Planned Obsolescence

Film: The Man in the White Suit
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library through interlibrary loan on rockin’ flatscreen.

When I was a kid, I knew who Alec Guinness was because of Star Wars. Now that I’m older, I can appreciate Guinness for who he really was. A lot of that is his roles in the classic Ealing comedies like The Man in the White Suit. Whenever I watch one of these films from the earlier part of Guinness’s career, I’m always a little surprised. It’s not that Guinness couldn’t do comedy. He could and he was great at it. What surprises me is that half a decade after a fun little goof like The Man in the White Suit, he pulled off one of the greatest acting performances in history in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Proof, if it was needed, that the man was a real talent.

The Man in the White Suit is a simple little film that touches lightly into the genre of science fiction. We get three roughly equal acts—a set-up, a slow realization of the implications of a discovery, and a conclusion. And, while the film isn’t laugh out loud funny, it escalates into a ridiculous situation very quickly.

Less Arsenic, More Old Lace

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

How come Alec Guinness doesn’t get the props he deserves? I mean, if you look at the actors of his heyday, he might well be remembered, but certainly not with the same sort of reverence as an actor like Olivier. However, Guinness was much more versatile. He was capable of more than most actors of his time, and in fact most actors of today. A case in point is a film like The Ladykillers, a black comedic little number that puts Guinness in the guise of a criminal mastermind, a vastly different role from his criminal neophyte of The Lavender Hill Mob and just a year or two before his triumph in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Guinness was a cinematic chameleon every bit as versatile as someone like Peter Sellers, but with less recognition that he had that skill.

In The Ladykillers, Guinness plays “Professor” Marcus, a criminal genius set on stealing a massive amount of money with his four associates, the constantly worried Major Courtney (Cecil Parker), the smooth Robinson (Peter Sellers), the nervous hitman type Louie (Herbert Lom) and the loutish muscle man One Round (Danny Green). The caper is a simple one. They manage to block off traffic both behind and in front of an armored car, disable the guards, and stash the four suitcases of loot into a massive steamer trunk. The trunk is then wheeled into the train station.

Sweet, Sweet Booze

Film: Whiskey Galore! (Tight Little Island)
Format: Internet video on laptop.

For about a decade, from 1947 to 1957, Ealing Studios became known for a particular brand of comedy. Four of them appear on The List, and I could argue for a fifth in The Man in the White Suit. There is a particular feel to Ealing comedies. They aren’t particularly laugh-out-loud affairs, but are instead an appealing combination of situation and attitude. Ealing comedies tend to be more sweet and entertaining than funny.

Such is the case with Whiskey Galore!, the earliest of the Ealing comedies to make The List. Released shortly after World War II, this is the tale of the small island of Toddy in the Hebrides about 100 miles west of Scotland. In 1943, the war hadn’t really affected this people until one sad day when the island ran out of whiskey. Nothing beyond a full scale invasion could affect the people more. So, when a ship loaded with 50,000 crates of everyone on the island’s favorite libation runs aground and begins to sink, there is a certain amount of excitement in the little community.

But, since this is a comedy, there’s a lot more to it than just a sinking ship filled with sweet, delicious booze. To complicate matters, we need a couple of cute love stories and someone to act as the foil for the entire town. Fortunately, we have that here. One love story concerns Sgt. Odd (Bruce Seton), on leave to court the young and sultry Peggy Macroon (Joan Greenwood), who likes him but isn’t pleased with the large gap in their ages. Peggy’s sister Catriona (Gabrielle Blunt) has recently become engaged to the timid local schoolteacher George Campbell (Gordon Jackson), who lives under the thumb of his domineering, religious, and ultimately sort of evil mother (Jean Cadell). The home guard commander of the island is Captain Paul Waggett (Basil Radford), who needs everything done his way and attempts to run the island like his own little fief. Naturally, it is he and Mrs. Campbell who will prove to be our foils throughout the film.

Since this is a comedy, there shouldn’t really be any surprise when the love stories work out the way we as the audience want them to. That’s less a spoiler than a statement of obvious fact. It’s the whiskey that we’re really concerned about, and the whiskey that truly takes center stage here. In fact, it’s the whiskey that becomes not just the central theme of the film, but the solution to all of the problems the Isle of Toddy. It rescues relationships, and in the case of the infirm Hector (James Anderson), saves lives.

Ah, once again I’m ahead of myself. Allow me to backtrack a bit. It must be the whiskey going to my head.

One of the most entertaining—and specifically Hebridean moments—of the film comes just after the ship runs aground off the island. The men of Toddy rush to their boats to unload crates of whiskey when the bells of the local clock start chiming midnight, meaning has changed to Sunday. On the Sabbath, no work can be performed, even the desperate work of clearing as many crates of sweet, life-giving elixir off the sinking ship, and so the men slowly walk home, gazing longingly at the dying ship. It sets up a day of tension. The men stand on the beach praying that the ship will remain upright. It also moves Waggett into action; he sets Sgt. Odd to guard the ship. However, Odd knows that he and Peggy can’t properly announce their engagement without a whiskey-fueled party. All of this means that he very calmly and cutely allows the men of Toddy to “overpower” him on their way to the ship moments after the clock chimes that it is Monday. The haul of whiskey proves to be a true tonic for the island. Even lifelong teetotaler George has a few glasses, and uses his newfound courage to stand up to his mother and demand his engagement to Catriona.

What this sets up is a lovely game of cat-and-mouse as the men of Toddy attempt to hide the whiskey they have taken off the ship from Waggett, who is determined to round up all of the ill-gotten liquor and punish the men for taking it off a sinking vessel. Fortunately for them, old Hector has been so roused by the addition of booze to his sickbed that he becomes aware that men searching for the alcohol are coming to the island. And so the hiding of hundreds of bottles begins all over the island, with bottles being poured into hot water bottles, dropped into kettles, covered with pastry crusts, and even hidden in the blankets of infants.

I didn’t ever laugh audibly while watching this film, but there was not a moment of this film that I thought my time was wasted watching it. It’s sweet and entertaining and entirely British. That it seems to promote alcoholism in one sense might potentially offend some people in the modern world, but probably not more than would have been offended by this film in 1949. It’s also a very smart comedy in that it sets up something early in the film that feels like a throwaway comedy moment that turns out to be something that turns the entire plot in the last ten minutes, and sets up something in here that almost wrecks everything.

Ealing comedies are absolutely joyous and fun, and if the comedy sixty years later doesn’t make the audience laugh uproariously, it still pleases and entertains. Don’t expect this film to educate you or teach you anything about life and the world, but do expect to walk away with a grin, even in spite of the strange moral of the tale tacked on at the end.

It seems that August is becoming a month of films that were previously difficult to find. Whiskey Galore! is a film that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to locate, and yet it’s now conveniently parceled into six individual files on YouTube, and the transfer is excellent.

Why to watch Whiskey Galore!: An appealing combination of humor and sweetness.
Why not to watch: Because your family is starting to be concerned with how much you’ve been hitting the bottle lately.

The Sweet Smell of Milkshakes and Oil

Films: Sweet Smell of Success, There Will Be Blood
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library (Sweet Smell of Success), DVD from Lemont Public Library (There Will Be Blood) on big ol’ television.


How much is a man’s soul worth? That’s undoubtedly a question that has no set answer. It depends very much on the soul, I would guess. It’s a question that is asked in both of these films, and both of them essentially have the same answer: The value of a man’s soul is far more than he is willing to take for it. The soul always goes for a discount price, or so these films would have us believe.

Sweet Smell of Success is about the give and take between two men who will do anything to get what they want. The first, J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), is a powerful man in the world of show business. He is the quintessential late 1950s gossip columnist, and his column gives him incredible power. Getting a positive mention in Hunsecker’s column is the equivalent of rave reviews from every critic in the land. He claims a readership of 60 million, and he can deliver the goods.

Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) is a press agent who finds himself perpetually in Hunsecker’s hip pocket. What J.J. needs, Sidney does, because of the power wielded by Hunsecker. If Sidney wants his clients to get a mention—and he does—he has to do the dirty work that J.J. gives him.

The current load of dirty laundry concerns Susan Hunsecker (Susan Harrison), J.J.’s kid sister. It seems that she has become enamored of Steve Dallas (Martin Milner), a local jazz musician with the Chico Hamilton Quintet (played by themselves, with the addition of the very clean-cut, vaguely out of place Milner). A guy who plays the six-string in local watering holes is never going to be good enough for J.J. Hunsecker’s sister, so Sidney’s job is to break the two up. Unfortunately for Sidney, Steve Dallas got all of the integrity that Sidney didn’t.

And Sidney is a louse, a pure unadulterated bastard of the first degree. To get the ball rolling on splitting up Susie and Steve, he bribes another columnist with a story about Steve Dallas being in with the Commies, and having a significant marijuana habit, both untrue. To get this done, Sidney fixes up the columnist in question with his girlfriend Rita (Barbara Nichols) for a little nighttime fun. She objects, but goes along with it anyway, in a scene that almost contains the sound of the poor girl’s soul dying.

Eventually, Susie and Steve go their separate ways, but J.J. isn’t satisfied. It’s not enough that Steve Dallas has been pushed away. For Hunsecker, the only thing that remains is to destroy Steve Dallas completely, another task that he gives Sidney. Sidney doesn’t want to do it, but has the carrot of Hunsecker’s column dangled in front of him, and once again, the spectral cash register rings up another sale.

Throughout this film, the overwhelming emotion is not love or desire, but loathing. Hunsecker loathes everyone who isn’t himself or his sister. He badmouths Sidney even while Sidney is lighting the man’s cigarette. Sidney loathes everyone, including himself. Susan learns to treat the world with her own brand of contempt by the end. Everyone seems to be just on the edge of hitting someone else.

Burt Lancaster is truly awe inspiring as Hunsecker. This is a man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, no matter the cost. He is willing to bring as much power as he can to bear at any time to achieve his goals. With his severe glasses and more severe haircut, he presents himself as a man who cannot be taken lightly. Tony Curtis has never been oilier or more despicable.


There Will Be Blood stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a silver miner-turned oilman when his old mine plays out and starts gushing the black stuff one day. In the early days of the 20th century, Plainview wildcats around the southwest, looking for likely places to drill and hitting strikes to fund his continued operations. On his first well, a man is killed in a freak accident, and Plainview adopts his now-orphaned son, christening the boy H.W. (played as a pre-teen through most of the film by Dillon Freasier). While hardly in the ranks of Standard Oil and other major players, Plainview is successful and wealthy, and would like to keep things that way.

One day, he is met by a young man named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano, who also plays Eli Sunday). For a cash payment, Paul tells Plainview about the town of Little Boston, where the oil bubbles to the surface. Plainview and H.W. go and scout the area, buying up land from the people there, and building a derrick to bring the oil to the surface. However, Plainview specifically snubs Eli Sunday when it comes to blessing the well, and two important events occur. One man is killed, which sets things back a bit. More significant is that the well erupts, exploding and catching fire. The blast also permanently deafens H.W.

Around the time H.W. is sent away to learn from a teacher specialized in the hearing impaired, Henry Plainview (Kevin J. O’Connor) arrives. He claims to be Daniel’s half-brother, and is at the end of a string of bad luck. Daniel takes him in, and essentially confesses everything to him—he hates the bulk of humanity. However, Henry is willing to work for him, and take what he can get, and he essentially replaces H.W. in Daniel’s world.

Daniel Plainview, like J.J. Hunsecker and Sidney Falco, knows what he wants, and he’s willing to do anything to get it. Anything that deviates from his worldview becomes something that should be destroyed. It’s difficult to ask the price of Plainview’s soul, because as the film continues, it becomes more and more evident that he never really had one to begin with. All he ever really had was an oil derrick for a heart. Even when he is on top, he can’t help but grind those he dislikes into the ground—and he dislikes everyone, especially Eli Sunday. He and Hunsecker are two versions of the same person.

Of the two films, I prefer Sweet Smell of Success. I like the story better and I appreciate the characters more. This isn’t to detract from the latter film. The more I watch Daniel Day-Lewis, the more I think he may be the best actor working today. He is always memorable and always riveting. I’m also happy to see a quality role for Kevin J. O’Connor, who is far more talented than many of the roles he gets. He’s badly underrated, and I’d like to see him work more in good films like this one.

However, There Will Be Blood concerns the soul of a man who is far more successful than most of us will ever be. Of course he’s a bastard, and he’s easy to dislike. There’s a pleasure in seeing the characters in this film get what they deserve. In Sweet Smell of Success, there is a continual feeling, at least for me, that something better has to happen to some of these people. There are innocent victims like Susie and Steve who deserve better. In short, there was something more for me to cling to there. There was, if nothing else, hope.

Why to watch Sweet Smell of Success: Two of the greatest sons of bitches to ooze across the screen.
Why not to watch: Martin Milner as a jazz musician?

Why to watch There Will Be Blood: Daniel Day-Lewis is that good.
Why not to watch: The DVD is pretty punishing—2:38:00 of film, and only 8 scenes.