I wish I had a better feel for silent films. I haven’t been exposed to enough silent movies and the fault is my own. I’ve been complacent as a viewer in a medium where I can still hear human voices, and I’ve wasted many hours trying to convince myself that the dialogue I was hearing in a movie was authentic. Probably I have not seen the greatest silent films that have been made. I’ve watched many of the highly recommended silent movies and occasionally have been impressed. I can’t say I’ve been overwhelmed. I feel it is in the silent era of film more than any other era in movie history that the critics have misled us the most. Most of them cannot separate the historical significance of a movie from its emotional punch.
There are significant differences between a silent film and one where we hear the character’s voices. These are two completely different modes of expression. We can follow along with a movie where we can hear the voices in the same way we follow a novel or short story. Watching a silent movie is like watching an opera. More of the drama is left up to the imagination. I’ve known a few lovers of silent pictures that feel too much talk has destroyed any significance a movie may have had. This point is valid. We usually can talk ourselves right out of anything genuine. A silent picture makes the viewer work to puncture the mystique of what is happening on the screen. The silent movies I remember most were the horror movies I’d see late at night or on a Saturday afternoon as a child. Some of these pictures would have been ruined by speech. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920) with John Barrymore, The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) both starring Lon Chaney, Sr., and a few other silent horror films with the memorable monsters were superior to the remakes. On the other hand, movies like Ben Hur (1926) - though less than two and a half hours seems to drag, The Ten Commandments (1924) - which brings us Moses and then jumps to two modern day brothers (one destined for heaven and the other for hell), and The Wizard of Oz (1926) are not nearly as memorable as the talky remakes that were made much later.
Many reviewers excuse the weaknesses of silent films because they focus on the timeframes in which the movies were made, but a poor movie should not be forgiven because it was made without modern film techniques. Capable moviemakers have always taken what they have been given. There never has been a golden age of movie or movie craftsmanship. That’s romanticizing of the past. A genuine movie is good whenever it was made. (And we forget that some moviemakers have learned from our past mistakes.) Critics usually throw kudos to any movie made by Chaplin or Buster Keaton, and these two individuals did make some of the best silent pictures I have ever seen. Chaplin and Keaton were tremendously talented individuals, but movies like The Gold Rush (1925), Modern Times (1936), The General (1927), or Our Hospitality (1923) can never quite live up to all of the praise. These movies are charming and filled with comical and farcical shots that are followed by gentle admonitions to the audience. These movies are more than lighthearted entertainment, but I’d rather see movies like Scarface starring Paul Muni or Public Enemy made in the early 1930s.
I have also seen Birth of a Nation (1915), which has many times been listed as the greatest silent film ever made. It certainly is one of the most important movies ever made. The story is incredible (meaning completely over the top), and many directors have imitated its film technique and use of plot line. Unfortunately, it’s a piece of racist propaganda. What else can one say? When the Klan saves the day in the end we are reminded of so many later westerns where the cavalry came to the rescue. Except that this is the Klan and it came to stifle the rebellion of former slaves. Birth of the Nation’s greatest significance lies in its rewriting of history and its complete acceptance by the moviemaking establishment of its unsavory storyline. We’ve never forgiven Leni Riefenstahl’s filming of the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, so why do we forgive D.W. Griffith?
I’m usually quite good at ranking in order the movies that I like best, but I can’t do it in the case of these silent films. I have to rely too much on other critics concerning my knowledge of these movies and feel my independence of judgment would be lacking. I’ll name just a few other movies that I did enjoy. I remember liking The Battleship Potemkin (1925), though it’s been many years since I’ve seen it. Greed (1924) and Beau Gest (1926) I also remember liking. I’d like to see Nosferatu (1922) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), two German films that have been highly recommended by friends that know good movies.
As I mentioned before, I’m sure there are dozens of great silent movies that I’m still unaware of having ever existed. Maybe I’ll live long enough to see a few of them.
October 27, 2006
© Robert S. Miller 2006
Probably much could be said of the fact that talking movies first became popular with the American masses during the Great Depression. But though it was a time when some of the greatest of American writers were having their say in literature, very few movies were recorded during the decade that contained any substantial message. The talking movie was early in its infancy and most of the movies from the era were designed as escapism. The Marx Brothers came into their own, Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney, Jr. appeared in a number of horror flicks, and the gangster was for the first time romanticized. Maybe that’s what the nation needed at the time - but I doubt it.
Still, probably the most important movie that was ever made appeared in 1939. Written by a writer named Margaret Mitchell who seemed to feel that the freeing of the slaves was a tragic event, the book Gone With the Wind was a thousand page mess that has forever distorted the perception of the Old South. Fortunately, the making of the movie fell into the hands of an insane producer named David O. Selznick and equally daffy director named Victor Fleming. They hacked off much (though certainly not all) of the unpalatable material contained in the novel, filmed the movie in Technicolor by painting each negative of this long movie separately, and built a set design as large as a city with the sole intention of burning it to the ground. Clark Gable as Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara amounted to perhaps the two most memorable characters ever cast. The movie has been badly imitated in many so-called epics since that time and has forever damned the male viewer to escorting his dates to the large number of Hollywood romance movies that followed. Yet there is no question that the acting and the memorable and even realistic war scenes showing the aftermath of the destruction of the south make the filming of this movie a positive experience. Though not my favorite movie, there probably are no other movies from the decade that have made as great of an impression on me.
Here, in order, are a list of my ten favorites and some honorable mentions:
(1) Scarface (1932): One of only a handful of movies from this decade still shown that is neither quaint nor outdated. This fictionalized portrait of Al Capone (made while Capone was still alive) starring Paul Muni and directed by Howard Hawks is stark and frightening. I think of it as one of the five greatest movies ever made.
(2) Public Enemy (1931): This, and not Yankee Doodle Dandy, is the one that James Cagney should be remembered for. More dated than Scarface, it still is one of the few gangster movies from this era that does not glamorize the villain. Cagney smashing the grapefruit into the face of his mistress clears up any misconceptions a viewer may have concerning the gangster’s character.
(3) Of Mice and Men (1939): Lon Chaney, Jr. and Burgess Meredith (respectively as Lenny and George) give us the best rendition of any Steinbeck novel (even better than The Grapes of Wrath) until East of Eden came along two decades later. Any overacting in the movie (which does occur) was performed by others than the two main leads. The movie remains watchable, but probably won’t appeal to those turned off by black and white film (meaning viewers that should go back to watching their television sets).
(4) Mutiny on the Bounty (1935): Clark Gable is great, but Charles Laughton is the real star as the highly disciplined and tyrannical Captain Bligh. It probably deserved the award for Best Picture.
(5) Gone With the Wind (1939): A movie so broad that it tries to address everything, this is the model for every epic movie since that time. And Vivian Leigh shows why she should be considered one of the greatest actresses of all time. Its glamorization of the south prior to the civil war is of course ridiculous.
(6) King Kong (1933): The beast removed from its tropical island comes to New York and carries his girl (Fay Wray) with him to the top of the Empire State Building. I suppose the gorilla could symbolize the plight of the workingman during the Depression when he falls to his death after being shot down by the establishment. Who knows? I think it was meant in good fun. The special effects are great to watch and obviously don’t compare to the ones made today – for anyone who thinks special effects are what make the movie.
(7) Angels With Dirty Faces (1938): James Cagney and Pat O’Brien are two old friends whose lives go in different directions. Cagney becomes a gangster and O’Brien becomes a Priest. In that day and age it was not hard to distinguish between the two in a movie (and maybe even in real life). The youth idolize Cagney, even when he’s on death row, and O’Brien wants this admiration to stop. O’Brien asks Cagney to breakdown at the time of his execution and humiliate himself. This, of course, is a very low thing for O’Brien to ask, but Cagney purposely obliges – showing that Cagney actually did have more nobility than the Priest. This movie would be worth very little if not for Cagney’s performance.
(8) Stagecoach (1939): Certainly not the best western ever filmed, but the first one of any quality. It was John Wayne’s first major role and one of the few where he showed any real acting talent. The movie directed by John Ford contains a stagecoach, a strange assortment of stagecoach passengers, Indian attacks and various shootouts – in short, one of the most imitated movies of all time.
(9) Little Caesar (1930): The first major movie to romanticize the gangster starring Edward G. Robinson. At first a small time crook, he later becomes one of the biggest underworld mobsters. Extremely dated, but it gives a viewer an idea where the stereotypical mobster came from.
(10) Treasure Island (1934): Starring Wallace Berry as Long John Silver and Jackie Cooper as Jim Hawkins, its one of the few movies for children that still holds up from that era. Adults may want to view it once every ten years or so to escape the fact that they are now working in an office cube.
Some honorable mentions include Sons of the Desert (1933), probably the best of the Laurel and Hardy series; All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), which contains a powerful ending (though not even close to as powerful as the novel); and I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), the first famous prison flick (though it pales in comparison to those to come).
Significant omissions from this list include It Happened One Night (1934), which, though I’m a great admirer of the actor, shows Gable pretty much playing a parody of himself. That Leonard Maltin calls it enchanting (a really wretched adjective) may be one of the reasons that I shun it. Other movies like The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gunga Din (1939) don’t age well because Errol Flynn and Cary Grant are more caricature than real in their roles.
I’d still like to see The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) starring Charles Laughton and the various movies in The Thin Man series. I’d also like to see the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, a movie I have only seen in parts.
As an aside, Hollywood was mostly clearing its throat during the 1930s with the exception of a few movies mentioned above (and possibly some movies that I have never seen). I mention this in the event that the reader does not feel I sufficiently appreciate these older films. Outside of Scarface and Public Enemy, the more penetrating and greater movies were to come in the following decade.
November 13, 2006
© Robert S. Miller 2006
During the 1940s, powerful movies were finally being consistently released. Perhaps with the lingering depression, the Second World War and the beginnings of the Cold War, moviegoers were asking questions and expecting more from moviemakers. And some producers and directors actually came up with some original answers.
Here, in order, are my favorite movies of that decade:
(1) The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946): Based on the popular James Cain novel, the movie is much better than the book. The forgotten John Garfield and unforgettable Lana Turner playing disturbed individuals give powerful and steamy performances. The boredom and seediness of unhappy working class individuals (a role in which Turner surprisingly fits into) is magnificently portrayed.
(2) All the King’s Men (1949): Broderick Crawford is the best at playing the hard hearted villain. This fictionalized portrait of Huey Long is not meant for admirers of the great populist, but it does show both the good and the bad of the Louisiana governor. I’ve never cared for the ending in either the book or the movie, however; the moviemakers seem to have only mild regret for an assassination of an elected official.
(3) Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948): Based on a novel written by the anarchist, B. Traven, and directed by the great John Huston, this movie shows Bogart going from a tough working man stiff to a paranoid and pathetic loser who has been driven mad by his greed for gold. The famous line before Bogart is about to meet his end (“Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!") has been repeated ad nauseam by people trying to showoff their knowledge of movies.
(4) Lifeboat (1944): My favorite Hitchcock movie, it all takes place with a bunch of shipwrecked survivors in a rowboat. One of the survivors happens to be a Nazi, but we only find out about that later. It’s based on a Steinbeck story showing his typical emphasis (and perhaps overstatement) on the lousy treatment dished out to the lower classes. Somehow Tallulah Bankhead never runs out of makeup and keeps looking good, despite the many days of exposure to the elements.
(5) Body and Soul: As in most boxing movies, the fight scenes are not convincing. However, Garfield is believable on the outside of the ring as a gritty fighter who will do what’s needed to become champion (including cheat). His newly found integrity at the end of the movie also proves to be his undoing.
(6) Blood on the Moon: One of my favorite westerns of all time and starring one of my favorite actors, Robert Mitchum. Mitchum is great as the good guy with integrity who is tough enough to take on all villains. I’m not much impressed with most fight scenes that take place in the saloons, but the one in this movie is worth watching.
(7) The Big Sleep (1946): Again, this is a great movie based on an inferior book. This first movie matching up Bogart and Bacall is probably their best. Bogart as the Private Investigator Marlow drives everyone crazy with his insistence on finding out the truth. The way he disposes of the villain in the end is telling because it sends a clear message that you don’t mess with this man.
(8) The Grapes of Wrath (1940): It’s understandable why some people think this movie (and the novel) is overrated because it gets to be pretty damn preachy. John Ford’s ability to make the dust bowl era seem real and Henry Fonda’s projection of a likeable ex-con make all the difference.
(9) The Sea Wolf (1941): Adventure movie of the sea based on the Jack London novel, the strange casting of Edward G. Robinson as Wolf Larsen almost doesn’t work. Robinson is not believable as someone who is supposed to be so physically strong, but he projects the philosophical musings and the sadistic impulses of the sailor down perfectly. John Garfield, as the character duped to serve on board with Robinson, is superior to the character in the book because Garfield is believably tough.
(10) Out of the Past (1947): A typical 1940s film noir (love, murder, mystery and betrayal) that is only made better because Robert Mitchum plays the lead.
There are many honorable mentions. The Lost Weekend (1945), a Billy Wilder' movie about alcoholism, if somewhat out of date is at least intelligently made. Sergeant York (1941), if not particularly well acted by Gary Cooper, at least presents an interesting story of a pacifist turned war hero. Key Largo (1948) is another great teaming of Bogart and Bacall, and contains a memorable scene when Edward G. Robinson slaps Bogart several times across the face. Twelve O’Clock High (1949) is probably my favorite war movie to come out of the era, and for once I even like the acting of Gregory Peck. The Wolf Man (1941) is one of my favorite horror movies because I remember it so vividly from when I saw it as a child. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) does an excellent job of filming the Hemingway novel (not nearly as good of a novel as The Sun Also Rises or Farewell to Arms, but still worth reading), but Ingrid Bergman as a peasant girl living with a bunch of rebels in a cave that are engaged in gorilla warfare is a bit of a stretch. Gaslight (1944), Mildred Pierce (1945), and The Razor’s Edge (1946) are all worth watching if you are in the mood for a soap opera.
An obvious significant omission is Citizen Kane (1941). The film technique and use of black and white photography, the point of view of the story telling and the symbolism (Rosebud!) are about all you ever hear when reviewers speak of this movie. The movie reminds me of All the King’s Men except All the King’s Men seems much less self-conscious. There is a good powerful story being presented, but it is paced so slowly that the viewer thinks of the movie as being much longer than two hours. Casablanca (1942) is another omission of note. Bogart plays a decent role as Rick in this movie, but I just don’t believe in Ingrid Bergman as his love interest. She seems much too brittle and flighty to capture Rick’s imagination. Nor do I believe in Paul Henried as the great underground leader. He seems fairly bland. I do like the role played by Claude Rains as Louie, however.
I still would like to see the war movie directed by John Ford, They Were Expendable (1945); Intruder in the Dust (1949), based on the great William Faulkner novel; and try to make my way through the Laurence Olivier Shakespearian roles and see if these movies lived up to all of the hype.
November 20, 2006
© Robert S. Miller 2006
For a decade noted mostly in the American History books for economic good times and paranoia, there actually was much more to talk about. The end of the Korean War, McCarthyism, the Cold War, the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement, the invention of the Hydrogen Bomb, the Beat Movement, the introduction of Rock & Roll, Sputnik, the Baby Boom, Khrushchev’s denouncement of Stalin, the rise of Castro, the execution of the Rosenbergs, Brown v. Board of Education and integration, and the usual problems in the Mid-East took place in the 1950s and were reflected in the kind of movies that we watched.
Whether the most important movie of the decade was Streetcar Named Desire or On the Waterfront, it was a movie directed by Elia Kazan. Kazan, by the way, testified on behalf of the UnAmerican Activities Commission and pointed the finger at many fellow individuals in the movie industry. That justification of this act became the impetus for On the Waterfront, a movie that otherwise seemed well made, adds only to the strangeness of the political climate in which these movies were created.
The 1950s was actually a great decade for movie experimentation. The Sci-Fi thrillers like The Incredible Shrinking Man or the Godzilla movies brought over from Japan, movies aimed squarely at the problems of teens like The Wild One, The Blackboard Jungle and Rebel Without a Cause, and hard-hitting murder mysteries with political overtones like Compulsion, Night of the Hunter and Kiss Me Deadly were all excellent movies that introduced new genres and created a series of extremely bad imitations.
Here, in order, are my favorite movies of that decade:
(1) A Streetcar Named Desire (1951): Everything comes together to make this one of the greatest movies of all time. There’s great acting (Marlon Brando in his first starring role and Vivien Leigh in her last great performance), a tremendous story (based on the play by Tennessee Williams), and outstanding direction (Elia Kazan before he sold out). Brando as the savage Stanley Kowalski and Leigh as the fragile Blanche DuBois share a tenement together when they shouldn’t even remain together in Louisiana. Don’t watch this if you’re looking for some light entertainment.
(2) Rebel Without a Cause (1955): Though I’ve seen this movie several times, I’m always struck by how bizarre it is. We see James Dean as a drunken teenager smiling at a flower; a high school class on a field trip watches a simulation of the universe exploding; we have a knife fight outside of a planetarium; a chicken run takes place high up in the Hollywood hills; there’s a shootout in a Beverly Hills mansion; and we have Jim Backus wearing a kitchen apron to symbolize how he’s been neutered. James Dean completely overacts in this one, but the movie works.
(3) Night of the Hunter (1955): Robert Mitchum as a deranged religious fanatic can never be outdone for creepiness. (However, Mitchum almost equals this performance a few years later as the ex-con in the original Cape Fear.) To show how far he can go, Mitchum goes after some orphans for money allegedly stolen by their father – all in the name of God.
(4) East of Eden (1955): While others in the movie industry were out of work, Elia Kazan directed his third great movie of the decade. It’s extremely ironic that the greatest depiction in movie history of a novel by John Steinbeck (a writer long renowned for his leftist leanings) should be credited to a star witness of Joseph McCarthy. James Dean plays his greatest role.
(5) Seven Samurai (1954): Probably the most famous movie ever made that required subtitles. This Japanese movie directed by Kurosawa is like a great western – only the warriors fight with Samurai swords and are more than one-dimensional characters.
(6) Paths of Glory (1957): Stanley Kubrick’s first great film, it’s about three French soldiers tried and executed for refusing to fight for a commander who fired on them to make them advance during World War I. Kirk Douglas does a marginal job of acting while playing the lawyer who defends the men, but the story is so powerful that it really doesn’t matter.
(7) Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956): This Rod Serling production was made for television and filmed live in studio on what must have been an extremely small budget. Starring Jack Palance, it is far superior to that of the Hollywood version later released starring Anthony Quinn. Palance plays a tough boxer who is now a “has been” and who is no longer welcome to fight in the ring. His trainer played by Ed Wynn (the man who used to appear in the Cracker Jack commercials - and whose acting in this movie is extraordinary) is one of the few people who can see the self-worth hidden behind all of the scars of the ex-boxer.
(8) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958): “Lies and mendacity!” Burl Ives line in this movie loudly projects what the Tennessee Williams play was all about. Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor are the pretty couple that spend most of the movie yelling at each other, and they do a good enough job in support to allow Ives to take over the entire show.
(9) The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957): This is one of the most remarkably strange science fiction movies ever made, and it’s all about a man who finds himself estranged from the rest of the universe as he shrinks to the size of the atoms around him. The victim, being of a philosophical bent and strong believer in existentialism, achieves a sense of freedom in the end as he has a whole new universe to explore.
(10) Ben Hur (1959): At times, this movie is grubbily sentimental. Fortunately, Charleston Heston as Ben Hur, who is often so bellicose in other movies, tones down his desire to overact. The battle at sea and the chariot race are, of course, probably the best action sequences in any movie ever made. But the death scene of Stephen Boyd as Messala (in agony, he still receives cruel joy by telling Ben Hur that his sister and mother are alive in a leper colony) is what turned this movie for me from a biblical epic to a great movie.
There are too many honorable mentions to describe in detail. The Bridge on the River Kwai is worth watching because of the acting of Alec Guiness as the British Colonel gone mad; Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train presents Robert Walker as the most memorable stalker in movie history; Thunder Road is a low budget movie with Robert Mitchum as the small time bootlegger who attempts to defy the mob and the feds; and The Seventh Seal is Ingmar Bergman’s weird apocalyptic drama about the Black Plague during the middle ages, the second coming of Christ, and a knight’s chess game with death. All About Eve, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Sam Fuller’s Fixed Bayonets are definitely worth watching for very different reasons.
Significant omissions include From Here to Eternity, Sunset Blvd and Twelve Angry Men. Perhaps because these movies were so talked up and I knew so much before seeing them, I couldn’t really enjoy them as much as I hoped. I’ve never thought of Burt Lancaster (From Here to Eternity) as a great actor; William Holden (Sunset Blvd) I’ve enjoyed in some movies and not in others; and Henry Fonda (Twelve Angry Men) is a much better actor when he’s not so preachy.
Of movies I’ve never seen, I would like to see The Big Heat and The Steel Helmet – just to name a couple.
January 3, 2007
© Robert S. Miller 2007
Almost everything the public thought was of any consequence during the 1960s was put onto film. This included the Kennedy/Nixon debates, the civil rights marches in the south and in Washington, D.C., the assassinations of the Kennedy’ brothers (and the shooting of Oswald), scenes from Viet Nam shown nightly on the news, rioting and protest, the moon landing and Woodstock. Unfortunately, we didn’t always learn the right lesson or the lessons learned were somewhat muddled. From the debates we learned that we never wanted to elect a President who was not clean-shaven. The Zapruder film left some people thinking that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and others thinking that JFK was killed by approximately three thousand bullets. Films of war carnage and the burning of draft cards resulted in distrust between the older and younger generations. Rioting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago helped convince much of Middle America that Nixon needed to be in the White House. From the moon landing arose speculation that space travel was a hoax; it also brought about a renewed interest in UFOs. And not many years after Woodstock came the onslaught of Disco.
On the other hand, the confused climate made interest in some excellent movies possible. While we had some fluff with movies like My Fair Lady and Oliver, we had some truly disturbing films like Elmer Gantry or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Instead of Ozzie and Harriet for family drama, we had Long Day’s Journey into Night. Probably the most important movie of the decade was Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. This black comedy, with Peter Sellers playing three different parts, reflected the inability of leadership to deal with the kind of insanity produced by two opposing superpowers that had the technology to obliterate each other and the rest of the world. The otherwise funny lines uttered by the characters came too close to reflecting how many people actually felt.
There doesn’t seem much need to talk in detail about the 1960s since much of its history is so well known. However, some of the movies during this decade are so good that I’m going to dwell on them more than usual (too bad for the reader). So here, in order, are my favorite movies of that decade:
(1) Cool Hand Luke (1967): After cutting the heads off of parking meters in a fit of drunkenness and getting himself sent to a chain gang, Paul Newman as Luke turns around and plays the most unusual sort of Christ-like figure in any movie. An irreverent, uneducated and smart talking southerner who professes to believe in no God, Luke’s inability to follow the rules of the establishment makes him a “natural born world-shaker” to the rest of the prisoners and ends up getting him killed. Despite all of the tragedy, the dialogue of the cast (especially during the egg eating scene) is both hilarious and extremely quotable. George Kennedy is unforgettable in playing off his character against Newman’s. This is my favorite movie of all time.
(2) Elmer Gantry (1960): Very loosely based upon the Sinclair Lewis novel, Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) actually ends up being the sanest character in the whole movie. Jean Simmons is his demented Evangelical partner who literally goes down in apocalyptic flames towards the end of the movie. Rather than a condemnation of the hucksters within the profession (like the novel), this gives a frightening glimpse into the minds of the followers. The movie is an actual improvement upon the book.
(3) Lawrence of Arabia (1962): Peter O’Toole plays one of the most eccentric and complicated characters ever filmed in this biography. It would be an understatement from viewing this movie to say that Lawrence did not exhibit both great and pathological qualities. Even people who know the story about Lawrence would be intrigued by all of the surprises that occur in this movie. At the time this movie was shown, this was only the fourth or fifth movie to win an Oscar for Best Picture that actually deserved the award.
(4) Hud (1963): Even George C. Scott, never impressed with the acting of Paul Newman (nor the acting of anybody else), thought that Newman was brilliant in the character of Hud. Add Patricia Neal as the maid and Melvyn Douglas as the father of Hud, and you have a remarkable tale of decency and debauchery. Using Foot and Mouth disease as the subject for a dramatic plotline makes for a unique storyline. The cattle dying in a pit is merely a sign of the times.
(5) The Hustler (1961): Paul Newman plays the small time pool hustler with world championship talent. Only after the person he cares for the most commits suicide does he develop the sufficient character to shoot his finest game. Piper Laurie plays his alcoholic girlfriend, George C. Scott plays the villainous and corrupt manager, and Jackie Gleason plays the pool sharp, Minnesota Fats – and all play their roles well.
(6) The Wild Bunch (1969): Sam Peckinpah almost brought the genre of westerns to an end by upping the carnage in this strange and ultra violent movie. The obliteration of the women’s temperance movement by gunfire towards the beginning of the movie is only outdone by the killing of the majority of the cast towards the end of the movie. Yet only Peckinpah could turn this into a morality tale about the need for honor and loyalty among gatherings of men.
(7) Bullitt (1968): Steve McQueen as Bullitt was never better than as the tough and incorruptible cop trying to investigate a murder. With a United States Senator trying to meddle with the doings of the investigation and other of San Francisco policemen trying to kiss up to this politician, Bullitt appears to be the only one interested in the truth. The movie contains one of the few car chases worth watching because it actually tells us something about Bullitt and because it shows off almost every attraction in the San Francisco area.
(8) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964): I mentioned this movie above. I’d only add that the reasons given in the storyline for beginning the bombing of Russia (a.k.a., a General discovers that he is impotent) make about as much sense as the justifications for major conflict throughout the world over the last two hundred years.
(9) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968): In many ways, this is a typical Sergio Leone spaghetti western (though all of his westerns are worth watching). It’s Henry Fonda and his cold and lifeless blue eyes (Fonda does not hesitate to blow away a small child who has learned his identity) that make this movie one of the best. Charles Bronson plays the tough hombre who gets his revenge in the end (and the reasons why he wants his revenge become very understandable).
(10) The Dirty Dozen (1967): My only hesitation in including this movie is that it’s been watched too much (I remember first seeing it on television when I was in sixth grade). The incredible ruggedness of Lee Marvin and the rest of the cast make this movie pleasing to watch because the viewer does not have to worry about swallowing any syrupy dialogue. Still, we come to actually care about some of the characters and are sad to see so many of them get killed (especially Jim Brown, who is shot while making his dash across the compound). We also see another side of the worst kind of convicts who will do anything to get out of their cage.
Honorable mentions include Hell is for Heroes (somewhat gritty war movie that at times lags), Midnight Cowboy (our first X-rated Oscar winner that today would be rated PG-13), Cape Fear (Robert Mitchum is perfectly cast as the murderous Max Cady, but the supporting cast is dull), Judgment at Nuremberg (which is just too long), Zorba the Greek (only for the acting of Anthony Quinn) and Days of Wine and Roses (well acted depiction of alcoholism that, however, sometimes feels too tame). For entertainment watch The Great Escape (which sticks very closely to the actual account of this escape – outside of Steve McQueen riding on his motorcycle, which was too good to leave out), The Cincinnati Kid (good role for Edward G. Robinson as the aging card player), and Planet of the Apes (fun for watching Charleston Heston become indignant over his treatment as a human being).
Significant omissions include The Sound of Music (you know going in whether you’re going to like or dislike this movie) and Bonnie and Clyde (sometimes I like the movie, but at other times I’m annoyed that the characters - played by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty - could act so stupidly and still be successful at robbing banks). And as much as I like Dustin Hoffman, I’m probably one of the few people who think that The Graduate is not the significant statement of discontent and nonconformity that it’s made out to be. In fact, sometimes the movie seems “quaint,” and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
Movies I would still like to take a look at include the Beatles’ movies, which I’ve never seen in their entirety. I’d also like to see Tom Jones and Alice’s Restaurant.
January 10, 2007
© Robert S. Miller 2007
October 27, 2006 
