Iron Horse

Films: The Pride of the Yankees
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

Every so often, an actor or a director has a year for the ages. Consider Victor Fleming’s 1939 when he made both Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. Teresa Wright had that sort of 1942. Wright was nominated for Best Actress in The Pride of the Yankees, but lost to Greer Garson. As it happens, Wright was also in Mrs. Miniver and won and Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for that role. Like a said, she had a good year. The Pride of the Yankees is one of those all-American films, one that can probably be appreciated by many, but can really only be fully understood by people who have grown up in a culture where baseball has truly permeated society.

The Pride of the Yankees might be a warts-removed biography of Lou Gehrig, but that really doesn’t bother me at all. It’s an exercise in myth making and hero creation, and that’s really what it should be. This is a film about a genuine American sports hero, a man who truly crafted a legend for himself, and with the world suddenly at war, the American people needed heroes. They needed to be reminded of courage, honor, and greatness. The Pride of the Yankees might have removed a couple of warts, but do we really need this hero tarnished? The other thing is this—from all reports, Gehrig is the nice guy depicted here.

Saw: Extreme Sports Edition

Film: 127 Hours
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on laptop.

Writing about 127 Hours is going to be difficult for me for a couple of reasons. The first is that I have a real problem with films that involve physical confinement, and since our main character gets trapped 17 minutes in to a film that is just over 90 minutes long, there’s going to be a long part of this film that will make me uncomfortable. The second is that, while it’s impossible not to be impressed by the will to live and the ingenuity displayed by Aron Ralston (played by James Franco), there’s a part of me that thinks 127 Hours is a great advertisement for why it’s a bad idea to tempt fate in this specific way.

I talked with old podcasting partner Nick Jobe about this movie this morning, telling him that I intended to watch it today. He said that the truth of 127 Hours is that you go into the movie knowing what is going to happen and you spend the entire movie waiting for it to happen. When it does, it lasts a couple of minutes and then it’s over. That’s pretty accurate.

Schizophrenia Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

Film: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Format: Internet video on The Nook.

Yesterday I watched a movie about alcoholism. Today, it’s all about schizophrenia. I’ve watched plenty of movies about mental illness before. Shock Corridor, The Snake Pit, Heavenly Creatures, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest spring to mind as films with this as a central idea, and plenty of others certainly touch on it, and that’s really just the mainstream movies. Watch enough horror movies and you’ll see plenty of movies taking place inside institutions as well. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is the sort of film that seems to want to capitalize on the success of Cuckoo’s Nest. The difference is that this time, our main patient is suicidal, teetering on the edge of a face-first dive into schizophrenia, and is a 16-year-old girl named Deborah Blake (Kathleen Quinlan).

The film starts with Debbie’s being committed to what looks to be very much the standard movie version of an institution. We also get an early glimpse into the fantasy world Yr where Debbie spends a great deal of her waking life. Life in the institution is difficult. It’s loud and raucous and none of the patients are firmly attached to anything like reality. Debbie discovers that she is more or less unable to feel anything in the real world because all of her emotions are tied up in the savage world of Yr. Another suicide attempt and scenes of her burning her arm with a cigarette highlight the fact that Debbie is physically, mentally, and emotionally detached from the world the rest of us live in.

Alcoholics Unanimous

Film: Days of Wine and Roses
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I’m not a drinker. Oh, I’ll have the occasional drink, but rarely more than one and almost never more than two in a given month. Alcoholism doesn’t run in my family—it sprints and sometimes does the high hurdles. It’s just better if I avoid it in general. That being said, I find movies about addiction fascinating, which makes Days of Wine and Roses a film of particular interest for me. It benefits from a good main cast and from a realistic depiction of alcoholism. This is not a happy film, but it is a very good one that probably should have been nominated for more Oscars than it ultimately was.

Joe Clay (Jack Lemmon) works as a public relations man. A lot of his job appears to be finding attractive young women to hang out with his clients. Because of this, and as a part of his job herding these young women around, Joe drinks a great deal. One night, he meets Kirsten Arnesen (Lee Remick), the secretary for one of Joe’s clients. Joe is immediately attracted to Kirsten, but she doesn’t seem to be that interested in him. He does manage to get her out to dinner, and even though she doesn’t drink, they hit it off. Joe even manages to find a drink that she likes—brandy Alexanders—because of their chocolate content.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1972

The Contenders:

Marlon Brando: The Godfather (winner)
Peter O’Toole: The Ruling Class
Michael Caine: Sleuth
Laurence Olivier: Sleuth
Paul Winfield: Sounder

Hiding Out

Film: The Diary of Anne Frank
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I knew this was going to be rough. The Diary of Anne Frank is a three-hour movie, and I know where we’re getting to at the end. Essentially, this is an exercise in watching a story play out where you’re just waiting for the shoe to drop. You know it’s going to happen, and it’s probably not going to happen until the end, which means all of the close calls and nervous moments are filled with an odd tension, even the ones that are in the middle of the movie and therefore too early in the narrative to be that dangerous.

You probably already know the story, and if you don’t, shame on you. Briefly, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the Frank family moves into the attic apartment over a business in Amsterdam. They stay there for two years with the Van Daan family and are eventually joined by a dentist named Albert Dussell (Ed Wynn). The eight people, all essentially fugitives from the German invaders because they are Jewish, are forced to be silent during the day so that they don’t tip off the people working below to their presence. Their only contact with the outside world is a radio and through the meetings with the factory head Kraler (Douglas Spencer) and his assistant Miep Gies (Dodie Heath).

Immigrant Song

Film: A Ship Comes In
Format: Internet video on The Nook.

I hate bringing up Letterboxd all of the time here, but it often serves as an important touchstone for some of the more obscure films that I watch. In the case of A Ship Comes In, we’re looking at one with a dozen and a half scores, none of them higher than 3.5 stars and the vast majority below 3. Fortunately, the surviving print of the film is a mere 70 minutes long, so if there’s going to be pain, at least it will be short. A Ship Comes In suffers from a lot of problems. Most of these are a function of the time it was made. It’s overly melodramatic like most silent dramas and the plot points are incredibly obvious. Just as seriously, this is a film in desperate need of being restored. The print that exists, at least on YouTube, is faded and washed out and most of the title cards are a strain to read.

A Ship Comes In is an immigrant story. The Pleznik family—father Peter (Rudolph Schildkraut), his unnamed wife (a nominated Louise Dresser), son Eric (Milton Holmes), and young daughter Marthe (Linda Landi) arrive from…somewhere…via boat into New York. They clear immigration and settle in the city. Peter finds a job as a janitor and takes pride in his work as much as he can. Peter also has philosophical disagreements with Sokol (Fritz Feld), another immigrant who is also an anarchist or possibly a communist. At the very least, he’s a violent dissident.