1940's: Decade in Review

So, two whole decades (and two years in the 1920's) of Best Pictures are reviewed and in the bag. Confession time--I'm way, way ahead in terms of watching the Best Pictures. I just re-watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (good movie) last night, and will start the review of All About Eve (fucking great movie) today, which puts my viewing schedule a full 25 films ahead of what I am reviewing.

I look forward to writing about the 1950's Best Picture collection. There decade is basically divided into some of the finest films to ever be awarded the Best Picture Oscar, and easily at least three of the absolute worst. The common factor between most of these films: the advent of television, and how it affected the viewing habits of filmgoers.

As for the 1940's--it was a decade of very good Best Picture winners, one of which is in my opinion, the absolute best film to be awarded the Oscar. Overall, the ten films are much more mature than the batch of films from the 1930's, which is no surprise, given that half of the decade was spent under the shadow of WWII. No less than four of the films in the decade deal with the war at least peripherally. The 1940's Oscar winning films also displayed a strong sense of social consciousness, as filmmakers used the power of their medium to confront social issues their audiences faced daily.

That said, here's how I'm ranking the 1940's Oscar winners:

1. Casablanca (1943): Bogart, Bergman, one of the finest supporting casts ever assembled, one of the greatest and most quotable scripts ever written, and a love story for the ages. "As Time Goes By", Casablanca only gets better.

2. The Lost Weekend (1945): Billy Wilder and his star, Ray Milland, present a terrifying, effective, and altogether unflinching portrait of a man stricken with alcoholism. one of the best social issues pictures ever made, and only one of two films to win both the Best Picture Oscar and the Palme D'Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

3. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946): Director William Wyler and cinematographer Gregg Toland nurture compassionate performances in this melodrama about three servicemen returning home from WWII and accepting the changes in their lives.

4. Rebecca (1940): Alfred Hitchcock's masterly creepy thriller about an unnamed woman who must contend with the ghost of her husband's former wife. The film hints at what themes Hitchcock would develop in the next two decades.

5. Mrs. Miniver (1942): William Wyler's effective piece of propaganda encouraging America to help on the European front of WWII by showing the effects of the war on an upper-middle class British family. Greer Garson is magnificent in the title role.

6. How Green Was My Valley (1941): John Ford's film is unfairly maligned because it beat out Citizen Kane for Best Picture, although the films surprisingly share many themes. A nostalgia filled weepie about a Welsh mining family as told through the eyes of its youngest member.

7. Hamlet (1948): Director/star Laurence Olivier's adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy is the first non-American production to win best picture. The adaptation of Hamlet is uneven but proved to be very influential.

8. Gentleman's Agreement (1947): Elia Kazan's drama about anti-Semitism is a little more concerned with its message instead of character to be truly effective.

9. All the King's Men (1949): This drama about a corrupt Louisiana politician has lost its edge when compared with the political scandals seen in real life over the past forty years. A masterful supporting role from Mercedes McCambridge is the standout performance.

10. Going My Way (1944): Total fluff from director Leo McCarey and star Bing Crosby. Imagine if the Whoopi Goldberg film Sister Act won Best Picture. A funny and entertaining film, to be sure, but Oscar material? I don't think so. The same line of thinking should have applied here.

Actor of the Decade: Humphrey Bogart. His Rick Blaine is an iconic American role. Bogart also turned in the finest work of his career in the decade. Runner-up: Laurence Olivier.

Actress of the Decade: Greer Garson. Red-headed Garson brings a magnificent beauty and humanity to her role as Kay Miniver. She was also nominated for five consecutive Oscars in the decade, making her the Meryl Streep of her era. Runner-up: Ingrid Bergman

Director of the Decade: William Wyler. Can't argue with two Best Director Oscars in two Best Picture winners over a span of four years. Wyler, with Mrs. Miniver and The Best Years of Our Lives, made two very excellent films that bookended the central conflict of the 1940's, WWII. Runners-up: Billy Wilder, then Michael Curtiz

Studio of the Decade: Warner Brothers. There is relative parity amongst the studios of the Oscar winning films of the 1940's. MGM dominated the 1930's (and will dominate the 1950's), but nine different studios would produce Oscar winners. 20th Century Fox delivered two--How Green Was My Valley and Gentleman's Agreement--but those two pictures don't even come close to adding up to Casablanca, which is the greatest film to ever be entirely shot in a studio. WB for the win.


NEXT BLOG: All About Eve

All the King's Men: Mr. Stark Goes to Baton Rouge

In politics, truth is stranger than fiction; reality is crazier than the movies.

All the King’s Men, adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, is a film about politics. Politics and the movies have had an uneasy screen relationship. I think fictional political films (though Warren’s novel is a fictionalized version of the life of Louisiana Governor Huey Long) are difficult to do well because any scenario a screenwriter could dream up usually pales in comparison to the actual drama of politics. How can Hollywood compete with a President receiving blowies in the White House, an entire state conspiring to rig a Presidential election, a President so paranoid he has spies break into the hotel where his opposing party’s headquarters are located, or—the cherry on top—a gee-whiz, golly-shucks B-list actor actually winning the highest elected office in the land? (Or better yet, an Austrian-born muscleman-turned actor best known for playing a killer robot whose grasp on the English language is questionable at times becoming the governor of California.)

No way could Hollywood make that crazy shit up.

Also, casting a well-known political figure is difficult. Many people have pre-conceived notions of how a politician should be portrayed, and what actor should play them. Sometimes, the casting fits like a glove—Henry Fonda as Abraham Lincoln comes to mind. Other times, the choice is out of left field. Welsh-born Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon? (Actually, Hopkins is quite good as Tricky Dick, but he looks nothing like Nixon and the guy best known for playing a cannibalistic serial killer wouldn’t be my first choice to depict a Commander-In-Chief, but then again, someone who played a cannibal would make a perfect Nixon. Hopkins also played John Quincy Adams, proving that I know dick-all about casting. But, I digress—back to the topic at hand.) Disco-dancing, Italian and New York as hell John Travolta as a fictionalized Bill Clinton? (Yet Travolta was also good.)

Finally, any film about politics is almost assuredly going to piss off a certain percentage of its audience. Conservatives holler about a film being too lefty or not righty enough. Liberals complain about the opposite. Historians nitpick over inaccuracies. Maybe the film ends up over-glorifying or over-condemning its subject to be effective. Maybe a film is simply too agenda driven. And finally—if you’re Oliver Stone, perhaps—maybe you are deliberately trying to make a film so incendiary that the intent is to actually piss your audience off.

All of these factors make for a difficult recipe for a political film to be successfully cooked up. Despite the Oscar glory obtained by All the King’s Men, I didn’t really like the film very much. For me, the biggest hurdle All the King’s Men had to overcome was the passage of time. What played as revolutionary in late 1949 came off as recycled in 2010.

Louisiana politics are at the center of All the King’s Men. Broderick Crawford (in a Best Actor-winning performance), plays Willie Stark, a man running for local office on a platform of government reform (Louisiana is a state long filled with political corruption in all levels of government). Willie loses his first election, but catches the eye of Jack Burden (John Ireland), a reporter from a wealthy family. Jack is endeared to the candidate because he feels that Willie is a rare breed indeed—a politician that cannot be bought. Although Stark loses the election, he makes his first important political connection in Jack, and with his wife’s encouragement, Willie obtains a law degree.

Fate steps in, as a tragedy occurs at an elementary school when during a fire drill, the fire escape some students were using collapses due to shoddy masonry, killing several children in the process. Willie files a lawsuit against the builders, and exposes nepotism in the process. This endears Willie to the locals, who will now fully back him in a run for County Commissioner. However, his charismatic and populist campaign catches the eye of the corrupt officials in the state government, who befriend Willie under false pretenses and encourage him to run for Governor. Their strategy is that Willie will split the “hick vote” that wishes for reform, allowing the corrupt puppet to win the election. Willie’s entry guarantees that scenario will play out, but he is alerted to this strategy by Jack and politico Sadie Burke (Mercedes McCambridge, who won Best Supporting Actress in her debut role).

Jack and Sadie remake Willie—who delivered boring, fact-filled speeches about the government screwing over the common man. Once Willie learns that nobody likes listening to how badly they’ve been taken for fools (since of course, Willie also realizes that he is being played), he changes tactics, calling himself a “hick just like you” and giving thunderous, commanding oration, encouraging the “hicks” to “nail up” the corrupt politicians holding them down. Despite his changes, Willie loses the gubernatorial election, though he learns that rousing speeches and noble intentions aren’t enough to win. On Willie’s third go-around, he isn’t nearly as naïve, accepting money and gifts from anyone willing to guarantee votes, and in many ways, he becomes like the corrupt politicians he is trying to unseat. This time, his strategy pays off, and Willie Stark ascends to the office of Governor.

Willie rationalizes his corruption by arguing that by using cutthroat tactics and accepting graft to gain office, he can ultimately do more good after the campaign and he is firmly entrenched in office. For a while, Willie makes good on his promises of reform, building schools, playing fields, hospitals, and giving benefits to farmers. Yet each of his reforms are bull-rushed through the Louisiana legislature in a manner that more accurately reflects a benevolent dictatorship than a democracy. Ultimately, Willie loses his moral turpitude as well. He engages in extra-marital affairs, first with Sadie, then with Jack’s fiancé, Anne (Joanne Dru). Willie covers up a fatal drunk driving accident in which his son was behind the wheel. He tries to blackmail his Attorney General. More and more, Willie abuses his power until he is brought up on impeachment charges. Though Willie beats the rap, he is assassinated outside of the capitol.

In 1949, I’m sure that the notion of absolute power corrupting absolutely was shocking and eye-opening to a vast percentage of the audience of All the King’s Men. Filmgoers in 2010 are overloaded on political scandal. I watched the Supreme Court hand a tainted election over to George W. Bush. My parents lived through Watergate. We all know far too much about the kinky sex lives of our elected officials. We live in the era of Too Much Information. Hell, crooked politicians are used as punchlines to jokes. We’ve grown accustomed to lying, cheating, and weaselly politicians. The only thing that surprised me about Willie Stark is that it took him half the movie to become truly corrupt. I figured he’d be there by about the twenty minute mark of All the King’s Men.

Not only was the film’s message unsurprising, my viewing experience was made worse by the fact that I didn’t think All the King’s Men was particularly artfully made. A predictable story and message can be overcome by dynamic filmmaking, but this film is rather staid. What I hated the most was that it was blatantly obvious the film was filmed on studio backlots (and in Stockton, California). Not once did I feel like I was in Louisiana—a state rich in flavor and culture. The acting is on the whole, dull. Broderick Crawford won the Best Actor Oscar, but even some of his bigger moments come off flat, especially the “Nail ‘em up!” speech (look what Sean Penn does in the 2006 remake—while containing some very excellent acting it unfortunately is also not a very good film—to see how a really great actor brings the part to life) that is central to Willie Stark’s campaign. Crawford also gives off more of a used car salesman or blustery high school football coach vibe than that of a ruthless, canny politician.

Mercedes McCambridge, in her role as Sadie Burke, does capture those qualities. McCambridge’s performance is easily the highlight of All the King’s Men, and she maximizes every moment of her scant seventeen minutes of screen time. McCambridge makes Sadie’s motivations and actions clearly understood and felt—it is perfectly understood why she initially helps Willie, why the two have an affair (and how burned Sadie feels when Willie spurns her for another woman—hell hath no fury like a mistress scorned), and why she is the only one with enough stones to suggest to Willie that he needs to be held morally accountable for his actions.

McCambridge’s performance is a master class in supporting acting—it isn’t simply one killer scene or an equal part of an ensemble or a lead role billed as a supporting role to reap Oscar acclaim—her Sadie Burke exists to compare, contrast, and illuminate the character of Willie Stark while making Crawford a better actor in the process. McCambridge also never forgets that her while her character’s role is small, her Sadie is also a fully formed human being with wants, desires, jealousies, and heartbreak. If only the rest of the film were as awesome and impassioned as her performance in it.

I’ll conclude my discussion of All the King’s Men and political films by describing a political film I found to be truly radical. About a month after viewing the 1949 Oscar winner, I viewed for the first time a very famous political film released ten years earlier—Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Capra’s film and Robert Rossen’s film have very little in common save for their political themes, and both films have some serious flaws (in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Capra overindulges in sentiment, coincidence, and unbelievable situations—especially in the final third of the film). Yet Capra’s film uses optimism to its advantage. The protagonist, Jefferson Smith (played by James Stewart in one of his quintessential roles), has politics thrust upon him, as he is named Senator by his Governor after the previous Senator has passed away. Smith—devoid of any ruthless political ambition—simply wishes to not embarrass himself or his state. His naïveté and optimism become infectious as the film unfolds, and as the narrative builds to Smith’s epic filibuster against graft in the Senate, I found myself believing in the power of our Constitution and the principles of our government if they remained unpolluted.

Both Willie Stark and Jefferson Smith begin their films as political neophytes. Both have populist roots. Inarguably, both of the characters are dynamic. Each of these characters have also had decades of turbulent political history working against them. I was surprised to find myself identifying with the idealistic, naïve, and let’s face it—kind of hokey film where a single man can enter the lion’s den of American politics and come out with his integrity intact. Willie Stark is the more realistic and—when viewed through the lens of 1949—prescient portrait of an American politician (and let’s not forget, he was modeled on actual Louisiana Governor Huey Long), but after bearing witness to decades of American political scandal, the character is neither surprising nor incendiary. Jefferson Smith, the naïve optimist, is far more refreshing and revolutionary.

Perhaps a future filmmaker will realize that if he wishes to make a truly special political film, a vision of politics that appeals to the better nature of man will be far more eye-opening than one mired in scandal and immorality.


DETAILS

All the King’s Men (1949)

Director: Robert Rossen

Starring: Broderick Crawford, Mercedes McCambridge, John Ireland, Joanne Dru

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Total Oscars: 3 (Best Picture, Best Actor—Broderick Crawford, Best Supporting Actress—Mercedes McCambridge) out of 7 total nominations (Best Director—Robert Rossen, Best Supporting Actor—John Ireland, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing)


NEXT BLOG: 1940’s Oscar Review, then into the 1950’s with All About Eve

Hamlet: The Film's the Thing

English majors take perverse pleasure in writing about Hamlet, and I am no different than my melancholy Dane-loving brethren. This piece will mark the first time I’ve written about Hamlet on film, a combination of two of my loves. Laurence Olivier’s film adaptation of the play in 1948 won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor, and has played an influential role in how the play has been adapted to film since.

So, for the uninitiated, this is Hamlet in three paragraphs. William Shakespeare composed the play in 1600, and the play has remained popular for the last 410 years. The story follows the eponymous title character, a Danish prince and philosophy student in England, who his returning home to castle Elsinore after the death of his father, the King (also named Hamlet—people often forget there are two Hamlets in the play). Claudius, the King’s brother, is the successor to the throne and he has married Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother. The death of his father and the hasty remarriage of his mother to his uncle cause Hamlet considerable angst—which is mistaken as madness—and he finds that Elsinore has devolved into “an unweeded garden”. Even the Elsinore sentries have noticed changes (“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”), especially in seeing the ghost of the dead King haunting the castle. The Ghost King reveals that Claudius murdered him and usurped the throne. The Ghost gives Hamlet a mission: avenge his father’s death by murdering Claudius and thus restoring honor to the kingdom.

Key subplots emerge. One involves Hamlet’s girlfriend, Ophelia, with whom Hamlet has an on-again, off-again relationship. The relationship between her brother, Laertes and their father, Polonius (a champion and ill-fated hide-behind-the-curtains meddler and Claudius’ closest advisor) is shown as a contrast to the relationship Hamlet has with his parents. Another involves the investigation Hamlet makes into the Ghost’s claims, culminating in a play-within-a-play sequence where Hamlet “will catch the conscience of the King”. The major subplot involves Hamlet’s supposed madness, and audiences have debated—right along with the characters—if Hamlet is genuinely mad or if he is putting on an act or if he is both at the same time. Ophelia and Hamlet’s childhood friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are used by Claudius to test Hamlet’s reactions, and the debate between insanity and acting, life and death is summarized in the “To be or not to be” speech—the most famous monologue ever written. Lastly, Fortinbras, the prince of Norway and foil to Hamlet, idles just off Denmark’s shores, waiting to claim the kingdom for his own.

Everything comes to a head in the final act. Hamlet comes to terms with his fate, his mortality, and the mission the ghost of his father laid out for him—“Readiness is all.” Ophelia drowns, and after Hamlet disrupts her funeral (just before this is the “Alas, poor Yorick” scene, where Hamlet holds up the skull of the court jester from his childhood—the image of Hamlet holding up and debating with a skull is the most famous image of the character), a duel with poison-tipped foils is staged between Hamlet and Laertes, and at the duel, Claudius’ hidden secrets are revealed. However, as is the case with Shakespearean tragedy, everybody dies. Only Hamlet’s close friend Horatio survives as Fortinbras claims Elsinore for Norway.

The story has been adapted to film over fifty times since the turn of the twentieth century. The adaptations range from the traditional, to the epic (Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 film was entirely uncut—a rarity for a Shakespeare film adaptation—and ran over four hours), to the international (Gamlet, a 1964 Russian production that Branagh and fellow Shakespeare expert John Gielgud consider the best filmed Hamlet ever), the modern (the 2000 Hamlet with Ethan Hawke set is set in the boardroom of the “Denmark Corporation”) and to the bizarre (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas’ 1983 ode-to-all-things-Canadian comedy Strange Brew is set at Elsinore Brewery—got it, hoser?). The play has also been recontextualized as an existential comedy by Tom Stoppard. His play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, was also made into a 1990 film starring Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, and Richard Dreyfuss. (Stoppard also drastically shortened the play, staging The Fifteen Minute Hamlet, with an encore that further truncates the text.) The most popular—in terms of box-office grosses—filmic adaptation of Hamlet is the 1994 Disney animated musical The Lion King. The play has also inspired operas, music, songs, albums, fiction, poetry and episodes of television shows. Currently, FX Network’s motorcycle gang drama Sons of Anarchy is yet another outside-of-the-box Hamlet adaptation. So the most central question in a film adaptation of Shakespeare is how well his play is adapted to the medium of film. The film really is the thing.


Director/star Laurence Olivier’s version of the film has made very lasting impressions on how Hamlet has been interpreted on screen. His credentials for bringing Shakespeare to screen were firmly established four years earlier, delivering a very well regarded and Oscar-nominated Henry V. With the tone of that play being patriotic, Olivier was instructed by Winston Churchill to make Henry V a piece of morale boosting propaganda for British soldiers during WWII. Unsurprisingly, with Hamlet being a post-war picture, the film favors the psychological aspects of the play over the political aspects. In fact, Olivier is heavily indebted to film noir in bringing his adaptation to life.

Rich chiaroscuro imagery fills the screen, and the deep focus cinematography (another 1940’s stylistic hallmark) by Desmond Dickinson is crisp and crystalline. Black and white is the perfect film stock for Hamlet, with its light and dark contrasts creating a perfect visual metaphor for the themes of duality—good vs. evil, sanity vs. insanity, life vs. death—the story contains. The light and dark color scheme extends to the costumes of the actors, none more effective than Olivier’s as Hamlet. He is almost always wearing black, his hair is platinum blonde, and his makeup is chalky—making Olivier look one step closer to the grave. Olivier’s costume design for Hamlet has proven tremendously influential, and Branagh reprised the look for his Hamlet in 1996.



Olivier is also indebted to German expressionism and gothic horror—especially in his set design. Elsinore Castle is enormous in the film. Often, Hamlet is alone on screen and his solitary figure set against the labyrinthine hallways and spacious rooms of the castle suggests a man lost within his own mind. One could easily imagine a horror film like F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu being staged on this set. The gothic look of the castle is especially effective in the scenes where Hamlet is speaking with the Ghost. Olivier really used production design to his greatest advantage in presenting his visual adaptation of the play.

Olivier errs in his screenplay. All film versions of Hamlet (save, of course, for the unabridged Branagh version in 1996) or any Shakespeare play face difficult decisions about which parts of the play need to be excised when crafting the screenplay. Shakespeare-adapting screenwriters face an unenviable and difficult task when it comes to choose which lines to leave in and which lines will be eliminated. Hamlet, one of Shakespeare’s longest and richest plays, is arguably the most difficult to adapt successfully. Olivier’s version cuts almost half the dialogue. Yet his cardinal sin in the adaptation comes in the narrated prologue to the film, where after the “So oft it chances in particular men” speech from Act I, Scene IV, Olivier offers his thesis to Hamlet’s character. He reduces Hamlet’s tragic flaw thusly: “This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind.”

I feel that anyone can interpret Hamlet in any reasonable way they choose, and Olivier was an authority on Shakespeare, but reducing the play to simply being about “a man who could not make up his mind” is a gross oversimplification. In fact, Olivier’s interpretation borderlines on erroneous, as Hamlet does make up his mind—but the character is far more concerned with making the morally right decision instead of acting rashly. In fact, only when Hamlet acts rashly—such as his murder of Polonius, mistaken for Claudius eavesdropping behind Gertrude’s curtain—do his actions lead to tragedy. I always feel that by the end of the play, Hamlet becomes confident in his fate and secure about the actions he will take to resolve it, a far cry from a man racked with indecision.

Olivier also omits any mention of both the pair of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Fortinbras. Olivier makes this choice to focus on the psychological intensity of the lead role, but in doing so, loses key scenes that flesh out the character of Hamlet. Hamlet’s scenes with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the second act of the play give the audience the most insight into the personality of Hamlet before his father’s murder, and the scenes also contain some of the most humorous moments of the play (humor is non-existent in this film version of Hamlet, as Olivier chopped most of the gravedigger sequence too, leaving out the fantastic joke about who is the “master builder”—“a gravedigger—the houses he builds last ‘til doomsday”). Gone with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is Hamlet’s famous dismissal of them—the “What a piece of work is man” speech.

Without Fortinbras, Hamlet loses his most important foil. In the play, Fortinbras seeks to conquer the kingdom of Denmark to revenge his father. His firm decision making and swift action stands out in complete contrast to Hamlet’s brooding and inquisition. In many ways, Shakespeare shows audiences Fortinbras as the man that Hamlet should most emulate—one who honors a dead father by taking action to avenge him. If Olivier’s Hamlet is tragic because he is a man who can’t make up his mind, wouldn’t Olivier’s interpretation of the character be enriched by showing a foil to him? Wouldn’t Fortinbras, the man of action, further illuminate Hamlet’s crippling indecision? Though Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Fortinbras are small roles, they are crucial to understanding the character of Hamlet, and with their omission from the film, Olivier missed an opportunity to make his film stronger.

The worst parts of the film involve Gertrude. Eileen Herlie, the actress who portrays her, does a fine job, but Olivier is very much caught up in the Oedipal and Freudian interpretations of Hamlet that suggest the character’s inability to act stems from unfulfilled sexual desires toward his own mother. Herlie was 28 when she played Gertrude—in contrast to Olivier, who was 41, a full thirteen years her senior—and the age disparity in the ages of the actors shows that in casting a Hamlet much older than a Gertrude, a sexual conquest is possible. In the scenes where Hamlet confronts Gertrude, Olivier is dominant and physically imposing toward Herlie and one can easily imagine that if Olivier was a bit more perverse in his interpretation, Hamlet would rape Gertrude.

I don’t entirely discount Oedipal and Freudian interpretations of Hamlet—there is enough evidence in the text of the play to make a compelling case for that point of view. I always feel that Hamlet’s anger toward his mother is born not out of unrealized sexual desires or jealousy toward Claudius, and instead from an extreme distaste toward Gertrude’s behavior. Hamlet is angry at his mother because he feels that she does not at all honor her late husband’s memory and affection toward her—if she ever felt that way at all—by jumping immediately into a marriage with her husband’s brother. In fact, Hamlet harbors suspicions that Gertrude may even be a co-conspirator to the King’s death.

Still, a mother-fixated Hamlet has pervaded filmic adaptations since. In Italian Franco Zeffirelli’s (who helmed the definitive, very excellent traditional film version of Romeo & Juliet in 1968) 1990 version of Hamlet with Mel Gibson as the prince and Glenn Close as the queen, he basically goes where Olivier didn’t quite. The Hamlet/Gertrude scenes in that film are even more sexually suggestive, and when Gertrude dies, a sweat-drenched Hamlet falls on top of her, suggesting post-coital actions. Also notable is that Close was cast primarily on the strength of her man-eating role from Fatal Attraction (Gibson was chosen because of his work in Lethal Weapon as the madman, suicidal cop Martin Riggs), and that again there is an unbelievable age disparity between the actors playing Hamlet and Gertrude. This time, Close’s Gertrude is the older actor, though she is only 11 years older than Gibson, a disparity more believable in a sexual partnership than the age divide between a mother and son. No matter the disparity, rare is the modern Hamlet interpretation that doesn’t include a sexual element between Hamlet and his mother. Rarer still, is an actor cast who is closer to Hamlet’s actual age—around twenty (I always imagine Hamlet as a full-of-himself, pseudo-intellectual college sophomore).

Grievances aside, it is important to remember that whenever Shakespeare is presented on screen, it will always reflect the interpretations the filmmakers have of the text. No director, screenwriters, or actors will ever get things completely right. The fun in watching a film based on Shakespeare is in the debate over what details and interpretations the viewer agrees or disagrees with, and for all I dislike about Olivier’s Hamlet there is also much to admire.

The Ghost King is spectacularly rendered. The play within the play, as always, provides excellent meta-commentary on the audience that is currently experiencing Hamlet, and Olivier makes the scene work as a commentary on audiences watching a film. The duel at the climax of the film is rousing and excitingly staged (when watching the film, keen-eyed Star Wars fans will undoubtedly notice Peter Cushing, the indelible Grand Moff Tarkin in the 1977 original film, here in his first film role as Osric, the courtier who referees the Hamlet/Laertes duel and delivers the line, “A hit! A very palpable hit!”). Olivier’s delivery of the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy doesn’t disappoint.

Hamlet is very much an Oscar anomaly—no other direct interpretations of a Shakespeare play have matched its Best Picture win, and the film isn’t typical of the late 1940’s cinema more beloved by Oscar. In fact, as stated previously, Olivier’s Hamlet is far closer to film noir—a genre nearly completely ignored by the Academy—than at all like the socially conscious pictures that reaped the majority of Academy acclaim. The film’s Best Picture victory is significant in that it was the first entirely British production to claim Oscar’s top prize, and since then Great Britain has by far been the most dominant foreign country in terms of actors and filmmakers receiving awards and nominations (Olivier himself was honored fourteen times by the Academy: nine nominations as Best Actor and winning for his role as Hamlet, once as Best Supporting Actor, once as Best Director and one Best Producer award for Hamlet along with two Honorary awards).

Shakespeare would also continue to provide fodder for Best Picture winners. Film versions of Romeo & Juliet were nominated for Best Picture previous to Olivier’s Hamlet (George Cukor’s 1936 version) and after (Zeffirelli’s 1968 film), and twice has the play been reimagined and awarded Best Picture. West Side Story (for my money, this is bar none the greatest reimagining of any Shakespeare play in any medium) famously updated Romeo & Juliet set amongst New York street gangs in the 1950’s—first a Broadway musical then film. The film won 10 well-earned Oscars. Tom Stoppard contributed to the screenplay for Shakespeare in Love—which offered fictional speculation to the motivations behind Shakespeare composing his most famous romantic tragedy—and lifted many scenes verbatim. Shakespeare in Love took home 8 Oscars.

Olivier’s Hamlet took home four statues, and is proof positive that the medium of film has been very kind to the Bard indeed.


DETAILS

Hamlet (1948)

Director: Laurence Olivier

Starring: Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Eileen Herlie, Basil Sydney, Peter Cushing*

Studio: Two Cities (Universal handled the U.S. distribution of the film)

Total Oscars: 4 (Best Picture, Best Actor—Laurence Olivier, Best Costume Design—Black & White, Best Art Decoration/Set Decoration—Black & White) out of 7 total nominations (Best Director—Laurence Olivier, Best Supporting Actress—Jean Simmons, Best Score)
*The very famous and prolific Christopher Lee has an uncredited role as a spear carrying soldier


NEXT BLOG: All the King’s Men

Gentleman's Agreement: The Importance of Being Not Too Earnest

The award magnet films of the late 1940’s were all films concerned with issues of social justice, and confronted audiences about everyday evils. The Lost Weekend tackled alcoholism. The Best Years of Our Lives reminded audiences that returning WWII veterans needed compassion upon their return to the homefront. Gentleman’s Agreement paints a big, fat target on anti-Semitism. Any film that targets a social issue always runs the risk of forgetting about character in favor of the message. Like its Oscar-winning predecessors, Gentleman’s Agreement is an honorably intentioned, earnest picture. However, the film is not as successful at balancing its social message with crafting compelling characters through superior filmmaking.

The film was adapted from a best-selling novel of the same name by Laura Z. Hobson. 20th Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, acquired the rights to the novel and hired Elia Kazan to bring the adaptation to filmic life. The film was born of good intentions. Zanuck was denied entry into the exclusive Los Angeles Country Club because it was assumed—incorrectly—that he was Jewish, like nearly all of his contemporaries were. Shorty thereafter, Zanuck purchased the rights to Hobson’s novel, and he was immediately faced with pressure to not make the film. Samuel Goldwyn (who won the Oscar in the previous year for his own socially conscious picture, The Best Years of Our Lives), himself Jewish, told Zanuck that he would only “stir up trouble” if Gentleman’s Agreement was made.

Another argument cited as a reason to not make the film was risking offending the Hays Code—the rigid censorship guidelines that all Hollywood films were expected to adhere to. Joseph Breen, the head enforcer of the code, was known to make anti-Semitic remarks, and producers were particularly fearful of incurring his wrath. Spurred on by witnessing the hypocrisy in the filmmaking community, Zanuck felt even more compelled to bring Gentleman's Agreement to the screen. With respected stage director Kazan at the helm, Zanuck felt confident his picture and its message would resonate with American audiences.

The story of the film concerns a journalist named Philip Green (Gregory Peck) who is writing for a magazine called Smith’s Weekly (in the mold of publications such as The New Yorker). A recent widower, Green has moved to New York from California with his young son Tommy (Dean Stockwell) and his mother (Anne Revere) in tow. Phil struggles with finding a great subject to write about. His publisher, John Minify (Albert Dekker), suggests he write a piece about anti-Semitism, and while Phil feels the subject is worth reporting on, he cannot think of a fresh angle in which to approach it.

Sometime later, Tommy asks his father what prejudice is, and Phil is at a loss to give his son a satisfactory explanation. Inspired in part by wishing to explain prejudice to his son, and also in honor of his childhood friend Dave (John Garfield), a Jew serving in the Army, Phil accepts the assignment. His approach to the material is to go undercover as a Jew to truly sympathize with what he doesn’t understand (the notion of “putting on someone else’s shoes and walking around in them for a little bit” is a sentiment espoused by the character Peck would become most famous for playing fifteen years after Gentleman’s Agreement—Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird—and was a common denominator in the roles that defined Peck’s career).

Subsequently, Phil begins a romance with Kathy Lacy (Dorothy McGuire)—Minify’s niece, who initially suggested that her uncle publish an expose of anti-Semitism in Smith’s Weekly. Kathy comes from an affluent community in Connecticut, where there is a “gentleman’s agreement” in place where the local realtors have a policy of not selling or renting to Jews. Though the extent of Kathy’s upbringing is not revealed until later in the film, Kathy is confused when Phil tells her about his controversial angle to his story—she is worried that Phil may actually be Jewish and has been keeping it a secret from her. Phil has gone a bit Method in his undercover act, adopting the last name “Greenberg” for not only himself but his son. His co-workers are even in the dark about his true identity, and like Cathy, have their prejudices quickly exposed. However, Anne Dettrey (Celeste Holm), the fashion editor at the magazine, supports Phil.

Anne, in the film’s most subtly developed subplot, becomes Phil’s closest confidante. She is one of the few people Phil can turn to when he experiences racism—like when he is called “yid” at a restaurant or faces discriminatory rules in his own apartment building. Conversely, as Phil and Kathy develop their romance, her sly bigotry is revealed. One example of how Phil’s adopted identity reveals Kathy’s ignorance is in a scene where Tommy comes home from school, the victim of anti-Semitic slurs and beaten up. When Tommy cries that he was called “a dirty yid” and a “stinking kike”, Kathy tells him the words should mean nothing to Tommy because he isn’t really a Jew. This incenses Phil—who thinks that Kathy should be saying the slurs are wrong in and of themselves. He also feels that Kathy is instilling a sense of Christian superiority in Tommy by telling him this, and that “nice people” like Kathy are sustaining anti-Semitic attitudes when they espouse Christian superiority instead of railing against the hateful remarks. Kathy also makes apologies for the anti-Semitic behaviors of her sister and the other members of her hometown in Connecticut when Phil wants her to take a stand. A deep part of the film’s message is to show how when the so-called good guys remain apathetic to bigotry, it only ripens an environment where bigotry is tolerated.

In that regard, I love how Gentleman’s Agreement is direct about that message. It’s far easier to demonize Nazis, Klansmen, cross-burners, lynch-mobs and other token racists in film than to suggest that ordinary, decent white Christians are equally condemned if they don’t use their privilege to eradicate bigotry. On the other hand, the messages in the film play less like natural character developments and more like a sensitivity training video.

Other scenes go as follows:

• Phil’s secretary Ethel (June Havoc)—a Jew who can pass as Gentile because of her fair skin and blonde hair—discloses that she originally applied to the magazine under her real, more traditionally sounding Jewish name, Estelle Walofsky, but was told that there were no open positions. When she applied as “Ethel Wales”, she got the job. Phil brings this to the attention of Mr. Minify, who promptly changes the company hiring policy to being “religion is a matter of indifference.” When told of the change, “Ethel” crows that more “kikey” Jews could ruin things for her at the magazine.
• At the engagement party for Phil and Kathy planned by Kathy’s sister Jane, Kathy warns Phil not to discuss the topic of anti-Semitism. Jane tells Kathy that she screened the guest list to only include the “safe ones”—people who are less overtly anti-Semitic—to specifically avoid any uncomfortable conversations. When Phil is surprised by the progressive attitude of the guests, Kathy does not disclose that the guest list was screened.
• When Kathy is with Dave at a restaurant, she tries to defend herself against Phil’s accusations of bigotry. Kathy tells Dave that at a dinner party she attended, a man told an anti-Semitic joke that nobody in her party objected to, and that it made her feel ill to hear in. Dave asks her, “What did you do about it?” He reinforces the idea that Kathy can’t simply feel ill when someone tells a hurtful joke, she has to speak up and out against it.

These are all scenes straight out of Sensitivity Training 101. I feel the script is well-intentioned, but it cares more about hitting its talking points instead of letting the characters dictate the action. I especially think the end of the film—where Phil forgives Kathy and resumes their engagement—is especially discrediting. I buy that Dave’s talk with Kathy opened her eyes to her own bigotry, but I don’t buy that the crusading Phil falls in love with her again simply because she promises to change. Kathy is never shown standing up to her sister, or telling off someone using an anti-Semitic slur. No visual evidence is given that Kathy has changed. I don’t buy it, especially given that Anne has been supportive of Phil throughout his assignment, and she is someone who uses her privilege to right anti-Semitism (the fact that the stunning Celeste Holm is about ten times more beautiful than the plain Dorothy McGuire doesn’t help, either). Not only do the film’s talking points play like a laundry list, the changes in the characters’ attitudes are made simply to give the Phil/Kathy romance the typical Hollywood happy ending.

I don’t think the noble failure of Gentleman’s Agreement lies at the fault of Elia Kazan or his actors. I do think that 20th Century Fox wanted to make a film that would aggressively court controversy. Zanuck was well intentioned in wanting to make the picture, but he was so wrapped up in the message that he wanted to bring to audiences that the film ends up preaching to us, instead of letting the audience grow and change along with the characters. In many ways Gentleman’s Agreement is so earnest that its message is not as effective as it could be.

However, Gentleman’s Agreement was a huge hit for Fox and held both popular and critical acclaim. Message pictures were big business in 1947, and maybe audiences actively wanted a film to bash them over the head with a socially conscious message. Kazan would fare much better seven years later, when he made an indelible message film in On the Waterfront, a work that certainly puts character first—and is all the more effective for doing so—when putting its lesson across.

The film also had unintended political consequences. Gentleman's Agreement significantly raised the profiles of Kazan, Zanuck, John Garfield, and Anne Revere; each of whom were called to testify in the hearings on anti-Communism held by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee. Kazan and Zanuck made deals (Kazan infamously so, and many see On the Waterfront as his apology), but Garfield and Revere—both of whom refused to testify—landed on the Hollywood blacklist. Revere didn’t work as a film actress for twenty years, and Garfield died of a heart attack at age 39 shortly before his wife was called upon to testify a year later.

I don’t think Gentleman’s Agreement should have tempered its stance on anti-Semitism, especially in holding privileged WASP’s culpable for their complacency. I like how incendiary it is. Yet if the characters in the film were as memorable as the message (there’s a reason why Terry Malloy is a classic film character and Phil Green isn’t), Gentleman’s Agreement could have been a classic for all time instead of an obscure Oscar-winner.


DETAILS

Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

Director: Elia Kazan

Starring: Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, Celeste Holm, John Garfield, Anne Revere, Dean Stockwell, Albert Dekker, June Havoc

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Total Oscars: 3 (Best Picture, Best Director—Elia Kazan, Best Supporting Actress—Celeste Holm) out of 8 total nominations (Best Actor—Gregory Peck, Best Actress—Dorothy McGuire, Best Supporting Actress—Anne Revere, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing)


NEXT: Hamlet

The Best Years of Our Lives: Deep Focus

After achieving victory on both the European and Japanese fronts, it would seem natural that the Academy would give valediction to films that would glorify our country. As it turns out, Oscar had social consciousness on its mind. 1945’s Best Picture—The Lost Weekend—brought with it a raised awareness of social issues (in the case of that film, alcoholism) America was facing post-WWII. The Best Years of Our Lives continued that trend, and it is the first Oscar-winner to deal directly with the return of veterans from a war. In the last of my series comparing 1940’s Oscar winners to the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief, The Best Years of Our Lives is a film with acceptance as its core theme.

After winning his first Best Director Oscar for Mrs. Miniver, William Wyler, like many in Hollywood, served his country during WWII. As a major in the U.S. Army Air Forces, Wyler directed documentaries which served as morale-boosting pieces for the troops as well as illuminate the war to audiences at home. On his best known of the documentaries, Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress, his cinematographer was shot down and perished. Wyler was no stranger to combat or the experiences of the armed forces in WWII, and undoubtedly his own experiences as a veteran informed his direction of The Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler was still on active detail while making the picture).

The film is a nice bookend to Mrs. Miniver. Where that film sought to spur a latent nation into action by provoking their anger, The Best Years of Our Lives is a sensitive and thoughtful examination of the characters of three veterans who return home from the war. Where Mrs. Miniver unabashedly propagandized, The Best Years of Our Lives uses immense depth of focus on the lives of its characters to evoke emotional responses from audiences.

Wyler collaborates with celebrated cinematographer Gregg Toland (of Citizen Kane fame) to create a realistic portraiture. More than anything, The Best Years of Our Lives is about people. Action plays out on facial expressions and emotions. Toland’s lenses and his celebrated innovations with depth of field capture every detail of the actor’s performances; he is as important to the success of the film as the script and Wyler’s direction. The film has a crisp, austere look that is never too showy. The images are far too crystalline to be considered documentary-esque, but they lend themselves toward a realistic and natural style, allowing the audience to feel like a participant in the drama.

Three actors—Frederic March, Dana Andrews, and Harold Russell—lead an ensemble cast, and they are the poles between which the film fluctuates. March plays Army Sgt. Al Stephenson, a banker returning to a wife (Myrna Loy, best known as Nora Charles from The Thin Man films, in a marvelous change of pace role—the high mark of her career), and two children—daughter Peggy (Theresa Wright, reuniting with her Mrs. Miniver director) and son Rob (Michael Hall). Andrews is Army Air Forces Captain Fred Derry, a bombardier in the Eight Air Forces who flew in Europe. Fred was married right before he joined the service, and was a soda jerk before the war. Russell lends real-life authenticity playing Homer Parrish, a sailor who lost both of his hands in an explosion on an aircraft carrier. Homer was the football hero growing up, and is returning home to Boone City (the film’s fictional stand-in for Cincinnati, Ohio) a double-amputee. Russell’s real-life prostheses—two fully functional, grasping metal hooks—are incorporated into the character of Homer.

The first scenes of the film allow the three lead actors to share scenes together. One of the themes the film explores is how difficult for veterans to readjust to life at home. Even doing something as catching a plane is a huge obstacle. Al, Fred and Homer meet at an Army Air Corps terminal, where they eventually share a ride in a B-17 bomber home to Boone City. Thrust together on a long trek home, the men form an immediate bond of friendship, though through their conversations, it is revealed that each man is of a different rank and social class (not to mention that each man is about ten years apart from the other, with Al being the elder statesman and Homer the youngest). The script is wise to point out ironies in the status of each man. Fred, as a captain, not only holds the highest rank of the men but he is also the most decorated soldier. Yet at home he is of the low socio-economic class. Al was little more than a grunt as a sergeant, but he is the wealthiest man of the trio. Homer is afforded the cruelest irony. He was a high school football hero, but having lost his hands in an explosion, he will never be able to recapture that glory. Despite that, Homer is the most affable of the three, and Fred and Al do not look down on him because of his injury. In fact, between the three men, class, rank and economic barriers dissolve—they each accept the other for who he is.

When the veterans arrive home in Boone City, they split a cab ride to their respective homes. Homer is dropped off first, though he expresses his fears to Al and Fred that his middle-class family may only look at him as an object of grotesque curiosity. His anxiety is most magnified when he thinks of how his high-school sweetheart Wilma (Cathy O’Connell) will react when she sees him. Homer suggests that the three men share a drink at Butch Engle’s (Hoagy Carmichael)—a saloon owned and operated by Homer’s uncle. Fred and Al decline, encouraging Homer to face his fears. Upon Homer’s arrival, his family reacts in different ways. His younger sister is ecstatic that her older brother is home, but his parents—while also thrilled—pity him, and his mother sobs uncontrollably when she sees Homer’s hooks, which is the exact reaction Homer most feared. When Wilma sees Homer, she runs to embrace him, but Homer stands stoically, his arms at his side. Al observes, “They [the Navy] couldn’t train him to put his arms around his girl to stroke her hair.”

Later, Homer’s fears become amplified when Wilma’s parents visit the Parrish residence. Before the war, Homer and Wilma were engaged to be married. Since Homer’s accident, he now has mixed feelings about going through with the engagement, especially since he thinks that Wilma could never love a man with hooks instead of hands. His future in-laws ask him about any employment opportunities there are for someone with his “disability”, and suggesting that Homer would make a good insurance salesman because potential customers would take pity on him. Homer drops a glass of lemonade, and then retreats to Butch’s Place to find solace.

Al is dropped off next, and he confides to Fred that he also has considerable fears and misgivings about his reunion. He describes the looming event thusly: “It feels as if I was going to hit a beach.” Once home he surprises Milly, his wife, and is equally surprised to find how much his children have grown. They have changed so much that Al hardly recognizes them. Peggy, his eldest, works as a nurse. Al has brought gifts back for his college freshman son Rob—a samurai sword and a Japanese flag—but Rob is far more interested in quizzing his father about the effects of radiation on the people of Hiroshima (Al was there). Al is flabbergasted to find himself discussing the effects of nuclear warfare with his son. He too, becomes restless, and takes Milly and Peggy on a night on the town. They go barhopping—and Al gets ridiculously drunk in the process, and wind down the evening at Butch’s.

Fred returns home last. He is dropped off at his parents’ home—a ramshackle hovel alongside railroad tracks. Unlike the swank Stephenson apartment or the modest suburban residence of the Parrish family, the Derry residence is immediately indicative of their socioeconomic status. Fred’s parents—stepmother Hortense and drunkard father Pat—admire their son as a war hero (which he most assuredly is) and especially beam at “all those beautiful ribbons” pinned to his uniform. Fred is obviously a bit embarrassed by his parents, and declines to stay for dinner. He only wants to know one thing—the whereabouts of his young bride, Marie (Virginia Mayo). Hortense tells Fred that Marie has moved downtown and supports herself with a job at a nightclub. Fred sets off to find Marie, and he eventually makes his way to Butch’s as well.

At the bar, the three men again immediately begin to feel comfortable around one another. The events I have just described cover the first third of a three hour film, brilliantly executed to show the audience that the first steps Al, Fred, and Homer must take toward their new reality must be in lockstep. These three very different men will each make a journey toward acceptance, and each faces obstacles to overcome.

For Homer, acceptance will come when he realizes that Wilma loves him despite the hooks on his hands. For Al’s readjustment, he simply needs to start accepting that his children have grown up, and when he returns to work at the bank, things are not the same (there is an excellent scene when Al defends a loan have gave to a returning serviceman who did not have sufficient collateral, followed up with a bit later when Al gives a boozy speech at a dinner in his honor decrying his institution’s valuing of profits over people). Fred has the hardest journey. He finds that the more he gets to know Marie, the more she loves the medals on his uniform and material comforts. Although Fred was respected in the military, his skills do not translate into a career that can support his family. Finally, he falls hopelessly in love with Peggy (and she reciprocates his feelings), but the relationship offends Al (who doesn’t want his daughter to accrue a reputation for wrecking marriages), and he casts his true love away. Ultimately, Fred has to look beyond his personal and professional setbacks and accept that he is the master of his own destiny.

There is a sequence in The Best Years of Our Lives that merits extra attention. First is a scene that closes the second act of the film at Butch’s Place. Al has learned of Fred and Peggy’s relationship. By this point in the film, it is clear that Marie doesn’t love Fred, Fred doesn’t love her, and Peggy and Fred are absolutely right for one another. At the bar, Al confronts Fred, and tells him “I don't like the idea of you sneaking around corners to see Peggy, taking her love on a bootleg basis. I give you fair warning. I'm going to do everything I can to keep her away from you, to help her forget about you, and get her married to some decent guy who can make her happy.” Crestfallen, Fred “guarantees” that he will end things with Peggy, not wishing to sour the relationship with a true friend. As Fred slinks off to the phone booth in the back of the bar, Homer enters, and he shows Butch that he is skilled enough with his hooks to play “Chopsticks” on the piano. Cinematographer Toland makes excellent use of deep focus photography in this shot, with the happy faces of Homer, Al and Butch filling the foreground and the small, hunched over and pained figure of Fred in the background in clear focus as he makes the call that will break Peggy’s heart.


After a sequence where a heartbroken Peggy has received Fred’s break-up call, the film follows Fred to his job, where he reluctantly returned to work as a soda jerk. Homer follows him there, and one of Fred’s customer’s asks Homer about his hooks. Homer uses humor to diffuse the situation (“I got sick and tired of that old pair of hands I had. You know, an awful lot of trouble washing them and manicuring my nails. So I traded them in for a pair of these latest models. They work by radar.”), but the customer persists in the conversation, implying that Homer’s sacrifice was in vain, and that the country went to war for the wrong reasons. Fred will not tolerate his friend to be made a pariah, and he demands the customer leave. The argument escalates into a physical confrontation between Homer and the customer, and Fred ends it by socking the man on the jaw, sending him crashing through a glass-covered jewelry display. Fred is fired, and Homer feels responsible. Fred isn’t sorry though and offers this piece of advice: “Take [Wilma] in your arms, and kiss her. Ask her to marry you. Then marry her. Tomorrow if you can get a license that fast. If you want anybody to stand up for you at your wedding...”

This sets up the climax of Homer’s story. That evening, he is confronted by Wilma, who is being persuaded by her parents to forget about Homer. She offers Homer an ultimatum: “Tell me the truth, Homer. Do you want me to forget about you?” He replies: “I want you to be free, Wilma, to live your own life. I don’t want you tied down forever just because you’ve got a kind heart.”

He then asks Wilma to follow him upstairs, hoping to shock her by going through his difficult nightly routine—something only Homer’s father has helped him with—to simply prepare for sleep. Without assistance, he removes his robe, his harness, the halter to which it is attached, the braces, the hooks—and places them on the bed. Homer is then able to wiggle into a pajama top, but not button it. At this point, Wilma—in an act of ultimate compassion—buttons his shirt closed. Threadbare and utterly helpless Homer says:

“This is when I know I'm helpless. My hands are down there on the bed. I can't put them on again without calling to somebody for help. I can't smoke a cigarette or read a book. If that door should blow shut, I can't open it and get out of this room. I'm as dependent as a baby that doesn't know how to get anything except to cry for it. Well, now you know, Wilma. Now you have an idea of what it is. I guess you don't know what to say. It's all right. Go on home. Go away like your family said.”

Instead of recoiling, Wilma tells him, “I know what to say, Homer. I love you and I'm never going to leave you, never.” The scene is one of the most tender and intimate love scenes ever put to film, and it is made all the more potent by the compassionate acting from Russell and O’Connell.

Russell deserves special mention. He actually won two Oscars for the part of Homer Parrish, the only actor ever to be awarded two Oscars for one part. Russell was not a professional actor (which some critics have held against the picture), and was essentially playing himself. Wyler used him because he felt that no actor could bring sufficient authenticity to the role. The Best Years of Our Lives was the clear frontrunner to capture the majority of the Oscars awarded that year, and received several pre-Oscar honors. It was also the biggest box office smash since Gone With the Wind. Despite (or perhaps because of) the film’s popularity, the Academy board of Governors felt that as a non-professional, Russell had no hope of being nominated for his performance. They created a Special Oscar for him, “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans”. As it turned out, Russell was not only nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but won the Oscar to rapturous approval.

The scene with O’Connell sealed his victory. Russell is no mere prop, showing off his prostheses in a robotic fashion. Instead, he draws on his own experiences to create the character of Homer Parrish. During the scene, Russell makes the humor in the scene work (“at least I got my elbows”), expresses doubts, and shows that Homer’s vulnerability comes not from removing his hooks but from the fear of Wilma rejecting him because he will be needed to be cared for like a child for the rest of his life. Yes, Russell (and Wyler) uses his real-life status as a double-amputee to ground his performance in reality, but Russell’s choices as an actor give Homer a soul. It is Russell’s probing, deep focus into character—not his disability—that gives the performance unforgettable emotional weight.

Russell’s performance is matched by the rest of the ensemble. The Best Years of Our Lives is a film where the actors are fully aware of the importance of the material, and they each rise to the occasion, delivering humane, compassionate performances. Compassion is the key to the film. It’s easy to make a film that hugs at heartstrings or goes for an easy cry. The actors here dive into the reality of their characters and uncover real emotions, be it Myrna Loy as Milly, assuaging her heartbroken daughter or Teresa Wright as Peggy, who has utmost faith in the man Fred can become. Even in the smaller parts—such as Gladys George and Roman Bohnen as Fred’s parents—are infused with compassion and humanity. I defy anyone to not feel a swell of pride when watching the scene where Pat reads to Hortense Fred’s citation for a Distinguished Flying Cross, whereupon they learn the full extent of their son’s heroism. If you aren’t fighting tears back by then, a part of your soul must be missing.

Coming to accept a new reality is often the hardest challenge a human being will ever face. At the start of WWII, director Wyler made a film that sought to provoke, to anger its audience into action. By the end of the war, Wyler knew that only through goodness, integrity and compassion could a film—and by extension, the audience—find acceptance with a new world. Values such as goodness, integrity and compassion are often seen as square or too passé to make for an entertaining subject on film. The Best Years of Our Lives is 172 minutes of proof that when done right—with unyielding focus on character and humanity—those square and passé values are rich and fertile grounds for the creation of profound art.

DETAILS

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Director: William Wyler

Starring: Frederic March, Dana Andrews, Harold Russell, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, Cathy O’Connell, Virginia Mayo, Hoagy Carmichael, Gladys George, Roman Bohnen

Studio: RKO Radio Pictures

Total Oscars: 8 (Best Picture*, Best Director—William Wyler, Best Actor—Frederic March, Best Supporting Actor—Harold Russell, Best Adapted Screenplay—Robert E. Sherwood, Best Editing, Best Score, Dramatic or Comedy Picture**) out of 9 total nominations (Best Sound Recording)

* Producer Samuel Goldwyn was also awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Award at the 1946 Oscars. Goldwyn was a highly prolific and influential producer in Hollywood, his Oscar for The Best Years of Our Lives is his only competitive win.
** Best Score was split into two categories—Dramatic or Comedy Picture and Musical Picture

NEXT BLOG: Gentleman’s Agreement

Going My Way: Too Schmaltzy Is an Apt Description (and the overlooked Best Picture winners of the 1940's)

Okay, so I had a vacation to the Midwest, and a couple of long weekends, all of which makes for a very unproductive blog. Currently, I’ve watched all of the Best Picture winners through The Sound of Music, and A Man for All Seasons, In the Heat of the Night, and Oliver! are burning a hole in my Netflix queue. I’ve seen all but four of the Best Picture winners now (A Man for All Seasons, Oliver!, Chariots of Fire, and Out of Africa). So what I really need to do is catch up on my reviews.

Okay, I was in the middle of a series of reviews that compared five 1940’s Best Picture winners to the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief. It would have been fantastic if I could make a case for the five Oscar winners in a row matching the five stages of grief, but Leo McCarey’s Going My Way simply doesn’t fit the pattern (luckily for me, the next two Oscar winners—The Lost Weekend and The Best Years of Our Lives match up incredibly well to depression and acceptance, respectively). Going My Way is a slight, sweet and sentimental film. I guess if I want to compare it to the mood of the country in 1944—arguably the direst of WWII—Going My Way is exactly the kind of film American audiences wanted: the kind of film where the troubles of reality are temporarily replaced by something uplifting.

The film tells the story of Father Charles O’Malley (Bing Crosby, who at the time was the most popular star in Hollywood), a young unconventional priest who becomes the new curate at St. Dominic’s, a Catholic parish in midtown Manhattan. The head rector is the elderly Father Fitzgibbon, an Irish immigrant who hasn’t seen his homeland in over four decades. Fitzgibbon has clearly lost touch with his parish—he’s very old school and set in his ways—and unbeknownst to him the archdiocese has sent Father O’Malley to St. Dominic’s in a last ditch attempt to save the church, which has fallen behind on its mortgage payments and soon will be repossessed by the bank.

Father O’Malley is a character very typical to film: the “saint” or “savior” who has an uncanny ability to win over and change the minds of the people who most resist him. (Julie Andrews as Maria in The Sound of Music is cut in the same mold, and Whoopi Goldberg in the Sister Act films is a modern interpretation of the character.) O’Malley wins over the entire neighborhood. He makes sure the church collects enough alms to secure rent for an elderly parishioner about to be evicted. He helps a young couple smooth over their new relationship with the beau’s disapproving father. He earns the trust of the juvenile delinquents in the neighborhood and reforms them into a boy’s choir. The person who most resists him is, of course, Father Fitzgibbon.

O’Malley’s past life comes into play in the film. A former flame, Genevieve Turner (Rise Stevens), comes back into “Chuck’s” life and is surprised to find he is a priest. She is now a star performer at the Metropolitan Opera. “Jenny” is appreciative of the choir’s performance, and she offers to help Father O’Malley publish his original songs. She and the boys perform “Going My Way” and “Swinging on a Star” backed by the orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera House. The publishers find “Going My Way” “too schmaltzy” (which is an apt description for the entire film), but see potential in “Swinging on a Star”. In lieu of paying O’Malley directly, the publishers surreptitiously deposit a substantial donation in the collection box at the next Sunday service. This payment is enough to cover the mortgage, and Father Fitzgibbon finally warms up to O’Malley (though the bond had been slowly strengthening between the two men throughout the film) as he joins him in a game of golf.

The final act of the film sees tragedy strike St. Dominic’s, as a fire burns the parish to the ground. The old priest becomes distraught and sick, only able to collect thirty-five dollars after the church is destroyed. However, Jenny has taken the boys choir on a concert tour with her, and she sends a check of $3,500 dollars for the repair of St. Dominic’s. As a new church is being constructed, O’Malley informs Fitzgibbon that he is being transferred to another failing parish, and Fitzgibbon is saddened. In the final scene of the film, O’Malley has arranged for Jenny to bring a very old lady—Father Fitzgibbon’s mother, whom he has not seen since he left Ireland—to St. Dominic’s. The old priest is moved to tears by the sight of his mother and the film ends on an upbeat note.

Going My Way was the highest grossing picture of 1944, with Hollywood’s most bankable star in the lead role. It is a gentle film without real villains, save for the bank that holds the mortgage to the church, but even the most naïve viewer will quickly come to the conclusion that the church is in good hands once Father O’Malley is on the scene. Above all, Going My Way is a film that reaffirms faith in God. This is exactly the sort of entertainment the American public was craving in 1944, and the film was rewarded with eight Oscars.

However, there is always a nice, pleasant, schmaltzy film (or two, or three) in each decade that hasn’t aged very well and didn’t deserve to win Best Picture. The 1944 Best Picture Oscar should have gone to Double Indemnity, Billy Wilder’s classic noir. (Wilder didn’t have to wait long for one of his films to win an Oscar though. The very deserving The Lost Weekend—a film that is the polar opposite of Going My Way—took home the top prize the next year.) I’ll do a quick rundown of films that Oscar overlooked in the 1940’s, broke down year by year.

1940: If the kind accountants at pricewaterhousecoopers ever released the vote totals for Best Picture, I’d bet that John Ford’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath—with Henry Fonda’s iconic performance as Tom Joad—was the runner up. My vote though, goes to George Cukor’s screwball comedy The Philadelphia Story, with Katharine Hepburn as a snobby heiress who has two men—Cary Grant and James Stewart—vying for her affections. It’s a delightful and smart picture, and definitely proof that the classic romantic comedies are much better than the new ones. Jimmy Stewart won his only Oscar for his role, but Grant is clearly better—the Oscar was a make-up for his performance in Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Also—Walt Disney’s not nominated Pinocchio may just be the finest animated film to ever be released.

1941: Okay, it has been discussed ad nauseam that Citizen Kane should have beaten How Green Was My Valley. Also overlooked is John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon, which stars Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett’s cynical private eye. Bogart’s Spade is a nice warm-up act for Rick Blaine, and the film is generally credited as the first in the noir genre. The famous line in the film (a re-worded Shakespeare quote) “the stuff that dreams are made of” is used in great ironic fashion.

1942: Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons—which used many of the same actors and crew as Citizen Kane—is as well regarded (well, maybe not best-film-ever praise, but still very acclaimed) as his most famous film.

1943: Casablanca was absolutely the right choice to win Best Picture. Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt—the director’s personal favorite of all his films (though I haven’t seen it)—wasn’t nominated but probably holds up best in a weak year.

1944: Double Indemnity. Billy Wilder’s noir basically spawned the entire erotic thriller genre. A sap (Fred MacMurray) is completely and utterly seduced by a femme fatale (Barbara Stanwyck). The sap is an insurance salesman, and the lovers scheme to bump off the vixen’s much older husband—but make the death appear accidental—and thus collect on the “double indemnity” clause in the husband’s life insurance. A dogged claims investigator (Edward G. Robinson) unravels the mystery. “How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle?” Double Indemnity makes the answer to that question crystal clear. The film is awesome.

1945: The Lost Weekend was the right choice, but Hitchcock scored again with Spellbound, a thriller starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman.

1946: In my opinion, The Best Years of Our Lives deserved its Oscar. However, Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life is far and away his most popular film, and I’m sure many people could cast their vote for this film if given the opportunity to have a mulligan. It tells the story of down on his luck George Bailey (James Stewart), who attempts suicide but is rescued by a guardian angel who shows him what his town would have been like if he had never lived. The stage is set for one of the all-time great endings in a film, and It’s a Wonderful Life has since become a perennial Christmastime staple. Casablanca aside, this is the most enduring film of the 1940’s.

1947: A weak year for films in general. However if the voting were recast, I’d bet Elia Kazan’s parable on anti-Semitism (Gentlemen’s Agreement) would lose to another perennial holiday favorite, the original Miracle on 34th Street.

1948: Humphrey Bogart once quipped that the only true way to judge Best Actor would be to have all the nominees play Hamlet and see who does it the best then. How ironic then, that the best performance of his career—as the paranoid Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre—wasn’t even nominated and the eventual winner was Lawrence Olivier for playing Hamlet. Olivier’s Shakespeare adaptation also won Best Picture, but John Huston’s half-Western, half-Noir about three men who strike gold yet struggle to overcome its corrupting influence. Bogart is fantastic as the guy who almost immediately becomes consumed by paranoia, and Walter Huston (John’s father) gives an all-time great supporting performance as the old prospector who knows better. The senior Huston was justly rewarded with an Oscar, and this is the film that really should have collected more gold in 1948. It was way ahead of its time.

1949: Another noir, director Carol Reed’s The Third Man, fails to even receive a Best Picture nomination. This one also boasts what was probably Orson Welles’ finest work as an actor. He kills it as Harry Lime, the surprise villain. His speech about a cuckoo clock, delivered on a Ferris wheel in Vienna, is the highlight of the picture.

No genre is more closely associated with a decade than noir and the 1940’s; it’s criminal that not one true noir (Casablanca and The Lost Weekend have noir elements but aren’t truly part of the genre) took the top prize in the decade when the genre was the most creative. Comedy is again looked over. Many of the films that won Best Picture in the 1940’s are incredibly strong films—and Casablanca is probably the best Best Picture ever—but the true flavor of the decade is not completely reflected amongst the winners.

DETAILS

Going My Way (1944) (The 1944 Oscar ceremony was the first to standardize the number of Best Picture nominees to five. This remained the case until controversially; the field was again expanded to ten for the 2009 nominees)

Director: Leo McCarey

Starring: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Rise Stevens, Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer

Studio: Paramount Pictures (though many of Paramount’s early films have changed rights; Universal now distributes the film—as is the case with many Hitchcock films)

Total Oscars: 7 (Best Picture, Best Director—Leo McCarey, Best Actor—Bing Crosby, Best Supporting Actor—Barry Fitzgerald, Best Original Screenplay—Frank Butler and Frank Cavett, Best Original Motion Picture Story—McCarey*, Best Song—“Swinging on a Star”) from 10 nominations (Best Actor—Barry Fitzgerald*, Best Cinematography (B&W), Best Editing)
*Leo McCarey was the first man to win Oscars for both directing and writing in the same year. He was soon followed in the decade by Billy Wilder, John Huston, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz
**Barry Fitzgerald was indeed nominated for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for the same role as Father Fitzgerald in Going My Way. There was no rule that said an actor could not submit himself for consideration for both acting categories, but after the 1944 Oscars, a rule was created that an actor could only be nominated for one performance in one category. However, an actor can be nominated for different performance in both categories in the same year, most recently achieved, I believe, by Jamie Foxx.

NEXT BLOG: The Lost Weekend

Casablanca: You Must Remember This Film

Okay, this is the scene—a girl walks into a bar. Everyone is drinking and dancing; a good time is to be had by all. The piano player is playing songs everyone loves. The piano player sees the woman—he knows her from a time ago—and a look of worry passes over his face. The woman is accompanied by a tall and handsome man. The man looks special, important. The woman is left alone as the man tends to business. She sits down next to the piano player. He pretends not to see her. She engages him in conversation, and the piano player replies in clipped, terse answers—it is as if he is afraid someone will see whom he is speaking to. The camera closes in on the girl, the left side of her face softly lit, and a sparkle in her eye. She leans toward the piano player, touches him gently and requests a song. “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’” Although Sam has been expressly forbidden to play the song, he cannot deny the girl. The first notes of the song and the weariness in Sam’s voice flutter gently throughout the bar, the music freezing the place in time. “You must remember this; a kiss is just a kiss…” The bar owner comes out, indignant upon hearing the forbidden song—but he is stopped when he sees her radiant face. He knows now why Sam is playing “As Time Goes By”—and who has requested it. His heart is breaking all over again.

Perfection in film is witnessed when Ilsa Lund walks in with Victor Laszlo to Rick Blaine’s Café Américain and asks Sam the piano player to play “As Time Goes By.” The loneliness of the two former lovers, the way Sam appears frightened (he knows too well the heartache Ilsa has caused Rick) as Ilsa walks into the bar, the way Ingrid Bergman’s face seems to glow and calm Sam, the devastating reaction Humphrey Bogart gives Rick once he sees Ilsa, the perfect use of “As Time Goes By” and the way Dooley Wilson sings it—with such tenderness and alacrity (though he is mimicking tickling the ivories; Wilson couldn’t play a note—chalk the success of his part up to movie magic)—evokes in the audience memories of a melancholy song too personal for them to bear, even if this is the first time you have heard the Herman Hupfield standard. When you watch Casablanca, this scene is the one that I guarantee will suck viewers into the world of the film—unless, of course, you are already there. Were this the only scene filmed for the picture, Casablanca would be deserving of the Best Picture Oscar. That the rest of Casablanca is as good is a testament to the greatness of the film and one of the only times that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded the absolutely right movie.

Casablanca is a film where perfection looks so easy. In reality, the picture was designed to be just another movie rolled off the Warner Brothers lot. Director Michael Curtiz, a veteran director known more for his ability to work quickly rather than having a particular style (he shot over forty previous films for Warner Brothers), was the fourth-choice director on a list topped by William Wyler. Curtiz was known to have clashed with the writers over the script. The writers would point out an inaccuracy or questionable logic in the story, but Curtiz preferred to keep things moving as fast as possible, trusting that the images on screen would sweep the audience away in suspended disbelief (and Curtiz was right). The story is lauded as the best screenplay ever written—the lines are among the wittiest and funniest and most divine dialogue ever penned (on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes, lines from Casablanca occupy six positions on the list—Nos. 5, 20, 28, 32, 43, and 67—far more than any other film)—but the script was being constantly rewritten by a hodgepodge of writers, usually a sign that a film is doomed to failure. Max Steiner, who scored the film, didn’t even want to use “As Time Goes By,” originally used in Everybody Comes to Rick’s, the play from which Casablanca was adapted. Steiner wished to compose a new song, but by the time he got around to scoring the film (the score is one of the last pieces of the film to be completed, always after the final footage has been filmed) Ingrid Bergman had cut her hair for For Whom the Bell Tolls and reshoots were impossible. A much appreciated thanks goes out to Ernest Hemingway, because Casablanca is unimaginable without that song, and Steiner eventually built the score around leitmotifs from “As Time Goes By” and the French national anthem “La Marseillaise” (more on that later). A whole book could be written on how Casablanca came together in spite of itself. The film is the ultimate miracle ever created by the Hollywood studio system (the whole film, save the airport scene at the end, was shot on the Warner’s lot).

I’m not going to delve too deeply into how Casablanca was created. The special features on the DVD are the place for that. Instead, as I have done with How Green Was My Valley and Mrs. Miniver, I will analyze Casablanca as it compares to the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief—in this case, bargaining.

The entire theme of Casablanca concerns bargaining. This is a film that speaks the language of deals and compromise. Kübler-Ross defines bargaining as hope that an individual can postpone or delay dealing with death by offering an exchange of a reformed lifestyle with a higher power. In the world of Casablanca, characters must bargain to survive—in a literal and spiritual sense and often both at the same time. In the film, the city of Casablanca is represented as the last station for the waylaid. For European refugees looking to escape from the Nazi regime, Casablanca is the transfer point for those wishing to journey into America (crucially, the film is set before the events of Pearl Harbor, allowing for both the plot device and for Rick to retain his cynicism). Any refugee looking to escape Casablanca needs “letters of transit” to enter neutral Portugal then into America. Therefore, a letter of transit can fetch a considerable sum, effectively placing a price on freedom. This necessity also creates a city that attracts all sorts of vices and black market activities. Refugees are easy prey for the pickpockets, gamblers, con-men and counterfeiters who make up the permanent residents of Casablanca. The scarcity of letters of transit forces those wishing to escape to make moral compromises. How far will a person go to obtain freedom? How soon will someone turn to illegal measures? What cost will they pay? These are the conflicts the characters in the film come into contact with on a daily basis.

The plot of the film really kicks in when a petty criminal, Ugarte (finely played by character actor Peter Lorre, who will forever be remembered by his nasal, desperate, whine for “Reeeeck!”), steals two letters of transit from Nazi officials, signed by none other than General Charles de Gaulle (if you ever want to know the definition of a MacGuffin, look no further than these letters of transit—they are a classic one). It is implied that Ugarte murdered the two Nazis carrying the letters, so he is targeted by Captain Renault (an unflappable Claude Rains, who steals his every scene), a corrupt opportunist and completely amoral police official working for the Vichy-controlled government in Casablanca. Renault sums up his philosophy thusly, “I have no convictions. I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy,” proving himself to be one who bargains exclusively with those who have the most power and will provide him with the most opportunities to get rich (Renault is no stranger to bribes in the film). What Renault doesn’t know is that Ugarte has entrusted the letters to Rick Blaine (Bogart, in his most famous role), an American expatriate who owns a popular bar, the Café Américain. Ugarte gives Rick the letters because “somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I can trust.” Ugarte’s rationale perfectly encapsulates how topsy-turvy the state of bargaining has become in Casablanca: the people who hate you are the least likely to screw you over.

Though Rick appears to be as amoral as Renault—saying, with utter conviction, that “he sticks his neck out for nobody” and “I’m the only cause I’m interested in”—his cynicism masks the compromises he has made for survival. The escape Rick is looking for isn’t from Casablanca; instead Rick seeks an emotional withdrawal, and the bargain he has made with himself is this: to not care about anything is better than having your heart broken. In Café Américain, politics are a taboo topic. When asked his nationality, Rick replies “A drunkard.” (This causes Captain Renault to retort, “That makes Rick a citizen of the world.”) Rick even drives away any chance he may have at love. A scene in the first act of the film has him coolly dismiss a former flame (Madeleine LeBeau). For Rick, his bargain is all about emotional survival.

Almost immediately, Rick’s attitude is revealed as a façade. He does, in fact, stick his neck out for his employees. Emil, his bartender, sneaks drinks to women he is trying to pick up. Carl (S.Z. Sakall), his waiter, is allowed to place refugees in contact with bar patrons who will more expediently secure their escape. Rick’s croupier runs a rigged roulette game which helps refugees secure bribe money for exit visas. The doorman Abdul is a trusted confidante. Sam, in addition to being the star piano player, is Rick’s right hand man who came with him from Paris. (Of all the Best Picture winners thus far, Casablanca is the only one which treats foreigners and minorities as equals. Sam is the first black character in an Oscar winning film to really be treated as an equal to whites. The multicultural cast is one of the tricks used by Curtiz to sell the illusion of Casablanca as a truly foreign place.) Rick himself allows certain customers to pay using IOU’s, but yet refuses to allow Germans to play games in the casino. Every member of his staff is crucial to the smooth operation Rick runs at his saloon, which on the outside appears to cater to everyone equally but masks a small resistance unit to help the needy. (One of the lies the audience is willing to forgive is how this saloon, which bleeds money, can possibly continue to operate in the red and evade closure by the Vichy officials.) Rick’s balancing act becomes truly tested when freedom fighter Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) walks into the café with his former flame, Ilsa (“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world she walks into mine”).

Laszlo, of all the characters in the film, is the least compromising. He’s also a bit of a bore (this aspect of the character isn’t helped by Henreid’s stiff performance, easily the weakest part of an otherwise all-around strong film), and primarily functions as a foil to Rick’s cynicism. The audience is told that Laszlo is part of the Czech Resistance to the Nazis, but exactly what he does is never illuminated (and it isn’t really important). Laszlo needs to reach America to continue his work with the underground resistance, and he cannot do the work well unless Ilsa, the love of his life, is there with him (as Renault astutely observes, when Rick—before knowing he is with Ilsa—says that Laszlo needs only one exit visa, “I think not. I have seen the lady.”) Awfully convenient for Laszlo that two letters of transit are hidden in Sam’s piano, isn’t it? The only bargain Laszlo makes with Rick is to appeal directly to the better nature of his humanity.

Laszlo has some evidence that Rick is a deeper man than his bitterness suggests. Rick’s past as a freedom fighter in Spain and Ethiopia is widely known to everybody in Casablanca. Laszlo is quick to note that Rick also seems to stick his neck out for underdogs—though Rick replies that he was a mercenary in both of those fights, causing Renault to remark, “The winning side would have paid you better.” Laszlo is also aware of the bargains Rick has struck for some of the wayward refugees in Casablanca. A minor subplot involves a young Bulgarian couple trying to escape to America. The girl is offered two visas if she sleeps with Renault, but when she comes to Rick’s her husband is shown how to win at the rigged roulette wheel. Laszlo cannot help but notice Rick’s compassion. Finally, in the film’s most rousing sequence, Laszlo finds the clearest evidence yet that Rick is on his side.

Before Ilsa and Laszlo walk into Rick’s, the antagonist of the picture, Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt, a German actor who escaped Hitler’s regime and ironically made a career of playing Nazis) is also introduced. Ah, Nazis, the great bastards and villains of American cinema. Strasser is in Casablanca for one purpose: to keep Laszlo from making his escape, or better yet, kill him. Sides are immediately drawn, new allegiances are shaped. To nobody’s surprise, prevailing winds make Renault an ally of Strasser. Yvonne, Rick’s discarded girlfriend, also finds a new beau within the Nazi ranks. The day after Laszlo’s arrival, Nazi soldiers are singing “Die Wacht am Rhein (Watch on the Rhine)”, a popular patriotic German song. A furious Laszlo orders Rick to have his band play “La Marseillaise”, and Rick accedes to his request. Laszlo leads the entire saloon (save, of course, the Germans and Rick—still trying to give off the appearance that he is apolitical) in a stirring rendition of the French national anthem that sings down the Germans. Even Yvonne, there with her Nazi boyfriend, becomes so caught up in the fervor that she too joins in the singing of “La Marseillaise”, a tear in her eye. Strasser is incensed, and orders Renault to shut down the Café Américain. (This brings about my favorite line in the film. Rick asks Strasser the grounds on which the Nazis have ordered his business closed. Renault says illegal gambling. The croupier tells Renault, “Your winnings, sir.” Renault says “Oh, thank you very much,” then “Everybody out at once!”)

Rick’s act of patriotism has cost him his business. Rick sees the writing on the wall; Nazi occupation in Casablanca is only going to make things increasingly difficult for him. He has however arranged for the Café Américain to be sold to Signor Ferrari (the corpulent Sydney Greenstreet, a frequent costar of both Bogart and Lorre), who describes himself as “the leader of all illegal activities in Casablanca, I am an influential and respected man.” Although Ferrari runs an establishment—The Blue Parrot—that is the chief competitor of the Café Américain, like Ugarte, Rick trusts Ferrari precisely because he is his rival. Again, the safest negotiation one can make in Casablanca is with one’s enemy (and Rick also knows that Ferrari will look out for his staff, especially Sam, of whom Ferrari says “It wouldn’t be Rick’s without him”). The most dangerous bargain Rick has left is with the person he loves most—Ilsa.

Curtiz uses an extended flashback to Rick and Ilsa’s time in Paris to fully flesh out the background of their relationship. The most important thing the viewer is left with is that Rick is still impossibly in love with Ilsa (“Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”), and Ilsa, though married to Laszlo, still loves him. Ilsa tries to use the relationship to her advantage. The film has established that sex can be used to buy freedom, and the rekindling of a sexual relationship is implicit when Ilsa comes to Rick alone. When that doesn’t work, Ilsa draws a pistol on Rick, but is unable to shoot, proving to Rick her love for him. Ilsa offers him this bargain: “You have to think for both of us. For all of us.”

Rick, now holding the upper hand in negotiations (and lest the audience forget, he is still in possession of the letters of transit), is free to determine Ilsa’s fate. I think everyone who has seen Casablanca has asked themselves: Why doesn’t Rick use the letters for himself and Ilsa and leave with the love of his life? Ilsa certainly has nothing to lose. By this point in the film, it is assumed that she will receive one of the letters. She will be safe. She will leave Casablanca with a man who loves her. And why wouldn’t she want to be with Rick? After all, he’s proven himself to be capable of protecting her, she knows he truly loves her, and facetiously, Rick is the more exciting man than Laszlo—and just as noble. Who isn’t charmed by him? If Rick gives the papers to Laszlo, he will certainly be doing right for the cause of resistance, but he will be left in Casablanca a wanted man without his livelihood, his heartbreak amplified. Rick’s bargain now has life-changing consequences: leave with the woman he loves or sacrifice that love for the greater good. Which is more important—love or freedom?

The ending of Casablanca has seeped into pop-culture consciousness through osmosis. Everyone knows that Ilsa gets on the plane to Lisbon with Laszlo (and if you haven’t seen Casablanca, sorry to spoil it, but I must ask you—why the hell haven’t you seen this masterpiece yet?). The tension created in the film is phony, because ultimately the Hays Code which governed morality in films at the time would have never allowed a married woman to abscond with a single man—it is a testament to the skills of Curtiz, Bogart, and Bergman that the audience is kept on the edge of their seat when the outcome is so obvious and by now so well known. It is the new bargain Rick makes with himself that gives the ending resonance. Ultimately he knows that “the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world” and that Ilsa will regret not boarding the plane with Laszlo. Regret becomes the emotion that Rick also does not want to feel. He knows that if he goes with her then Laszlo will likely die. Rick knows that if he takes the letters and leaves with Ilsa he will feel regret over the loss of an important life. He is also then able to reconcile his memories of their relationship. No longer will Rick’s memories of Ilsa bring him sorrow. (“We’ll always have Paris.”) Because he has sacrificed his love for the greater good, Rick is able to find happiness in his memories and his soul is at ease. In his new bargain, Rick listens to his conscience.

Appropriately, Casablanca concludes with the two craftiest bargainers—Rick and Captain Renault—walking off into the fog together. (“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”) Renault, who in the final act is utterly played by Rick, finds a bargainer worthy of future co-conspiracy. After all, he witnesses Rick murder Major Strasser. Renault’s response—“Round up the usual suspects.” He knows that justice in Casablanca is best levied by leaving a crime unsolved, and that the prevailing winds will now blow him over to Rick. Inaction leads to a minor redemption for Captain Renault. I love that it isn’t a sunset the two men walk off into, but a fog. Their future is uncertain, but as the film fades to black the audience is left with a sense that no matter what fate awaits Rick and Renault—and since the audience has the benefit of knowing world history, it can be safely assumed that the adventures that the pair will embark on will be perilous—they will be able to bargain for both survival and a clear soul.

I think the reason Casablanca has resonated so deeply with audiences is because that despite its ultimate artifice, the film recognizes that its audience also makes bargains, deals and difficult choices on a daily basis in order to survive. The characters in the film mirror the audience watching them, and this is why the film has rooted itself so deeply in the consciousness of American popular culture. Certainly in 1943, Americans could no longer afford to be in denial about the war and the time for being angry about the rotten state of the globe had come to pass. It was now time to deal with it. As time goes by, our world continues to grow more complicated, and Casablanca will continue to resonate. Most movies—and certainly most films that win Best Picture—wish to provide audiences with a sense of grandeur, romance, and escape from reality. Undoubtedly, Casablanca succeeds on all of these fronts. Long after the lights have come up in the theater, long after the DVD has stopped playing, this film sticks with you because—like Victor Laszlo—it dares to pierce right through the masks we wear and the bargains we make and says that human beings are people of conscience, righteousness, and good. Casablanca wants everybody to be like Rick Blaine.

Readers, the bargain I will strike with you is this: you must remember Casablanca.


DETAILS

Casablanca (1943*) (The film gets an asterisk because it first premiered in New York City on November 26th, 1942. However, Academy rules state that for a picture to be considered for an Oscar within a calendar year, the film must be released in Los Angeles County by December 30th in its year of eligibility. Since Casablanca went wide the following January, it was thus eligible to compete against films released in 1943. Mrs. Miniver should consider itself lucky.)

Director: Michael Curtiz

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Dooley Wilson, S.Z. Sakall, Madeleine LeBeau

Studio: Warner Brothers

Total Oscars: 3 (Best Picture, Best Director—Michael Curtiz, Best Adapted Screenplay—Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch) out of 8 total nominations (Best Actor—Humphrey Bogart, Best Supporting Actor—Claude Rains, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Score—Max Steiner)


NEXT BLOG: Going My Way