God Bothering

Film: One Foot in Heaven
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Let’s get this out of the way right away; if you’re a fan of films that shoehorn religious nonsense into the story to make everyone ennobled and pious, you aren’t going to want to read further. One Foot in Heaven managed to wrangle a Best Picture nomination in 1941, meaning it competed against The Maltese Falcon and Citizen Kane. The only way it should be mentioned in the same sentence as those films is in the following sentence: “One Foot in Heaven is the sort of movie that should never be compared with The Maltese Falcon or Citizen Kane.”

Let’s get the basics of it down so I can get to being pissed off that this is a film that made its way onto my list. In the very early days of the 20th century, William Spence (Fredric March) is a medical student, and a promising one. Just as the announcement of his engagement to Hope Morris (Martha Scott) is announced in a Toronto newspaper, William bursts in and reveals a massive change in his plans. He’s received “the call” and is giving up medical school to be a Methodist minister. Things move quickly in the world of Jesus, evidently, because he’s already got an assignment to head to Iowa. Hope quotes the Book of Ruth at him, and the two are married and head off to America to live among the heathen.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1987

The Contenders:
Au Revoir, Les Enfants
Broadcast News
Hope and Glory
Moonstruck (winner)
Radio Days

A Time to Mourn

Film: In the Bedroom
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

In one of the early scenes of In the Bedroom, Frank Fowler (Nick Stahl) and his father Matt (Tom Wilkinson) are out on a lobster boat off the coast of Maine with the son of Frank’s girlfriend. One of the lobsters they pull up on deck is missing a claw, and Matt explains to the boy that it lost it fighting over a female. One of the reasons that the traps need to be pulled up frequently is that if there are two males and a female in a trap, the males will fight, and one will likely lose a claw in the struggle. If you think that’s going to be a metaphor for the film that is to come, you’d be right.

Of course, that is exactly where we’re going. Frank’s girlfriend Natalie (Marisa Tomei) is older than he is by a few years, has two kids, and most important for the plot, has a violent, abusive, and extremely jealous ex-husband named Richard (William Mapother). For Frank, the relationship with Natalie starts as sort of a summer thing while he’s back home and preparing to go back to college. However, it slowly becomes more serious as things progress to the point where Frank considers delaying his return to college or even giving it up to be a lobster fisherman full time.

Swann Song

Film: My Favorite Year
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

A couple of years ago, Nick Jobe asked me to give him a list of films he’d never seen that I thought he should see. One of the films I picked was My Favorite Year. I picked this for a couple of reasons. First, while it’s not Peter O’Toole’s best film, it is my favorite of his performances. Second, I think it’s funny as hell. Third, it’s a movie that I think is sadly forgotten. Nick didn’t like it as much as I do, and didn’t like it as much as I hoped he would. Naturally, I think he’s wrong, but that’s okay; this is my site, not his.

The plot is simple enough. Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker) is a junior writer on a comedy variety show in 1954. One week, the special guest star is Alan Swann (Peter O’Toole), essentially an Errol Flynn clone. Swann made his living in swashbuckling action films and has since fallen on hard times due to his constant womanizing and drinking. In fact, he misses his initial meeting with the show because of a one-night stand and finally shows up so drunk he’s barely able to stand. The star of the show, Stan “King” Kaiser (Joseph Bologna), wants to dump the has-been star, but Benjy vouches for him. Because of this, Swann becomes Benjy’s problem literally. It’s up to Benjy to make sure that Alan Swann shows up for every rehearsal on time and sober, something that is going to prove to be a significant problem.

The Lost Weekend 2: Electric Booze-a-loo

Film: Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman
Format: Internet video on laptop.

There are members of my family who are more than a little bit drinky. This more than anything else is the reason that I don’t drink much myself. I’m a drink or two per month guy. Part of this is because I genuinely like booze, so I realize that letting myself drink too much would be something easy to do. That being the case, movies about alcoholism are always interesting to me. It’s one of the reasons I like The Lost Weekend as much as I do. So when Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman showed up online, I figured it would be an interesting way to spend the night.

We begin with Angelica Evans (Susan Hayward), an up-and-coming lounge singer. Angelica is slowly building her career, but takes a minor left turn when she gets married to Ken Conway (Lee Bowman), a singer in his own right, but one who can’t get a job to save his life. He and his friend Steve Nelson (Eddie Albert) write songs and pitch them when they can, but in the early going, it’s Angelica who is supporting the family. Eventually, Ken gets a job singing cowboy ballads on the radio. One day, he belts out a song he wrote for Angelica. As it happens, he sings this on the day she is giving birth to their child.

I Know Why the Caged Bird SIngs

Film: Birdman of Alcatraz
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

When I did the 1001 Movies list, I made a concerted effort to knock out a bunch of the really long movies every month. I didn’t want to be stuck at the end of the process with a collection of epics. I’d forgotten what it was like to have a bunch of really long movies still ahead of me. Birdman of Alcatraz clocks in at close to 150 minutes, and it was barely in the top 50 in terms of length. Longer movies are difficult for the bare fact that I don’t always have 2 ½ hours in a row to watch something. That said, watching Birdman of Alcatraz is a step in the right direction; I need to get back to knocking out the long films.

Anyway, Birdman of Alcatraz is about the life of Robert Stroud (Burt Lancaster), a man serving a life sentence in solitary confinement who became an expert on birds. Stroud, by all accounts, was an extremely smart man, but also a psychopath. The portrayal of him here is initially quite brutal, but an understandable brutality. When he is denied a visit from his mother, he goes on a small rampage and kills a prison guard. At his trial, he is sentenced to death. Through the intervention of his mother (Thelma Ritter), his life is saved. However, since the sentence at his trial read that he was to be held in solitary until his death, Stroud goes into long term solitary confinement.

Moved by the Spirit

Film: Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

There are certain stories that we appear programmed to respond to. While Here Comes Mr. Jordan is the earliest incarnation of this particular story that I’ve seen, it’s also the second time I’ve seen this story exactly and the third that I’ve seen that runs along these lines. What I’m about to say will be confusing. The remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan is the 1970s Heaven Can Wait. The original Heaven Can Wait has some similarities in plot, but it’s not a related film.

Here’s the elevator pitch: A boxer named Joe Pendleton (Robert Montgomery) is prepping for a title fight. He flies himself to New York, but a structural defect on the plane causes a crash. His guardian angel equivalent (Edward Everett Horton) pulls him out of the plane before the crash, hoping to spare him the pain and suffering of his death. Unfortunately, Joe wasn’t meant to die in the crash; in fact, he’s got another 50 years coming to him. By the time he’s taken back to earth, his body has been cremated, leaving him (and his handlers) in a quandary.