Hero Worship

Film: The Fallen Idol
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I’m almost certain that I’ve mentioned before that I consider myself a fan of author Graham Greene. Greene’s tight and intelligent screenplay is one of the things that makes The Third Man such an intense watch. A few years previous, the pair collaborated on The Fallen Idol a film that hits on a lot of the same themes and ideas that pervade the work of Greene in general. There is crime (kind of), misunderstanding, marital strife, infidelity, and high-ranking officials in ambassador-like positions. It’s got all the makings of a classic Greene tale, and with a director who knows how to do intrigue as well as anyone.

What makes The Fallen Idol particularly interesting is that a great deal of it comes from the perspective of an eight-year-old child, who happens to be the son of the ambassador in question. Young Phillippe (Bobby Henrey) is the son of the (evidently) French ambassador to England. Phillippe’s best friend is the butler, Baines (Ralph Richardson), who frequently spins wild tales to keep the boy entertained. The other relevant person in Phillippe’s life is Baines’s wife (Sonia Dresdel) who, if she were nicer, might qualify as shrewish. She seems to hate everything, most especially Phillippe and her husband.

I'm Your Mutineer

Film: Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
Format: DVDs (two of ‘em!) from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

It’s a rough go when a movie shows up on two DVDs, because it’s a guarantee that it’s going to be a long one. A few minutes into the film, I was convinced it was going to be even longer: I heard Marlon Brando’s effete and nasal British accent. Three hours of Brando aping an Etonian. On the other hand, at least Mutiny on the Bounty is a big, ballsy adventure film featuring wooden ships and iron men. I’m a sucker for those.

This is the same basic story as the film that won Best Picture in 1935. A crew of men sail away from England and head to Tahiti. Their mission is to take a cargo of breadfruit trees to Jamaica with the hope of establishing the crop there to feed the slaves. The two most prominent and important personalities on deck are 1st Lieutenant Fletcher Christian (Marlon Brando) and the ship’s captain, William Bligh (Trevor Howard).

Oliver!

Film: Oliver!
Format: DVD from NetFlix on various players

Much like Going My Way, which I watched a couple of months ago, I had seen Oliver! before this viewing. This was another film that played regularly on the local station on Sunday afternoons. It would be unfair to suggest that I remembered much of it, though. It’s seriously been more than three decades since I’d last seen it. I remembered a couple of the songs, but that was it. Oliver! is the last Oscar gasp of Old Hollywood, the final clinging bit of glory before everything changed the next year—it’s also the last family (read: G-rated) film to win Best Picture.

Now that I’ve said that, it is the damnedest film to place in its intent. I mean, this is a film about an orphan who is terribly abused and mistreated his entire life, and yet it’s filled with jaunty musical numbers. I won’t say that Oliver! glamorizes the plight of our poor wretch Oliver Twist (Mark Lester), but it certainly makes light of it. It’s bizarre to watch hungry waifs singing and dancing. It’s worth saying that I’m not a fan of Charles Dickens, who wrote the original story. I think it’s evident that Dickens was paid by the word, and the term “Dickensian coincidence” exists for a reason.

Non-Political Politics

Film: Odd Man Out
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.


The comedian Eddie Izzard does a great impression of James Mason. Usually, it’s Izzard talking as God with the voice of James Mason. This is, I think, appropriate. James Mason was a hell of an actor. He could play anything—good guys, bad guys, misunderstood geniuses, and conflicted heroes. He happens to be the bad guy in North by Northwest, which is my favorite movie ever. How could I not love James Mason?

Mason plays an Irish rebel named Johnny McQueen in Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out. It’s never mentioned exactly what organization McQueen works for, but it’s not difficult to make the assumption that the works for the Irish Republican Army. Regardless, McQueen broke out of prison and has reunited with his cell. For months he has planned a raid on a mill to generate the cash needed to keep his cell of the organization going.

It all goes according to plan until the gang makes its break after the heist. Johnny is temporarily dazzled by the light of the sun and is attacked by a guard. In the scuffle, two shots are fired; one hits Johnny in the left shoulder while the other kills the guard. Johnny is pulled into the getaway car, but falls out, and the rest of the gang bicker and end up abandoning him while Johnny runs off to hide.

What follows is series of interconnected vignettes. We see the members of the gang fight with each other, blaming each other for what happened to Johnny. Johnny staggers off, now badly wounded both from the gunshot and the fall from the car, and finds himself in an abandoned air raid shelter left over from the war. No one wants Johnny back safely more than Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan), since it is evident she loves him desperately—although it may not be clear to Johnny himself.

While the various gang members attempt to rescue Johnny and come to a variety of conclusions, Johnny begins to hallucinate, is spotted a few times, and attempts to stumble home. What ensues throughout is that Johnny becomes less a man and more of a problem for the people who encounter him. Everyone he meets quickly discovers who he is, and either wants to help him or bring him to justice for their own selfish reasons. The police are looking for him and offering a substantial reward. Many see the betrayal of Johnny and his friends both morally correct and financially beneficial. Others see his presence as a problem to be dealt with, seeking only to shove him off to somewhere else before they are caught with him.

Where Carol Reed went right here is in keeping politics as far away from this film as he could. There’s no morality here in terms of Johnny’s believes, the rightness or wrongness of the IRA, or the actions taken by Johnny McQueen. Reed doesn’t ask us to praise Johnny and his band of revolutionaries, nor does he expect us to condemn him or be morally outraged by him. Instead, the film concerns Johnny’s struggle to survive the night, wounded and hunted like an animal, and ultimately, an animal is what he becomes.

What’s worth seeing here, though, is that Johnny is not the only one who turns into an animal. The characters who interact with Johnny act the same way. They become interested in Johnny only for what they can get from him—money, fame, power. Johnny stops being a man and starts instead to be merely an object, a thing. Conversations happen around Johnny and at him rather than with him.

Mason’s portrayal of Johnny McQueen is played in mime, essentially, for a large part of the film as people talk around and about him. Much of the drama comes from his eyes. It’s a hell of a performance to convey as much as he does throughout the film without speaking. It allows both Mason the actor and Johnny McQueen the character to deliver a rousing speech toward the end of the film in a way that is believable, even inspiring.

For a film that is ostensibly a political drama, or at least promises political overtones at the beginning, it instead turns out to be a very human drama. A police inspector hunting for Johnny to bring him to justice sums up the essential mood of the film when he says, “In my profession there is neither good nor bad. There is innocence and guilt.” Reed’s film doesn’t ask us to judge whether or not the cause is just, but how the person of Johnny McQueen should be viewed. That he is guilty is certain—the value of his beliefs is not on trial. What is a bigger question is whether or not he should be viewed with sympathy or empathy.

That sympathy can only come, however, if we are capable of viewing the man’s actions as justified. Or can it? Mason’s portrayal of the wounded and dying man is geared to create exactly that sympathy, and it works. Agree with the cause or not (and really, as a non-Irish American, I’m pretty neutral) the character engenders a significant emotional response. That’s the genius of Odd Man Out.

You want to know what’s even better? You might be able to guess the ending correctly, but you won’t really know how it’s going to turn out until the last few minutes, and yet the ending fits with everything we’ve been shown.

Why to watch Odd Man Out: Plots and twists and turns and no one to trust. Oh, and James Mason.
Why not to watch: A tendency to speak in an Irish accent once the movie is done.

What's Under the Surface...

Films: The Third Man, The Manchurian Candidate
Format: DVDs from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.



















About a month ago, I commented that of the 1001+ movies I’m planning on watching through this particular marathon, there are ones that I’m dreading, ones that I don’t really care about, and ones that I’m really looking forward to. With The Third Man, how could I not look forward to it? Orson Welles! Joseph Cotten! Based on a story by one of my favorite authors, Graham Greene, and with a screenplay adapted by Greene himself! What’s not to love?

I am happy to report that this film does not disappoint. It is a near perfect film for a number of reasons. The script is tremendous, the plot is fantastic, the musical score is interesting and unique, and the cinematography is a lesson in how to film a movie. It is both beautiful and disturbing. I should warn you now that the really good stuff here about The Third Man is in the spoilers. Don’t ruin this movie for yourself. If you haven’t seen it, watch it first, then come back and read this.

The story concerns a writer of Western potboilers named Holly Martins (Cotten), who arrives in Vienna in the years just after World War II. Like many of the cities in the remnants of the Third Reich, it has been divided into quarters, one each for the Americans, the French, the British, and the Russians. A great deal of black marketeering, crime, and corruption plagues the city. Holly is there at the invitation of an old friend named Harry Lime. When he arrives at Lime’s apartment, he discovers that his friend is dead, run over by a wayward car in front of his building.

Holly attends the funeral and notices a few people. In particular, he notices a woman named Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli) and a police major named Calloway (Trevor Howard). He also soon makes the acquaintance of a man named Baron Kurtz (Ernst Deutsch) who was also a friend of Harry Lime’s. Things quickly become complicated when it becomes evident that there isn’t a consistent story about how Harry died. It’s unclear, for instance, how many men helped carry Harry’s body off the road. Some claim two, but others claim that there was a third man (hence the title).

The issue here is Harry Lime’s innocence or guilt in smuggling and black marketeering. Specifically, the police have determined that Harry was behind the sale of watered down penicillin to hospitals. Watered down like that, the penicillin not only doesn’t cure anything, it makes penicillin potentially ineffective when used later. A number of the victims of Harry’s alleged crime were children.

There’s more, of course. Anna was Lime’s lover, and she has her own problems. Her passport is a fake, created by Lime for her to give her Austrian citizenship. She is actually Czech, and the Russians want her back. And there’s a real concern that Holly Martins might not make it out of Vienna alive.

***HERE THERE BE SPOILERS***

The big shocker here is that Harry Lime (Orson Welles) faked his own death and is still alive. And it is a significant shock. For the first full hour or more of the film, this is a straight murder mystery as Holly attempts to find out who killed Harry Lime and why. When Lime himself shows up, it’s essentially the end of the second act of the film, and only forty minutes or so remain.

This entrance is one of the great film reveals in history. Holly Martins sees a man standing in the shadows outside of Anna’s apartment. He calls for the man to reveal himself, but the man refuses. Suddenly, a light clicks on in a nearby apartment. This light falls perfectly on Lime’s face, and Welles is perfect here, offering a subtle half smile that is both disarming and conspiratorial. It’s the smile of a man who knows he has the world on a string and he’s just clever enough to let one more person in on the secret.

***THUS ENDETH THE SPOILERS***

The soundtrack is worthy of a mention simply because it is so unusual. Not a full orchestra, or a band, the music in the film is provided by a zither, which provides a number of moods throughout the film. The soundtrack is wistful at times, exciting at others, and romantic at still others. It’s wonderfully effective, and past the initial shock of such an unusual instrument, it proves a wonderful backdrop to the film.

It’s the cinematography that really sells this film, though. A number of the shots are canted at strange angles. Just as the story itself is constantly throwing Holly off balance, the tilted shots constantly keep the audience off balance and unsettled as well. This dovetails nicely with the fact that a great deal of the dialogue in the film is in German, and is not translated in subtitles or in any other way. Essentially, we are kept as off balance and as in the dark as Holly Martins is. This is enhanced by the scenery of post-war Vienna, complete with rubble and bombed out cars.

***LOOK! MORE SPOILERS!***

This is never done better than during the scene on the Ferris wheel. As Martins and Lime talk back and forth, each playing his next card in their struggle against each other, the car they are in swings back and forth in constant motion, never spending more than the briefest moment on the level. Again, just as we are unsure of the outcome of this conversation, the cinematography itself doesn’t allow us to be sure, giving each man the upper hand at varying times.

While I’ve got the spoiler alert up, it’s worth mentioning that Welles gets the best lines, which is somehow fitting. Lime is a despicable man who justifies selling tainted medication to children by commenting to Holly that it should matter to no one if one of the dots on the ground below their Ferris wheel car should stop moving. This is Lime’s view of the world—those little specks down there are nothing to him, and Lime doesn’t need the extensive distance to reconcile this. People to him are always specks a long way off, even when they are standing next to him.

And yet, consider this: Not five years before this film takes place, Allied pilots dropped bombs on cities all over Europe, effectively creating the bombed-out Vienna of this film. They stopped plenty of those little dots from moving forever, many of them children. For this, many received medals. Lime does the same thing, and he’s a terrible person.

The other great comment comes at the end of that scene. Lime comments that everything will be fine for Holly, even if it really isn’t. Lime makes the additional comment that while 30 years of Borgia reign in Italy was bad for the population, this also stirred the Renaissance and helped create Da Vinci and Michelangelo. Switzerland had 500 years of peace and democracy gave the world the cuckoo clock. It’s a fascinating comment—bad things create greatness, and Lime’s rationale for his behavior, while possibly true, certainly doesn’t justify what a monster he is.

***NO MORE SPOILERS***

A magnificent piece of film. This is about as good as a film ever gets.




















The Manchurian Candidate is similar in many respects. Both of the films are about something they aren’t really about, at least on the surface. Like The Third Man, much of the actual story lies hidden and needs to be revealed. It has a similar complex and intricate plot filled with intrigue, double-crosses and the sort of dealings that only happen in the best spy novels and films and in the most vivid imaginations of the people who watch and read such things.

Just as importantly, it is proof that at one time, Frank Sinatra actually cared about the roles he took in films. As much as it may seem that his later career at least was little more than a chance for him to spend days goofing with the Rat Pack and nights doing the same in Vegas, there were times when he acted in good roles that were well-written, and he acted them with conviction.

The Manchurian Candidate is the story of Major Bennett Marco (Sinatra), recently home from the Korean War. He’s been having troubling dreams and more troubling lapses in his memory. He can vaguely remember being captured by the enemy, but these memories seem to be tied up with a garden party with a bunch of ladies. He can also remember the heroic actions of a man in his platoon named Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), whose father is a U.S. Senator (James Gregory). But everything seems slightly off for some reason. None of it is right.

While Marco attempts to figure out what is going on, a web of plots and plots within plots begin to tighten around him and the men from his former platoon. At the head of this is Iselin’s mother (Angela Lansbury). She is a loathsome woman, her husband is a loathsome man. Additionally, Raymond Shaw himself is not much of a prize. He admits it himself—he’s not a lovable person. Despite this, then men in his platoon drop into monotone and recite a stock phrase about what a great man he is when asked.

While it is certainly the plot that moves this film and the various reveals and intricacies make for a compelling watch, it is Angela Lansbury more than anyone, including Sinatra, who gives this film its intense and disturbing edge. It’s a performance that sometimes seems to be easily forgotten and overlooked, but she is perhaps one of the greatest screen villains in history. Everything she does is covered in a veneer of motherly love, all for the good of her son. At the same time, everything she does is so despicable and diabolical that it is impossible to find her anything but repugnant regardless of the motives she claims to have. It’s a startling thing for a generation of people who remember her best as the kooky, murder-solving Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote.

The Manchurian Candidate was remade a few years ago, and remade fairly competently, featuring such Hollywood luminaries as Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep. The “Manchurian” part of the name in the remake does feel like a cobble, though. In the original, it’s much more natural. The men in Marco’s platoon were captured by the Chinese. The film itself is a decent remake, but it’s not the same as the original, which is tauter, smarter, and better.

The one sticking point with this film is the presence of Eugenie (Janet Leigh), who seems willing to overthrow her entire life based on a chance meeting with Major Marco. She takes pity on him, and suddenly seems willing do whatever Marco needs her to do, including dumping her fiancé. It’s one of those instant love things that seem so prevalent in movies of this age that doesn’t work nearly as well for a more modern audience.

It is worth noting that while the plot of this film is complicated and convoluted, there isn’t a great deal that is kept from the viewer. It becomes evident within the first few minutes of the film precisely what is going on. Shaw, Marco, and the rest of the platoon were captured by the North Koreans and were brainwashed in a variety of ways. Precisely the point of the brainwashing, and the extent to which it goes are something that the film slowly reveals. But the audience knows that things are hinky immediately.

Any film that requires, nay forces you to pay this close of attention to it without you realizing how carefully you are watching is a film to study.

Why to watch The Third Man: A masterpiece in nearly every part.
Why not to watch: Your life is a void.

Why to watch The Manchurian Candidate: Angela Lansbury and one of the greatest black ops plots ever conceived in film or real life.
Why not to watch: Jessica Fletcher, what have you done?