Waiting Game

Film: Wing and a Prayer
Format: Internet video on laptop.

Watch enough propaganda films and eventually you start to discern interesting shades of difference between them. There are the out-and-out jingoistic propaganda films. There are those who try to assert their message more subtly, and there are those that attempt as much as possible to depict war as the brutal necessity is sometimes is. Wing and a Prayer (also called The Story of Carrier X) is that sort of film. The movie used real war footage—not a rarity—but uses it effectively. In a lot of ways, Wing and a Prayer is pretty standard fare for a war film made during wartime, but it attempts to be more and sometimes succeeds.

The film begins a few months after Pearl Harbor with the premise that the American people are desperate to figure out why the American Navy has not retaliated against the Japanese. The truth is that the attack weakened the Americans and the desire is to prevent the Japanese from learning the extent of the damage. To this end, a plan is developed. A single carrier, the one that we’ll be spending time on for the length of the film, will be sailed around the Pacific to make it appear that the American fleet is dispersed throughout the ocean. The goal of the plan is to get the Japanese to commit their forces to Midway, allowing the Americans to strike at a large part fo the Japanese fleet with the element of surprise.

Please Fasten Seat Belts

Film: Airport
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

Genres and sub-genres start somewhere. In the 1970s (and yes, I know this from having lived through them), it seemed like every year came with a disaster picture, many of which were produced by Irwin Allen. As it happens, though, the original disaster pic, Airport, was not an Irwin Allen movie. This is the film that started the sub-genre that gave us films like Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, and The Poseidon Adventure. That’s either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your point of view.

Basically, this is a film that has the central conceit of giving us a typical day in the life of a major Midwestern airport. In this case, that means a blizzard, closed runways, and angry board of directors, protestors, an elderly stowaway, and a guy with a bomb in a briefcase. We also get a couple of failing marriages, a couple of affairs, and a grizzled maintenance man. In addition to serving as more than the daily suggested allowance of melodrama, Airport also serves as enough of a love letter to the 707 airplane that I suspect Boeing may have had a hand in the financing.

How the West Was Won

Film: How the West Was Won
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

This is not going to be easy. How the West Was Won is a film that not only spans a massive amount of time, a good 40-50 years, and has one of those casts that starts on a Tuesday and ends on Friday. Lots of folks are given top billing for a few minutes work here but nonetheless, there are so many stars and future stars involved in the cast of this that it would take a full paragraph or two to name them all. Just as interestingly, many of them are not immediately recognizable, but can be identified by their voices. Henry Fonda in particular doesn’t look anything like himself, but there’s no mistaking that voice. Ditto for John Wayne, who makes a several minute appearance as William Tecumseh Sherman. Spencer Tracy narrates the film, and his voice is just as immediately recognizable.

We begin with the Westward quest of the Prescott family, heading to the wild country of Ohio. Led by patriarch Zebulon (Karl Malden) have little but their own gumption for the trip, and they encounter a series of problems. One of those problems turns out instead to be a friend named Linus Rawlings (James Stewart). There is a mutual attraction between Linus and Eve Prescott (Carroll Baker), but Linus is a mountain man. When he saves the family from being bushwhacked, that attraction grows. It’s not until a serious accident kills off Zeb and his wife that Eve makes a choice to stay on that spot, and Linus agrees to stay with her.

True Grit (1969)

Film: True Grit
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

I had hoped to put up a review of Driving Miss Daisy today, since it’s the only Best Picture winner I haven’t reviewed. Alas, the vagaries of NetFlix delivery and the USPS have prevented me from getting a copy until later this week. Ah, well. But there’s still time for a last review before the year turns.

When you talk about John Wayne films, eventually someone will get around to True Grit. It certainly ranks in the pantheon of Wayne’s performances, but for my money, it’s not anywhere close to his best film. The Searchers is one of the two or three greatest Westerns ever made, and it would be hard to discount Stagecoach and The Shootist. And yet, True Grit is the film for which Wayne won an Oscar.

Jung at Heart

Film: Peter Ibbetson
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

The opening of Peter Ibbetson promises us that this will probably be a glurge-fest. We are introduced to two children in 19th century Paris quarreling over what to do with some boards. Gogo (Dickie Moore) wants to build a wagon; Mimsey (Virginia Weidler) wants to build a baby carriage. We see their argument not with each other, but as they explain their positions to their respective mothers. It’s evident that Gogo’s mom is in poor health since she’s sitting in a wheelchair. The kids argue more, Mimsey’s doll is broken, and then Gogo’s mother dies. Mimsey reacts to this by giving her baby carriage and all the boards to Gogo. Cue the orchestra. Ah, the pathos!

Shortly thereafter, Gogo’s uncle from London shows up to take charge of the boy. Gogo and Mimsey attempt to run away, but it’s all for naught. The uncle (Douglass Dumbrille) immediately changes the boy’s name to the less clown-chic Peter Ibbetson, and thus we have our title. Peter grows up into an architect and also turns in to Gary Cooper. Soon enough, he is working on a restoration project for the Duke of Towers (John Halliday). Once there, he becomes smitten with the Duchess, Mary (Ann Harding), and she with him. And, of course, it turns out that Mary is the grown up version of Mimsey and the two have carried a torch for each other all these years. Cue the orchestra. Ah, the pathos!

Watching Oscar: The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

Film: The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on big ol’ television.

I sometimes wonder about the lives that may have been negatively affected by the Hollywood-ization of stories. Take for instance The Lives of a Bengal Lancer. This is very much in the old school tradition of the action film, featuring a trio of soldiers who take on ridiculous odds and rout the enemy with a single punch. A man doesn’t show emotion in this world, and certainly doesn’t break under pressure. I wonder how many men expected to act this way under pressure and didn’t, and thus had that added layer of guilt thrown on top of them. Of course, there’s also the possibility that several managed to hold out under duress trying to live up to this ridiculous ideal.

As the title implies, we’re deep in the heart of the British Raj for this one. The British are fighting against an insurgent named Mohammed Khan (Douglass Dumbrille, in a case of old school whitewashing), and are trying to get him to make a fatal mistake and thus capture him. The mastermind of this plan is Colonel Tom Stone (Guy Standing), the CO of the 41st Bengal Lancers. A brief skirmish backfires, and Lieutenant Alan McGregor (Gary Cooper) leads an attack against both Khan and his orders, for which he is reprimanded. It also teaches us that McGregor is a man of action.