Tag: Academy Awards

Film Review: The Longest Day (and a D-Day Remembrance)

It’s fitting that I bring this movie up now because as I’m sure anyone who’s watched the news or read a newspaper this last week will realise, today is the 70th anniversary of this most indelible event.

6 June 1944. D-Day. The commencement of the Normandy landings and the subsequent Allied invasion of Normandy. It remains the largest seaborne invasion in history and it led to the restoration of the French Republic and the defeat of Nazi Germany.

With even the youngest of veterans from the Normandy campaign now being in their late 80s, it’s perhaps little wonder that the number of those making the pilgrimage across the channel this year for the 70th anniversary has prompted the Normandy Veterans Association to declare this their final official commemoration of the event. It plans to disband in November owing to dwindling numbers and the increased difficulty of its remaining members to travel. The association, which was set up in the 1980s, had 16,000 members by the 1990s however, five years ago that number had fallen to around 4,500 and now the number is closer to 600. And while this is sad but ultimately inevitable, I don’t imagine it will be the end of our commemorating this epic undertaking. And epic it was.

While The Longest Day may be a flawed movie, it does a fair job of depicting the scale of the operation. It was, after all, a multi-national effort on behalf of the Allies and required careful coordination between all three branches of the armed forces, as well as the French resistance networks. There are many threads running through the near three hour run time showing us as much detail of the operation as time allows. We see numerous individual companies and battalions tasked with their own objectives, the success of each one vital to the next. We see the efforts of the Resistance putting explosives to good use and we also get a perspective from the German side which shows us that some incompetence on their part undoubtably contributed to the final outcome. The truth is (and this is where there are literally hundreds of fascinating individual stories), if it weren’t for a whole host of other factors such as sabotage by the Resistance, misinformation (planned by an organisation called the London Controlling Section) and bad decision making by the Nazis the outcome could have been very different.

Indeed to properly appreciate the complexities of the battle of Normandy would mean to remember everything (and everyone involved) that happened from the moment a cross channel invasion had been given the go ahead at the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943 to the Liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944.

But this film is limited to the 6th June. D-Day. The Longest Day.

One of the film’s tag-lines reads – 42 International Stars!

And it’s not difficult to name them as they appear on screen – Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, John Wayne, Richard Burton, Sean Connery…etc, etc. The list really does go on. And on.

But for me, the stars (and let’s not forget some of them actually fought in WWII) are less important than the story itself. Having said that, if you want to watch a serious account of D-Day, you’ll really have to watch a documentary of which I’m sure there are plenty. You could even go one step further and plan a visit, take in a museum or two and put yourself on the same ground that saw that terrible action all those years ago. Trust me, it meddles with your emotions.

Okay, so this is part film review and part a salute to what was undoubtably one of the most important operations of the entire Second World War. But a film review it is, so…

With the help of four other writers, The Longest Day was adapted for the screen by Cornelius Ryan from his own book of the same name which had been an instant hit upon release in 1959. Ryan was an Irish journalist and author of several books on World War II whose interest in the D-Day invasion began during a trip to Normandy in 1949. He also wrote A Bridge Too Far in 1974 which was given the movie treatment in ’77.

The Longest Day had no less than five directors, each responsible for a particular section. Ken Annakin directed the British and French exteriors, Andrew Marton, the American exteriors, Gerd Oswald, the parachute drop and Bernard Wicki, the German scenes. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck was an uncredited fifth director.

Because it was made only 18 years after the actual events portrayed, many of those who participated were still alive and therefore the producers employed several generals and high-ranking officers from both sides as military consultants. Curiously, one of them was Lucie Rommel, widow of Erwin Rommel. It won Oscars for Black and White Cinematography and Special Effects and was nominated thrice more.

The film divides opinion. Some like it, some loathe it. There are others movies (and an excellent HBO TV series) that depict D-Day and they may be more explicit and graphic in their action but they aren’t as concentrated on that fateful day and therefore don’t quite capture the immensity of the event.

That these 80 and 90 year old heroes continue to return to the northern shores of France, to the scenes that shaped the rest of their lives and likely still haunt their dreams is nothing short of inspiring. Many of them are accompanied by their families and friends, younger people who will hopefully keep the spirit of the campaign alive for generations to come.

Yesterday a TV reporter asked one of the veterans why he feels the need to keep coming back and as the old soldier’s voice cracked and his eyes pooled, he replied that he comes back to pay his respects to the friends that fell beside him and all those others who didn’t make it home.

God bless them all.

 

 

 

Film Review: Harvey

Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, “In this world, Elwood, you must be” – she always called me Elwood – “In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.” Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.

So says Elwood P. Dowd as played by James Stewart in this 1950 film based on Mary Chase’s Pulitzer Prize winning play Harvey.  And a more pleasant man you’ll be hard pressed to find for Elwood will be only too happy to invite you to join him for a drink at his favourite bar or have you round his house for a small informal dinner regardless of who you are or how many words you’ve exchanged. Yes, a very affable chap indeed.

Trouble is, he’ll soon introduce you to his very dear friend, Harvey – a six-foot, three-and-a-half-inch tall pooka in the form of a white rabbit. This is why his sister Veta (Josephine Hull in an Oscar winning performance), who lives with him and is desperately trying to climb the social ladder, resorts to having him committed to a sanatorium because every time she arranges a gathering of the local elite at home Elwood ruins her attempts at networking for a suitable suitor for her not-so-young daughter Myrtle Mae (Victoria Horne) by stunning the assembled guests with his friend that nobody else can see.

What follows is quite possibly one of the gentlest, most charming comedy of errors I think I’ve ever seen. Dowd, whose penchant for a Martini makes him an unquestionable alcoholic  – a possible cause of his hallucinations – is so likeable and friendly that it’s hard not to overlook his whimsical little peculiarity. Stewart who had played Dowd on Broadway for almost three years prior to this film and would go on to reprise the role on London’s West End in 1975, brings his natural affability to the character and together with his innate talent, he received an Oscar nomination for his efforts. He is and always will be one of my all-time favourite actors.

The film is peppered with memorable characters played by some of Hollywood’s finest character actors. Jesse White as Wilson the gruff asylum attendant and Wallace Ford as the taxi driver have some hilarious moments. But saying that sounds unfair to the rest of the cast for there are many golden moments involving everyone. Indeed the entire 104 minutes is a golden moment.

Director Henry Koster had been nominated for another comedy with fantasy leanings three years earlier – The Bishop’s Wife with Cary Grant and Loretta Young but it’s arguable that over a 30 year career, Harvey would be his finest hour.

Film Review: Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Not to be confused with the 1969 musical remake starring Peter O’Toole in the lead role, this 1939 Oscar winner manages to be funny, sentimental, sad and uplifting over the course of its near two hour run time.

I caught it over the Easter weekend – the perfect time to see such film – and how fortunate I was because it’s yet another one of those notable movies of yesteryear that had so far escaped me.

Mind you, it’s not a film that’ll bring about a surge of adrenaline, so shelve it for another day if you’re up for some fist pumping action. Instead it’s a gentle character-led tale about the life and career of a teacher at a boys’ boarding school set in England.

The body of the movie is a memory so at the outset, we see the aged Mr Chipping (admirably played by Robert Donat) confined to his bed with a cold. His long career at Brookfield Pubic School is relayed to us in flashback and it begins in 1870 when we see the 20 year old Mr Charles Edward Chipping arrive for his first day as a teacher of Latin.

That first day is a bit shaky and the little rascals in his classroom give the poor idealistic new arrival a bit of a hard time. So he gets strict which earns him their respect but not their affection. But as the terms come and go and the years pass by, his relationship with his pupils improves and his position at the school gains importance when he is made senior master.

At one year’s end though, his high hopes of being appointed house master for the following year come to nothing and so to stop him from languishing in sorrow, the German teacher, Max Staefel (Paul Henreid), persuades old Chipping to join him on a walking holiday in his native Austria.

It is here that Chipping meets Kathy Ellis (the lovely Greer Garson), a forward thinking English woman who is also on holiday. Despite their obvious differences of character and age (she is about half his 50), they fall completely in love and marry.

Back in England, the new Mrs Chipping makes quite a stir at the school with her charming, friendly manner and her influence on ‘Chips’ as she calls him subsequently influences his ability to interact with the boys. Alas, tragedy arrives shortly after when his beloved wife dies in childbirth along with the baby but perhaps the silver lining (if one can find such a thing in so untimely a loss) is that her job was done. She made him a better teacher and a better man.

Devastated as he is (the entire school too), he throws himself into the only thing he has left. His work. And as the years pass and he becomes an eccentric but much loved fixture of the school, we see him enjoy a rapport with the boys that is quite unique. Indeed, he talks about teaching the sons and grandsons of many of his earlier pupils.

He reluctantly accepts retirement in 1914 but is such a part of the school that he remains on campus. However, with the war taking so many of the younger men off to fight he is called back to serve as headmaster – his lifelong dream and his wife’s prediction come true – albeit temporarily. Over the course of the next four years, he is saddened to read out the names of many former pupils and teachers who have died in battle, one of which was his friend and colleague Max Staefel, who had perished fighting on the German side.

He retires permanently in 1918 and dies fifteen years later, his last words summing up his sense of contentment.

The film had stiff competition at the Academy Awards that year from Gone With The Wind. Both films were nominated in the same seven categories (Outstanding Production, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Writing, Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Sound, Recording) but Donat beat Clark Gable to the Best Actor award. MGM’s southern epic would take five of the others while When Tomorrow Comes, a romantic drama starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer, took the award for Best Sound.

Donat was well deserving though. His performance is a perfectly judged progression of character and often quite moving. The fact that he ages 63 years over the course of the film is remarkable, not only in appearance but in manner.

The film is based on the 1934 novel of the same name by James Hilton and was directed by Sam Wood, whose credits include A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races and For Whom the Bell Tolls. It was shot on location in Repton, Derbyshire and at Denham Film Studios in Buckinghamshire. The man who captured those interior and exterior images so ably was one of Britain’s most successful cinematographers, Freddie Young whose expertise won him three Oscars for Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Ryan’s Daughter during a career that spanned more than fifty years.

In 1999, Goodbye, Mr. Chips was voted number 72 in the BFI’s Top 100 British Films poll.

It’s a beautiful film that if you haven’t yet caught is well worth a look.

Film Review: Days of Wine and Roses

While attending the 1963 Academy Awards, Gregory Peck was (according to IMDB), totally convinced that his good friend Jack Lemmon would beat him to the Best Actor Oscar for his searing portrayal of an alcoholic in Days of Wine and Roses.

It was reading this snippet of trivia while researching my last review for To Kill a Mockingbird that led me to this movie. I think it also highlights how unjust the awards are because to choose Peck’s performance over Lemmon’s is like saying David Rudisha is a better runner than Mo Farah or Usain Bolt. Some Hollywood icon (whose name escapes me right now) once stated that, in order to judge which actor has given the best performance of the year, surely they all need to playing the same role.

But la de da! That’s the way it is.

Anyhoo, the snippet led to me to the movie and so I watched it. And, to quote Dr Sam Beckett from the beginning of each episode of Quantum Leap – “Oh Boy!”

Days of Wine and Roses tell the story of Joe Clay (Jack Lemmon), a skilled PR man who can booze with the best of them. He has to, for it seems to go hand in hand with his job. But what he really is, is an alcoholic.

One day he meets and falls in love with the pretty secretary of a client, Kristen Arnasen (played by Lee Remick), who happens to be a teetotaller. Her weakness, she admits on their first date, is chocolate, but that changes once Joe introduces her to Brandy Alexanders – a brandy based cocktail with creme de cocoa.

The pair get married and soon have a child but Joe’s drinking worsens and because he doesn’t want to come home after a hard day’s work to spend a quiet, sober evening with his dull, “shushing” wife, she feels pressured into “loosening up” over a few drinks with him. And from there, their downward spiral into full-blown alcoholism is rapid and full. Suddenly, what started out as a slightly quirky romance film (albeit one with a subtle underlying sense of doom) becomes a powerful and bleak tale of addiction and ruin.

The film was adapted by JP Miller, who wrote the original Emmy nominated teleplay for Playhouse 90 in 1958. Producer Martin Manulis (also from the Playhouse 90 team) thought the story would make a good movie and so with Blake Edwards (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Pink Panther) in the director’s chair, Charles Bickford (A Star is Born, The Big Country) and Jack Klugman (12 Angry Men, Quincy M.E.) giving solid acting support and Henry Mancini providing the music, they made the movie partly on location in San Francisco and then set out on the road for the Oscars.

It would win only one Academy Award for Best Original Song, Mancini (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) but it got four other nominations – Best Actor (Lemmon), Best Actress (Remick), Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design.

Days of Wine and Roses is most definitely not a feel-good movie but it will make you think about your own drinking habits, however briefly. It’s engrossing film drama though and I’m not at all surprised to read that it is required viewing in many alcoholic and drug rehabilitation clinics across the U.S. It’s that real.

Film Review: To Kill a Mockingbird

If I was allowed just one word to sum up this movie it would be, “beautiful”. For it truly is. I caught it recently on TV (mercifully without those dangerously irritating commercial interruptions), and as the end credits rolled, a feeling of what I can only describe as ‘euphoria for being alive’ came over me. I’m sure you know what I mean – when you behold something so incredibly worthy of our world that it just makes you glad to be here, be it a clear night sky riddled with a billion stars or a toddler’s first steps towards your beckoning arms, smiling a smile that just melts your heart.

What possibly makes the film so beautiful is the way that it’s told through the eyes of six year old Scout Finch (Mary Badham) who, together with her older brother Jem (Phillip Alford), lives in the fictional ‘tired old town’ of Maycomb, Alabama with their widowed father Atticus (Gregory Peck) sometime during the Great Depression.

I shall refrain from giving away too much of the plot but the meat of the story can be divided into two parts. Firstly, the children, together with a visiting boy named Dill Harris (John Megna) who comes to Maycomb every summer to stay with his aunt, are fascinated to learn the truth about one of their neighbours, the mysterious and reclusive ‘Boo’ Radley (played by Robert Duvall in his big screen debut). This involves lots of childish antics like spying through the neighbour’s windows and knocking on their front door then running away to hide. All perfectly charming kid’s stuff and you can’t help but love the little rascals for it.

The second part concerns their father – a town lawyer – and his defence of Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), a black man accused of raping a young white woman. With the action taking place sometime in the 1930s at a time when black people were viewed in the town to be inferior than whites, things basically don’t look good for Tom. But Atticus, who believes that all people should be treated equally and fairly, is determined to seek the truth even if it sets the town against him.

For me, the greatness of the film lies in the way it weaves this second storyline (which even though it’s the business of the adults, we, the audience, still receive via the eyes and ears of Scout) so seamlessly with the first. And it’s this innocent person’s perspective of not fully comprehending the reason why things are happening the way they are, that gives the film its power. Racism really doesn’t make any sense.

Of course, such greatness on screen is born out of great writing and To Kill a Mockingbird is Harper Lee’s 1961 Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The book itself is a masterpiece and has since become a modern classic of American literature and Robert Mulligan (director) together with Horton Foote (screenwriter) did one of the best jobs in the history of cinema of turning a novel into a film.

Foote won the Oscar for his screenplay and Peck won the only Oscar of his long and distinguished career for his sublime portrayal of Atticus Finch. The film’s third and final Oscar win was for its Black and White Art Direction-Set Direction. There were five more nominations for it at the 1963 Academy Awards including Best Picture (Alan J. Pakula), Best Supporting Actress (Mary Badham – who at 10 years old held the record for the youngest nominee in this category until Tatum O’Neal won for Paper Moon in 1973), Best Director (Mulligan), Best Cinematography (Russell Harlan) and Best Music Score (Elmer Bernstein). Bernstein’s music is effortlessly moving and the black and white cinematography serves well at placing the film in the time it was set. Of course, there are numerous other awards and honours the film has garnered over the years and to list them would require more space than I have here but perhaps the most significant is this –

The American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th Century. I find this quite remarkable when you think of all the gun-toting, macho types that typify a movie hero these days. Well deserved of the honour he is too. And well deserved was Peck’s Oscar. According to IMDB, he nailed his 9 minute summation speech in one take and if you’ve seen it, you’ll know it’s a seminal courtroom monologue.

On second thoughts, maybe my one word to sum this film up would be, “perfect”. For in cinematic terms, that’s what it is. But there’s been so much praise about this film since its release in December 1962 that a few more words from me mean very little. Therefore, I will let one of the film’s original tag lines have the last word.

If you have read the novel, you will relive every treasured moment…If not, a deeply moving experience awaits you!

Film Review: My Man Godfrey

I hope you haven’t had a complete bellyful of the Oscars just yet because I’ve got one more little fact I’d like to share with you which I stumbled upon while reading up for this review. It’s no game changer and nothing that’ll have you losing sleep so don’t worry but, here goes – The 9th Academy Awards ceremony which was held in March 1937 was the first time that supporting actors and actresses had their own categories. Prior to this, all lead and supporting acting nominations were pitched together. There you go. Well, I did say it wasn’t going to change your life!

The reason I inflict this snippet of info upon you is because My Man Godfrey was the first film in Oscar history to receive nominations in all four acting categories. Of course, one could argue that it would have been impossible for an earlier film to have beaten it but that would just be facetious. Fact is, it might not have happened for years. That it didn’t win any of them also makes history because it’s the only film to receive these four nominations and not win at least one. And as if that isn’t enough, it’s also the only film to have these four nominations and not have the Best Picture nomination as well. It was nominated for Best Director and Best Writing, Screenplay as well and, not winning anything there either, means it also goes down in history as the only film to be nominated for those six and to lose them all. And they say it’s just the winners that are remembered. Poppycock!

Anyhoo, I forget why this title came to me but, a few days ago, come to me it did and with my mood suited for an early screwball comedy, I thought I’d give it a look and see what all the fuss is about, of which there seems to be plenty.

The film is interesting for a number of reasons, not least because it teamed William Powell and Carole Lombard who had three years previously been husband and wife. Powell had apparently insisted on his ex-wife being his co-star saying that their real life romance had been similar as it was for their characters in the film. They had starred together twice before in 1931, Man of the World (where they met and soon married) and Ladies’ Man.

It’s also interesting because although it’s classed as one of the great screwball comedies, I found it less screwball than a lot of others from the era. Yes, Lombard is completely in the zone as the zany, young, spoiled heiress and Powell plays the straight man against her with aplomb but it’s the movie’s theme that raises it above the multitude and saves it from just being fun but daft. This film is set (and was made) during The Great Depression and as its story unfolds we receive its serious and rational and socially aware message. It turns out that not only is this movie hilarious on the surface both visually and with its sparkling dialogue but it’s rather clever under the skin as well.

The film opens with Godfrey Parke (Powell) living on a city dump alongside other men who are finding life tough. Actually, the film opens with some lovely opening credits, the titles zapping up in gaudy neon signs stretched across a city roofscape as the camera pans right. Back to the dump though and spoiled rich girl Cornelia Bullock (Gail Patrick) climbs out of her limousine and offers him five dollars to be her “forgotten man” at a scavenger hunt. Annoyed that the wealthy find amusement in the plight of the needy and the homeless, Godfrey tells her where to go and in doing so causes her to fall on a pile of ashes. She leaves in a fury with her chaperone much to the delight of her younger sister, Irene (Lombard) whom also wants a “forgotten man”. Godfrey talks to Irene and finds her to be a nicer person than her sister and offers to help her so she can beat her sister.

They arrive at the swanky hotel ballroom where the scavenger hunt is taking place and, after proving to the judges that he is a bonafide homeless man by answering their inane questions, he addresses the crowd and condemns their pointless game. Irene, realising she has hurt his pride, offers him a job as their family butler.

And there, in a nutshell, you have it; the foundation of a wonderful plot.

Godfrey’s first morning, he turns up all suited and booted and is welcomed by the Bullocks’ smart-mouthed, cynical maid, Molly (Jean Dixon). Molly is the only servant who has been able to put up with the bizarre antics of the family, antics which quickly become apparent to Godfrey once he calls on each family member with their breakfast tray. Luckily though, he appears to be a gifted butler and so all the family, especially Irene, who appears to be besotted with him, is glad to have him around. All except Cornelia whom he made fall into the ash pile. She has a grudge that simply won’t be buried.

And so, as the plot thickens, to coin an overused phrase, we learn more about this man Godfrey and we discover, after a friend from his past pops up, that he’s not what we first assumed. The socio-economic hardship of the time also plays its part almost as a character and as such, it’s influence is never far from the screen. Overall, My Man Godfrey is an extremely engaging film but impossibly lighthearted too.

As is so often the case with these classics, the cast is without fault. Gail Patrick as the sister, Alice Brady as the mother and Eugene Pallette as the father are nothing short of wonderful, as is Jean Dixon who plays the maid. Mischa Auer as Mrs Bullock’s sponging and constantly hungry “protege” is ideally cast too. But it’s Powell’s and ultimately Lombard’s show and with Lombard’s life being cut tragically short when she perished in a plane crash in 1942, it leaves one wondering just how much more she might have left for us. Having said that, it makes me want to celebrate all that she did leave for she was, without question, a unique talent.

My Man Godfrey was directed by Gregory La Cava, a former animator for William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers who had begun directing silent comedies in the early ’20s. Although this is arguably his best known work he had a reasonable success the following year with Stage Door, starring Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers.

My Man Godfrey was adapted from the short novel, 1101 Park Avenue, by Eric Hatch and was a huge hit upon release in September 1936. In 1999, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry as being “culturally significant” by the United States Library of Congress. It frequently turns up in Top 100 lists as the greatest this or that too and having finally watched it, it’s easy to see why.

For me, it’s simply a flawless gem from Hollywood’s past. Although, I think perhaps I should say, another flawless gem, because as I continue to write these reviews for The Daily Opinion, I continue to discover amazing movies from yesteryear. Some are well-known and respected while others are often overlooked but either way, my joy is in finding them.