Catch and Release

Film: The Old Man and the Sea
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

I should probably start off talking about The Old Man and the Sea by saying that I am not a fan of the writing of Ernest Hemingway in general. I’m happy to say that a number of his short stories are fantastic and worth reading, but I’ve never liked his novels. A large part of this for me is that Hemingway couldn’t write a woman character to save his life an anything longer than a couple of pages. That’s not an issue with this film, since virtually the entire film is Spencer Tracy sitting by himself in a boat. This film has other problems, though, which we’ll get to soon enough.

Know going into this that this will likely be a pretty short review. There’s not a lot here to write about in terms of plot or interaction between characters. Aside from the opening few scenes and the very end, this really is literally what I said above. Santiago (Spencer Tracy) is an old fisherman in Cuba whose best days are long gone. When the movie begins, Santiago has not caught a real sizable fish for nearly three months. The boy (Felipe Pazos) who worked as his apprentice has been sent to another boat by his parents. Now working for a “lucky” boat, the boy still looks after Santiago, buying him food and sardines to use as bait.

The Magnificent Yankee

Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Oh boy. February on TCM is great because every film they show has some connection to the Oscars and many of them are ones that I have trouble locating. With the case of The Magnificent Yankee, there may well be a reason that I have trouble finding someone willing to carry a copy. I won’t say that this is a bad movie, but I will say to my last breath that it’s dull as dishwater.

The Magnificent Yankee is the story of Oliver Wendell Holmes, and more specifically, it’s the story of Holmes when he was a Supreme Court justice. Holmes (Louis Calhern, who created this role on stage) arrives in Washington as a new justice with his wife, Fanny (Ann Harding). He is sworn in, and he makes an arrangement with Harvard to take on a single promising student every year to work as his clerk. Since the Holmeses are without children, this parade of young men becomes, more or less, their children. Holmes certainly takes a father’s pride in the men who operate as his yearly secretaries.

Use All the Cliches!

Film: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Format: VHS from personal collection on big ol’ television.

Let’s start with this: there’s not an ounce of historical accuracy in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Wyatt Earp showed up in Tombstone with essentially no legal authority except that given him by his brother, Virgil. He never had a torrid affair with a female gambler around this time, and he already had a common-law wife who was an opiate fiend. Whatever. We’re not judging this film based on its historical value, but on its value as a film, right?

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is about the famous gunfight, and this is the reason that Surges threw history out the window when it came to the story. The real story isn’t that interesting, really. The gunfight lasted about 30 seconds, and there’s some controversy as to whether or not the “bad guys” were trying to surrender to the Earps when they were shot. That would make for kind of a crappy mid-50s Western, though, so again, we’re not going to worry about accuracy here.

Much of the opening of the film concerns the nascent friendship between upright lawman Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) and the degraded, tubercular dentist Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas). Initially, they don’t think much of each other. But then Earp saves Holliday’s life and quite a bit later, Holliday saves Earp, so they at least gain a great deal of mutual respect for one another. It’s a bromance as only could happen in a macho Western.

As we might also expect in a typical Western, there’s some frontier-style romance. For Holliday, the woman he shacks up with and abuses is Kate (Jo van Fleet). She spends part of her time with Holliday and the rest with Johnny Ringo (John Ireland). Earp discovers a woman named Laura Denbow (Rhonda Fleming), a professional gambler. It’s evident in the first two minutes they’re on screen together that they’re going to end up sexing it up eventually, so when they do, it comes as no surprise.

There’s plenty that goes on with these two men getting a lot of people angry at them, although they seem to stand mostly on the side of good and law. And eventually, Earp decides to hang up his badge, marry Laura, and open up a store in California. But that’s when he gets an urgent telegram from his brother Virgil (John Hudson) in Tombstone. Trouble is brewing, and he’s a dead man without some considerable help. So Earp goes, despite the fact that Laura says she won’t live this way for him.

And so finally, after about an hour and a half of movie, we get the two sides lined up for the big confrontation. On the one side, we have the Earps—Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan (DeForest Kelly), and Holliday. Jimmy Earp (Martin Milner) is left out of this exclusive group because he gets capped earlier. On the other side is the Clantons—Ike (Lyle Bettger), Billy (Dennis Hopper at about age 6), Johnny Ringo, and a few others. And it takes us the whole film to get there.

Really, that’s the problem here. The film is a touch over two hours long, and the eponymous gunfight happens in the final 15 minutes of the film. The whole movie builds up to this, but almost none of it does much but set up the characters a bit and give them a reason over and over to go and shoot at each other. In short, it could have been handled faster and in ways that were even a touch more interesting to get us to that point. What we get instead is virtually every single western trope and many a movie trope besides to give us a false sense of wanting to continue to watch what happens. And I do mean every trope. Billy Clanton gets pulled aside by Wyatt and told not to follow in his brothers’ footsteps, but Billy rides with them, because they’re his brothers—essentially the same reason Wyatt arrived in Tombstone. There’s even a drunk tossed through a saloon door at one point, and there's a railing kill, when someone is shot and tumbles over a balcony.

Anyway, the gunfight itself is pretty good, even if it’s as predictable as the rest of the film.

What strikes me most odd here is the theme song, which pops up now and again to narrate on what has happened and what will happen. When Wyatt rides off to Tombstone, for instance, We get a verse or two about how he’s riding off to Tombstone and leaving behind the woman who loves him. See, I knew all of that already because I’d been watching the movie. I didn’t really need the Western equivalent of a Greek chorus.

You want the truth here? While it’s fun to see Dennis Hopper at this young age and DeForest Kelly wearing a tin star instead of a Star Fleet badge, there are far better and more engaging Westerns out there. Frankly, Tombstone is a better movie.

Why to watch Gunfight at O.K. Corral: Westerns don’t get any more western.
Why not to watch: Every trope you’ve ever heard of is here.

I've Had Worse

Film: Bad Day at Black Rock
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.


Bad Day at Black Rock is a difficult film to get a handle on in terms of classification. It has elements of film noir, for instance, in its sudden bursts of violence, hidden crimes, and a man who will stop at nothing to uncover the truth. It also has elements of the Western, as a stranger rides (a train) into town and takes on all comers in his battle for justice as well as a number of other Western tropes. And yet, set in the mid-1940s, it is also a modern film, shot in brilliant color. It stars Spencer Tracy—a major star from the classy studio at MGM—but the short running time, lurid title, and criminal elements mark it as a B-picture. But it’s also a message picture. Like I said, difficult to classify.

We start with a train rushing through the desert. The train stops at the flyspeck town of Black Rock. Calling it a flyspeck is being generous. There are maybe a dozen buildings here, a one-horse town where the horse is really just a miniature pony and rented from the next nearest community. This is the first time in four years (remember that) that the train has stopped here, and off steps John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy), a one-armed war veteran.

He is immediately regarded with suspicion by everyone in town. Initially, he is hassled by the obsequious stationmaster, then by a couple of cowboys named Coley (Ernest Borgnine) and Hector (Lee Marvin). At the local hotel, he’s told by Pete (John Ericson) that there are no rooms available despite the hotel being completely empty. Macreedy takes a room anyway, takes a bath, and is confronted by Hector again, who complains to all who will hear him that this stranger is too easy to push around—he just gives in.

We learn quickly that the town is run by a local bully named Reno Smith (Robert Ryan), who joins in on the hassling of Macreedy. Unwilling to give in, Macreedy rents the Jeep at the local gas station, run by Pete’s sister Liz (Anne Francis), who is evidently the only woman in town. Liz seems to have something going on with Smith, who is unhappy that she gave him the Jeep. The source of the tension is that Macreedy is looking for a Japanese American named Kamoko, who has a farm out in a place called Adobe Flat. He drives out, and discovers that the well is working, but the house has been burned to the ground. On the way back, he is run off the road by Coley, but he returns to town safely.

We learn a few important things here. First, we discover that Kamoko came to Black Rock a few months before Pearl Harbor, which was four years ago (as in, the last time the train stopped at Black Rock). He has disappeared since. We learn that the local sheriff (Dean Jagger) is a drunk and a pushover. The local doctor/vet/mortician (Walter Brennan) has some backbone and doesn’t knuckle under to Reno Smith, but he’s also apathetic and doesn’t care too much. Importantly, we discover that Macreedy lost the use of his left arm in Italy during the war, and that he was saved by Kamoko’s son, who died in the process. He’s in town to give the medal to the boy’s father.

What actually happened isn’t that hard to discover, and we as the audience have figured out the sad fate of Kamoko (aside from the actual details) long before this is revealed to us. It’s evident pretty quickly that the town has something to hide, and that almost everyone is in on it. Pete refuses to put through calls to the state police, and the stationmaster refuses to send a telegram for Macreedy, bringing it to Smith instead. We know instinctively that Smith and his gang of goons did something very bad to Kamoko because Kamoko committed the sin of being Japanese, and have ever since quashed any rumor or talk about that event. It’s also evident that something similar is planned for the friendless Macreedy, who is stranded in this town until the train arrives the next morning.

The story, then, is one of the first to seriously tackle some ideas of racism. Certainly there were others before this, but none brought it this far into the open. It doesn’t address the idea of the actual internment camps for Japanese Americans, but does pay a great deal of respect to the idea that many Japanese Americans fought bravely in World War II and deserve the thanks of the country. It deals openly with the bigotry of these small town thugs and bullies, for which it should be commended.

The film is helped greatly by some truly stellar performances. While Anne Francis gets third billing, she’s only in a couple of scenes. The rest of the cast is male, making this a very strange town—a movie town in which there are essentially no women and absolutely no families or children. So, while Anne Francis is fine, she doesn’t really carry the movie (and near the end, she runs so completely like a girl that it looks fake). Spencer Tracy is as good as he ever is, and really acts like a man who has gotten used to the idea of having only one functioning arm. As he often was, he is outspoken, firm, and a powerful onscreen presence. Robert Ryan is menacing and cool, a villain who chats amiably with his intended victim, giving him a disturbing and creepy vibe.

But the film really belongs to three other men: Walter Brennan, Ernest Borgnine, and Lee Marvin. Brennan is full of country wisdom and great lines, and plays the role of the town mortician to its fullest. He’s a truly memorable character, dispensing his ideas throughout and is the only person to stand beside Macreedy through most of the film. Borgnine, as an oafish bully who looks to push everyone around based on his size and muscle, is threatening and vicious. But it’s Lee Marvin who really works this film like he’s playing an instrument. He is a coiled spring of menace, laconic, mean, and deadly. Of anyone, his shadow looms the largest over this film—even more so than Robert Ryan’s main villain character.

If I have a complaint, it’s that the film is too short. The ending is great. It’s inventive, creative, and interesting. I could have stood another 20 minutes easily.

Why to watch Bad Day at Black Rock: An impeccable cast and a few surprises.
Why not to watch: Too difficult to classify.

The Name Says it All

Film: The Great Escape
Format: VHS from personal collection projected on screen.























I made the comment a couple of months ago that many of the great World War II films involved military prison. It still surprises me that Stalag 17 isn’t on this massive list, because it certainly should be. It came as no shock when I compiled my version of the huge number of films to watch that The Great Escape was there. Of all military prison movies, none are bigger or more ambitious.

A simple look at the cast list confirms this. It’s impossible to tell who stars in this movie because there are a metric ton of major stars in this film—Steve McQueen, David McCallum, Richard Attenborough, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, James Garner, Donald Pleasance, and on and on. These are actors who carry their own movies, and here they are all playing in the same swimming pool.

The Great Escape is based on a real story of Allied prisoners escaping en masse from a German POW camp. It starts with the first day of the camp, created to keep the worst escape offenders in one place, and ends with the return of a number of the prisoners to the camp. Between, it covers the creation of the three tunnels used to escape from the prison camp as well as the creation of the various plans designed to both get men to safety and confound the German Army with the prisoners released behind enemy lines.

What is fascinating to me about this movie is how little happens through so much of it. A huge part of the movie is about the process of creating the tunnels, finding the materials, dyeing and changing the prisoner uniforms to civilian outfits, and arranging to get as many men out of the prison at once as possible. The actual prison break itself takes up a good chunk of the film as well, and only the last portion of the film involves the prisoners out in Germany.

What makes this film work is not the actors, but the story itself. The author of the book the film was based on, Paul Brickhill, was one of the prisoners in the camp in World War II. He held out on having the film done until he could get someone to agree to stick to the actual story without Hollywooding the reality of the prison camp. It was absolutely the correct decision, because the story doesn’t need to have little coincidences and additional drama added to it.

Because the focus isn’t on the actors themselves, and they aren’t specifically needed to be brilliant to make the story work, they’re allowed to be freer with the roles. It’s almost as if the pressure was off the cast because the story they had to work with was so good. Because of this, they all work well together in every scene. There’s no pushing to take the focus of the audience from the other actors. Essentially, they work brilliantly as an ensemble. It doesn’t even matter that Charles Bronson is rocking a Polish accent or that James Coburn is attempting to sound Australian.

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter who is in the roles provided the roles are acted well. The Great Escape is a ripping yarn, exciting and in no need of anything other than the fascinating story it tells.

Why to watch The Great Escape: One of the great stories from World War II.
Why not to watch: Bad accents.