in-cheek at all this business of death (I guess it's a true 'black comedy', lol), and manages to poke fun at capitalism as well, as we see companies of all sizes looking at ways to save money on employees while gouging the public for the maximum possible, including features in the human cemetary like perpetually flowing fountains and music (all for only a few more dollars per month, of course).

The film is made special by an excellent cast, which features John Gielgud as a retiring Hollywood star, at an age when they can't wait to rush you out the door. Robert Morse stars as a young British poet who comes to Hollywood and gets a job at the Glades. Jonathan Winters has dual roles, as a Rev. Glenworthy and his rich brother Henry. Other stars are Dana Andrews, Milton Berle, James Coburn, Margaret Leighton, Tab Hunter, Roddy McDowell, Robert Morley, Liberace, and Anjanette Comer as Morse's romantic interest, and Rod Steiger as his romantic rival, Mr. Joyboy, an embalmer; Steiger is quite funny. Perhaps working in some many cameo performances hurts the films cohesion overall, that's probably the biggest drawback here.

You have to love the tagline for this one, "The movie with something to offend everyone". It's true that nothing is sacred, but it's all done in good taste, never too over-the-top, though with the episodic nature of some of the scenes some will find it inconsistent. But that's appropriate for it's time, the mid-60's. A lot of society was dis-jointed, pun intended.

Rod Steiger actually won 1 award for his comedy performance, a Sant Jordi for "actor in a major film".

Note: of course, at the time, director Tony Richardson (photo left) was the husband of actress Vanessa Redgrave (Morgan) who sued him for divorce in 1967, naming French actress Jeanne Moreau (Elevator to the Gallows) as co-respondent. He is the father of actresses Miranda, Joely, and Natasha Richardson, who died last year following a skiing accident in Canada. Richardson himself died of AIDS contracted from a blood transfusion.

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The Magnificent Ambersons

The Ambersons live a life of almost royal opulence

Orson Welles, 1942, bw (9.2*)
Welles' first film after Citizen Kane was his adaptation of the Booth Tarkington novel about the decline of an aristocratic midwestern American family, one who prized traditional values and their own social position above change, tolerance, and open-mindedness.

Joseph Cotten plays a family friend, a builder of early motor cars, often criticized by the Amberson patriarch as smoky, noisy nuisances, and something "that will never replace the horse". As a modernist, and someone from the wrong side of the tracks, he is never totally accepted as an equal to the Ambersons. Dolores Costello is an Amberson who admires Cotten and his ingenuity, and who falls in love with him, and of course has to defend him and progress in the family debates. Terrific Oscar-winning actress Anne Baxter plays his daughter, but doesn't have a lot of acting to do here (check her out in The Razor's Edge and All About Eve).

Agnes Moorehead shines as a slightly psychotic member of the Amberson clan, who keep to themselves enough that their huge Victorian mansion becomes more like a prison or asylum as they rarely mingle with the masses of their town. Tim Holt is an Ambersons' son and heir who seems to worry more about what people think than anything else.

The film is a little dark and moody, yet remains one of the enduring cinema portraits of turn-of-the-century American life and values, and a searing critique of those who perpetuate class differences to the point of prejudice. Cinematographer Stanley Cortez must be given some credit for the beautifully classic black-and-white look of the film.

Welles did not play a part in this film, preferring to remain behind the scenes. Author Tarkington was a family friend of Welles' growing up, so this is an author whose work and intent he knew personally. It's said that the studio butchered his final cut, yet it remains a classic American film, almost as revered as Citizen Kane, and certainly one of the finest adaptations from literature put on film. Nominated for four Oscars, including Cortez' cinematography, Moorehead's performance, best picture, and the terrific art direction, but it won none.

Anne Baxter and Joseph Cotten ride in his own invention

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Le Plaisir

aka House of Pleasure (U.S.)
Max Ophüls, France, 1952, bw (8.2*)
This Ophüls' film of French romance is divided into three episodes, corresponding to three Guy De Maupassant short stories. In the two short stories that bookend the title one, we actually find the bitter sarcasm typical of Maupassant's style, though somewhat softened by Ophüls' sympathic human touch.

The first story is a man who disguises himself as a much younger man so he can still go out on the town and enjoy balls, dancing, and the company of younger women. Meanwhile, his wife waits at home, resigned to his activities and his fight to retain lost youth. It's little more than an introductory vignette into French night life, and is actually sad as "father time" gets us all in the end.

The excellent centerpiece here is "La maison Tellier", the brothel of a French province town, and is typical Ophüls, beautifully designed and filmed; in fact, the art direction was nominated for an Oscar. It's also the longest section of the film. We are shown the brothel of the title first through it's windows, as if an outsider peeking inside, and the camera moves from room to room from this outside position. The house has two parts, one for commoners, like sailors, connected to the bar. The other, for the well-to-do, is upstairs and visited by all the town's wealthiest merchants and politicians, and it's interesting that all these 'respectable' citizens have wives and children at home, and we see them making excuses (lies) to rush off the the brothel after supper.

In the film's integral section, the prostitutes take a day off to go to a First Communion celebration in the countryside, for the niece of the madame. Ophüls shows us this episode with fondness, a willingness to forgive people their faults and pettiness, adding the director's sense of humor. When the brothel is realized closed by the local men, the whole social order is upset and they become beacons of unrest. Sailors start a brawl, and even respectable citizens, such as the mayor and merchants, begin petty quarrels.  The beautiful Danielle Darrieux lends her beautiful talents to this story, as well as Jean Gabin (La Grande Illusion), who plays Joseph at the country estate they visit, and who tries to give Danielle his own personal 'thanks' in her room at one point.

The courtesans are actually moved by the Communion Mass, and are soon all weeping, perhaps realizing some lost innocence of their own. But as soon as it's over, they rush off to the train because "the house can be closed for one night, but not two" (heck, the town would likely be in flames!) In spite of their hurry, it's a gorgeous day so they stop and all pick flowers. The day makes a poetic, pastoral contrast to their typical night life of drinking, dancing, and partying til dawn.

The last story features Simone Simon as a woman seen by an artist on the street, who is infatuated with her beauty. She becomes his model, then lover, as they move in together after his paintings of her start to sell. However, passions based on beauty don't always last, and this story is no different. Perhaps the most cynical response to love of the three stories, it's also the most realistic, showing how many people simply settle for their lives.

Fans of this film (in 1957, Kubrick said it was 'his favorite') and Ophüls should also watch La Ronde, similar in style in that it's a series of stories about romance revolving around common friends who party in the same circle. Perhaps his finest film, however, is The Earrings of Madame D., click for our review (#268 on our top 1000 films compendium).

This is among the most visually beautiful of all the works of Ophüls, who himself is one of the best in French cinema; ironic, since he emigrated there from Germany (born Max Oppenheimer). Ophüls said, "everyone has two fatherlands, his own and Paris". From Germany, he emigrated there because he liked "breakfast with cognac in your glass, gigolos and prostitutes at night".

Note: this style has been copied often, especially from the 90's on.. see our upcoming review of Hsien-hsiang Hou's Three Times for a similar recent film about Taiwan.

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Nights of Cabiria

Federico Fellini, Italy, 1957, bw (8.5*)
Cabiria is a wide-eyed, waifish street walker from a poor section of Rome, wonderfully played by Guilietta Masina. We can pretty much surmise her life from the few scenes shown to us by Fellini.

She only seeks true love, but is instead nearly drowned by her boyfriend, who also steals money from her. A movie star takes her home. An accountant says he saw her on the stage once, fate brought them together again. and so on.. In spite of all this, she still inhabits a sad and lonely world - after all, this is Italian realism. No "pretty woman", this is more like real life - the hookers in Hollywood (Klute, Pretty Woman, L.A. Confidential, with Oscars for those 3 actresses by the way) all seem to be only the high-class escort variety, not real streetwalkers.

This is a simple film, carried totally by the performance of Masina, who snares the audience early and then you're caught. To me, this is the best performance in all of Fellini's films. She seems resigned to her life, yet is also childishly hopeful. She still possesses a vitality that life should have drained by now. The fact that Fellini is her husband makes this perhaps the finest collaboration of spouses in Italian cinema. Thankfully, Fellini didn't fill this story with surrealism, it's more like La Strada than 8 ½.

Oscar winner for foreign language film, and a total of 15 awards, 4 for Giulietta Masina for best actress. No. 223 on the IMDB 250, No. 136 on our compendium of all net polls.

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Bicycle Thieves

Ladri di biciclette
Vittorio De Sica, Italy, (1949) bw (9.2*)
Best Foreign Film (AA, GG)
Best Film (BAA)
In this hallmark film of Italian post-war realism, former actor Vittorio De Sica used all amateur actors and a street realism style with stunning results. De Sica presents probably the most uncompromising and least hopeful of film stories, the film is so depressing that I've had a hard time recommending it here.

The story is a simple one, a poor Italian man, played by factory worker Lamberto Maggiorani, with a young boy gets a job posting film signs only because he has a bicycle. But like most material objects in harsh economic conditions, it gets stolen. Now the man has no bicycle to get to his job, therefore it threatens his job as well. This bicycle becomes the holy grail of this man's life and of this film.

De Sica and the other post-war realists didn't believe in the make-believe world presented by films prior to the war. Rather than escape from reality, they sought to bring the harsh reality of everyday life to the filmgoing public, perhaps with the hope that by raising awareness of the plight of some, people will be angered enough to work to make those conditions more dignified.

It's hard not to be moved by this film. Considered by many one of the finest films ever made, it certainly should be near the top of most polls. No. 85 on the IMDB 250, No. 16 on our compendium of all film polls so it's apparent that critics rank this film a much higher than the general public.

Winner of 16 awards (out of 17 nominations), including an Oscar® and Golden Globe for best foreign language film, and a British academy award (BAFTA) for best overall film.

Note: growing up, this film was always "The Bicycle Thief" - I'm not sure when or why it became plural, but I'm using the title used at IMDB

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Napoléon

Abel Gance, France, 1927, bw-silent (8.8*)
Gance's massive six-hour film was the first part of an intended six part film on the life of the emperor, but he never got the financing to complete the project. This begins with the early part of his life and early conquests. This innovative film used many techniques that would become standards for years. One 20-minutes section features a triptych sequence with three projections side-by-side that pre-date extreme widescreen films.

If the 36-hr work had been completed, that would have been longer than any modern mini-series, and the epic of all epics. Ranked #230 on our compendium of all film polls

One of our first World Film Awards, as we started with 15 silent films.

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The Longest Day

1962, bw (8.0*)
Memorial Day WAR-a-thon film #13
Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, Darryl F. Zanuck (uncredited)
Annakin did the British exteriors, Marton the American exteriors, Wicki the German episodes.

A journalistic, little embellished story of D-Day, beginning with the build up, and the delays caused by weather, the men anxiously rocking with the waves below decks, worried about how much German force will be waiting for them at Normandy. We proceed from waiting troops, to the overnight paratrooper drop that actually began the assault.

This all-star cast is more of a Hollywood who's who than a tight narrative ensemble, but by shooting in black and white the producers tried to give this filmed story of D-Day a documentary look and feel, so in that regard having stars in every part negates the effect, but it's still a rewarding war film overall. From Cornelius Ryan's best-seller, and it has that feel as well.

The cast has some of the biggest names available at the time: John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, Peter Lawford, Robert Ryan, Sal Mineo, Eddie Albert, Mel Ferrer, with Curt Jurgens and Gert Frobe in the German scenes. Most have little to do however, other than ask questions about maps, or bark out orders. The film is made by the special effects, as it truly does look like "every ship in the world" off the coast of Normany when the invasion begins, as one German observer radios to Berlin.

won 7 awards, 2 Oscars (cinematography, special effects) out of 13 nominations

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