Jezebel (1938)

I Do Believe I’ll Give Room Service A Jangle And Have Them Send Up Some Étouffée

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

The antebellum south of the United States often makes the perfect setting for stories of decadence and doom as history has shown it wasn’t going to last. The Spanish moss hanging in the moonlight, the sounds of mockingbirds in the magnolia to the grand sweeping plantations and even the occasional utterance of Cajun French conjures a world which one can become lost in, but one of which it’s iconic architecture would later become associated with the dark genre of southern gothic in its future state of disrepair. This is the world present within the costume drama Jezebel, of which there are plenty of costumes and plenty of drama.

Bette Davis stars as the headstrong and manipulative southern belle Miss Julie Marsden. Contrary to the film’s title, the character is not actually called Jezebel. Rather this is the name given to her by her Aunt Massey (Fay Bainter) following Miss Julie’s less-than-stellar behaviour. The name is derived from the biblical figure present in Kings I and II, in which Jezebel is portrayed as an evil queen who engages in idolatry and leads men astray. In modern vernacular, a Jezebel is a woman who is regarded as sexually immoral or manipulative. Miss Julie Marsden resides within the upper class of New Orleans circa 1852, a world in which etiquette, dignity, good manners and dress codes are absolutely paramount and taken extremely seriously (“Punctuality is the politeness of kings”). Take the latter dinner scene at the Halcyon plantation (sounds like a ship from a science-fiction movie), tension is gradually created from the gentlemen’s political disagreements as the mood becomes increasingly passive-aggressive yet never is a voice raised. Miss Julie on-the-other-hand is a woman who likes to do as she pleases and gets a kick out of shocking people. From her character’s introduction, Miss Julie chooses to break the rules of the game by arriving at her own party late and wearing inappropriate clothes while shortly afterwards, the symbolism employed by her walking through the city bank to get her fiancé Preston Dillard (Henry Fonda) is on stark display.

The main driver of conflict in the first act of Jezebel is over an infamous red dress which Miss Julie chooses to wear to the Olympus Ball. The expectation of southern society being that only unmarried girls wear white but Miss Julie rebuffs this with her current year argument, “This is 1852, dumpling. 1852, not the dark ages”. No one in the film outright says it, but this is a whore’s dress, one which women wear in the gambling halls, steeped in the colour of both sexual sin and menstrual blood, not appropriate for a young, virginal woman of the upper class. Jezebel was made under the Production Code and the closest anyone gets to making the aforementioned connection is Julie’s rebuttal to Preston’s horrified reaction to the dress, “Are you afraid somebody will take me for one of those girls from Gallatin Street?”. I do find some unintentional humour is derived from the fact that so much hubbub is made from this dress being red, yet the movie is black & white (reminds me of that colourblind gag in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood), however in reality the dress in question was actually bronze. Miss Julie comes to regret her decision to wear the red dress to the ball, but Preston makes her go through with it, forcing her to live out the nightmare she has created. Speaking off moments which straddle the line of the production code, when Preston takes the cane up to Julie’s room to supposedly thrash her, the scene appears to linger on that thought. As Julie tries to play mind games with Preston she glances at the cane four times (with the camera even lingering on it for a mid-shot) as though she’s half expecting him to use the phallic device. As a result, the scene has an almost erotic vibe to it.

The young and dashing Henry Fonda stars as Preston ‘Pres’ Dillard. As common with many of Fonda’s roles, Pres is a man of great dignity and integrity without ever coming off as being obnoxiously righteous (“I think it was Voltaire who said I disagree with everything you say, and I will defend to the death your right to say it”). A southern-born man with a great love of his homeland, Pres Dillard has adopted the attitude of the northern states and is not content with the quo of the south, desiring civic improvements with railroads and sanitation and although he never outright says it, likely to curry public favour, it’s clear he is an abolitionist. In one key scene, he asks the slave Uncle Cato (Lew Payton) to share a drink with him, to which Cato obliges but only if he takes the drink to another room. Pres even later comes to marry a northern woman in the form of Amy (Margaret Lindsay), a woman who doesn’t have the domineering and rambunctious personality of Miss Julie. As a result of these transgressions, Pres is come to be seen as a traitor and the Uncle Tom by his fellow southern men, in particular Buck Cantrell (George Brent).

Buck Cantrell is very much the opposite of Pres. The film’s metaphor for southern interests, the man’s foolish gallantry ends up costing him his life in a duel over a petty disagreement. I hadn’t previously thought much of Brent as an actor but his Clark Gable-like swagger in Jezebel makes him a real show stealer while his interplay with Davis really helps bring out the best in him (the virgin Buck Cantrell vs. the chad Preston Dillard, only joking, both are chads in their own way). The north vs. south dynamic as portrayed through the characters of Pres and Buck (9 years prior to the American Civil War) excludes Jezebel as being part of the Lost Cause narrative even if the film does portray slaves as being content with the status quo. The film does offer one of its funniest comedic moments to one of the black actors with his repeated utterance of “yessum” at Mrs. Kendrick’s (Spring Byington) orders upon their arrival at a party.

Following the film’s first act, Jezebel portrays an America going through a pandemic of yellow fever (or yellow jack as it’s often referred to) as well as being split along ideological and political lines, now doesn’t that sound familiar? In a powerful scene, Pres faints from yellow jack in a bar and all the other men back away from him as fast as they can and cover their mouths, except for Dr. Livingstone (Donald Crisp) who goes over to Pres and asks for one of the men to help him, none of whom are brave enough to go anywhere near the fallen Pres (Livingstone is no social distancing soy boy). Likewise, Livingstone reports Pres as a fever patient to the authorities, resulting in him being taken away to a colony for the unlucky infected known as Lazarette Island, justifying his actions by stating “Have you any idea what would happen to New Orleans now if folks got to thinking there was one law for the rich and another for the poor”. Crucially, in an earlier scene during a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, Pres slaps a mosquito in his hand accompanied by a spike in the music just as this occurs. Is this how Pres caught yellow jack? I’ll let you decide.

Jezebel is often compared to fellow antebellum tale Gone With The Wind and parallels between the two are evident, albeit superficial:

– Julie Marsden /Scarlett O’Hara fall for Preston Dillard/Ashley Wilkes, neither of whom can deal with her behaviour.
– Preston/Ashley decides to marry Amy/Melanie, whom is less hassle.
– Julie/Scarlett corners Preston/Ashley in the garden/smoking room and tries to
convince him of her love.
– Julie/Scarlett lives with her disapproving Aunt Belle/Pitty Pat.
– Julie/Scarlett uses Buck Cantrell/Charles Hamilton to try and make Preston/Ashley jealous.
– Julie/Scarlett wears a red dress to a ball/party and scandalizes herself.
– Julie/Scarlett realizes too late that she is responsible for her own lot (Preston dying/Rhett Butler leaving).
– Julie/Scarlett is determined to make good (escorting Preston/getting Rhett back).

It is worth noting that Jezebel as a property actually predates Gone With The Wind, with Jezebel first debuting on stage in 1933 while Gone With The Wind was first published as a novel in 1936. Could the stage version of Jezebel bared any influence from Gone With The Wind and could the film version of Jezebel have taken any influence from the novel of Gone With The Wind?

Director William Wyler holds one of the most impressive resumes in Hollywood history and Jezebel is another showcase of his craftsmanship, in particular, the extravagance on display in the Olympus Ballroom scene. The magnificent set is shown in 360 degrees from multiple camera angles and it’s clear that big bucks have been spent on this production. Reportedly Wyler would do upwards of 40 takes on individual scenes in Jezebel and when you get results such as the manner in which Davis effortlessly lifts up the end of her dress with a riding crop, it appears the agony was worth it. It is also worth noting as a humorous error in geography emanating from the film’s set design; notice how the bar seen throughout the film has stairs going downwards from its street-level entrance. This is not advisable in New Orleans with the city being below sea level.

Bette Davis is an actress I could never bring myself to consider a personal favourite of mine but her ranking as the American Film Institute’s 2^nd greatest American female star of all time is hard to argue against. I do prefer her in other films such as Kid Galahad or comedies including Its Love I’m After or The Bride Came C.O.D. in which she presents a more endearing side to her persona. Whereas in films such as Jezebel she is much more cold-hearted and presents the dark side of the feminine form, but there’s no doubt she played these roles to the utmost degree of acting prowess. Miss Julie Marsden was a spoiled brat who had no sense of when and when not to pick her battles, and ultimately got what she deserved. Jezebel concludes with Miss Julie convincing Amy not to go to Lazarette Island with Pres, but rather allowing herself to go instead. The film bills this as the redemption of Miss Julie by displaying a sense of grandeur along with Max Steiner’s sweeping music (which in itself is quite moving), but just how selfless is this act? Is Miss Julie truly trying to repent for her actions by making such a sacrifice and risk catching the disease or is she just trying to make a bold, last-ditch effort to win back Pres in the off chance of his survival? It is up to you my friend, the viewer to decide. Now time to bring this review to a conclusion as this flower is wilting!

Midway (1976)

Now, Hop In Your Sushi Boat And Git!

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

Midway is one of the better battle recreation movies to be released in the wake of The Longest Day (1962), detailing the first on-screen recreation of the battle, which was the turning point of the pacific war in this flawed but worthwhile Dubya-Dubya II venture. Universal Studios was the most old-school studio in the 1970s and concurrently Midway is an unashamedly old-school film within the era of New Hollywood and one which plays into the 70’s disaster movie trope of featuring an all-star cast, many of whom were residing in their twilight years. Ensemble pieces of this nature can easily provide an excuse for a cast to phone-it-in but the famed personalities in Midway all do shine even with some players of the cast only getting brief cameos. Much of the film’s roaster were veterans of the war itself including Henry Fonda, Charlton Heston, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Cliff Robertson, Robert Webber, screenwriter Donald S. Sanford and director Jack Smight (something exceedingly rare among contemporary Hollywood).

The king of larger-than-life actors, Charlton Heston leads the picture and portrays one of the characters not based on a historical figure in the role of Matthew Garth (the same name as Montgomery Clift’s character in Red River), and being fictional he is given his big hero moment at the climax of the battle. Of the cameo appearances I feel Cliff Robertson is given the most memorable in which he delivers a great, cynical monologue about the “the wait and see-ers” in relation to the warnings given in the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, while Robert Mitchum provides some welcome comic relief as the agitated hospital patient William F. “Bull” Halsey Jr (“I know, I’m a son of a b**** of a patient”). I also find it humorous that Joseph Rochefort (Hal Holbrook) wears a dressing gown over his army uniform and Captain Gareth does ask a “very personal” question in regards to the hygiene of him and his men (“You know, it really stinks down here. How often do some of your people take a bath?”). However, the most memorable piece of casting in Midway would have to be that of Japan’s Japan’s all time greatest film star, Toshiro Mifune as Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (the third film in which he has portrayed the famed Japanese admiral). Reportedly Mifune’s Japanese accent when speaking English was so thick that his lines had to be dubbed by actor Paul Frees yet regardless, his sheer physical presence alone does bring a great sense of weight to his scenes. I do wish however the film had the Japanese characters actually speak Japanese rather than English. Come on, we’re big boys, we can read a few subtitles. It also doesn’t help that many of the Asian actors in these scenes have obvious American accents.

Much of Midway plays out as men of authority talk battle tactics over giant maps, feeling like a giant game of chess between both sides as we are given much background insight into the decoding methods employed prior to the battle. These scenes are among the best directed in the film with the layers of texture and effective use of interior space. Likewise, very little new combat material was filmed for Midway with footage taken from Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Battle of Britain (1969) and Storm Over the Pacific (Hawai Middouei daikaikusen: Taiheiyo no arashi), the latter of which was made 16 years prior (and also starred Toshiro Mifune). I do love the shot of the Imperial Japanese flag over the upper half of a battleship in the background, only to be disappointed to find out its footage taken from another movie. There is an obvious change in grain structure with this footage although it’s not overly jarring and I have seen worse examples. I am left with spilt feelings on the film’s use of actual combat footage taken from the Battle of Midway itself. On one hand, it completely contrasts with the newly filmed footage but perhaps an argument can be made that it’s taking the documentary-like aspect of the film to its logical endpoint by using actual footage from the battle. The battle itself does feel drawn out and repetitive and is clearly edited around the Sensurround system (which was the big selling point in the film’s promotion), with the same angle shots of pilots flying planes used repeatedly and an overreliance on the use of subtitles to identify locations, ships, squadrons and individuals.

The other major topic Midway explores is the US government’s internment of Japanese-Americans during the war (“execute order 9066”). I enjoyed the subplot involving Gareth’s son Thomas (Edward Albert) having fallen in love with a Japanese-American girl named Haruko Sakura (Christina Kokubo), of whom her family is being interned in Honolulu over their membership of so called Japanese Patriotic Organizations and the owning of subversive magazines (“Damn it, I’m an American! What makes up different from German-Americans or Italian-Americans?”). However I do wish this subplot could have been explored in greater depth as the film only scratches the surfaces of the subject matter nor is the sub-plot given a proper resolution as come the film’s end Haruko sees an injured Tom coming off the boat on a stretcher, but that’s it.

In 1978 a TV version of Midway was broadcast in which newly filmed scenes were added to the film. This TV version inserts an entire section detailing the Coral Sea Battle of which the newly filmed footage is competently made but just feels like filler (and still includes a large amount of stock footage). Also included in this version are scenes in which Charlton Heston reprises his role as Captain Gareth in a relationship with a woman named Ann (Susan Sullivan) who is never mentioned in the original film. These scenes are very cheesy and shot in a manner that is more televisual than cinematic but more significantly, they do not contribute to the narrative or enhance the final demise of Gareth. The final inclusions in this version are two scenes involving the Japanese commanders, the first of which is actually a terrific addition to the film. In the scene, James Shigeta reprises his role as Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo in which he speaks to the son of Yamamoto who he expresses doubts that Japan is fighting a war they cannot win as the two walk through some striking historical Japanese architecture (of which the film states is Nagumo’s residence in Tokyo). The direction and acting of this scene is top-notch and help further humanize the Japanese side in the one worthwhile addition in the TV version. I can’t say the same however for the second of these two scenes as the latter by contrast is poorly directed in which two Japanese commanders react to the defeat at the Coral Sea – a simple static and very bland shot. Midway is already a flawed film as it is and these extra additions (bar the one aforementioned scene) really don’t help matters, with Henry Fonda not even showing up until 57 minutes in. The TV version of Midway is included in the 2021 Powerhouse Films Blu-ray release.

Throughout Midway the American soldiers use the pejorative term “Jap”, yet the film portrays a mutual respect for enemies among the high ranks of both the US and Japanese militaries. Yamamoto speaks of how “I have travelled widely in America, my friends. Their industrial might is awesome” while Admiral Nimitz (Henry Fonda) concludes following the battle, “It doesn’t make any sense, admiral. Yamamoto had everything going for him. Power, experience, confidence. We’re we better than the Japanese, or just luckier?”. Despite being a picture detailing a Japanese military loss, Midway was a big hit in Japan. It is not a jingoistic film and treats both sides in a fair and dignified manner, perhaps nowhere more so than Yamamoto’s final appearance in which he accepts responsibility for the loss and states “I am the only one who must apologize to his majesty”.

Rollercoaster (1977)

Big Boy, Big Boy!

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

Just how many films exist which are centered on rollercoasters? – Unfortunately, exceedingly few. Well, that’s where the aptly titled Rollercoaster comes into play. Rollercoasters and theme parks, in general, have been a fascination of mine since childhood with all those hours spent sitting at the computer playing Rollercoaster Tycoon (ah, good times). Even the ending of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms had me disappointed when that lovely rollercoaster was set on fire in order to kill the creature. I can happily sit all day and watch nicely shot and edited footage of theme parks as well as POV footage of Rollercoasters of which this 70’s thriller has in plenty supply.

Rollercoaster is often mischaracterized as a disaster movie and while it does feature that 70’s disaster movie motif of having an all-star cast, the only disaster occurs at the beginning of the film in which a bomb is detonated on an active rollercoaster (shot at Ocean View Amusement Park, Virginia). This leads to a very well staged and brutal sequence in which carriage goes off track and bodies are seen being crushed on screen, albeit very briefly. Throughout the remainder of the film, the killer in question is threatening disaster rather than having disaster play out. Rollercoaster is also one of several films in the 1970s to feature Sensurround, a process to give the viewer a sense of vibration. This along with the film’s ties to the disaster genre gives the impression Rollercoaster is going to be a gimmicky picture however it’s a stronger film than its exterior would indicate. Rollercoaster is a Hitchcockian, cat & mouse thriller which if anything owes more to Jaws than the disaster movie genre (both films feature July 4^th as a major element in their plots). Rollercoaster also makes a worthy companion piece to fellow terrorist thriller from 1977, Black Sunday, which both explore how public attractions can’t just be shut down due to terror threats. Likewise, it goes without saying that in the 21^st century no company would allow their brand to be featured in a film in which their product is at the basis of a terrorist attack while the plot itself would be less likely to occur in today’s surveillance world.

No motive is given to the killer played by Timothy Bottoms (simply billed as the “Young Man” in the end credits), however, the character comes off more frightening this way than if he was given a clear motive (see Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets for a similar villain). In one scene the Young Man is shooting with precision at a fairground range and is asked by the carnie if he is ex-military to which the Young Man gives no response. Could he be a Vietnam veteran? – Along with his knowledge of explosives, the movie leaves such a reading open. The relationship between the hero Harry Calder (George Segal) and villain in Rollercoaster takes place over audio channels as they never encounter each other face to face until the end. This dynamic would later become commonplace in action films such as Die Hard or Speed, but Rollercoaster is the earliest film I’m aware of to feature this trope. In retrospect, I feel Bottoms gives the strongest performance in the film. He has a cold, calculating menace to him and even manages to do a lot with his eyes and tone of voice. Timothy Bottoms would later go onto portray U.S President George W. Bush a total of 4 times, and once you know that you can’t unsee it.

The middle portion of Rollercoaster involves a lengthy sequence of mind games at King’s Dominion Park, Virginia, in which the Young Man orders Harry to perform a series of tasks including wearing a funny hat and going on various rides (including one titled Vertigo – a little Hitchcock reference?) in order to transfer a briefcase containing a cash ransom. It’s a very well constructed piece of suspense similar in vain to the Simon Says series of mind games in Die Hard With A Vengeance (not to mention that camera trick they pull off on the Rebel Yell rollercoaster is a real shocker).

So who is that band featured in Rollercoaster playing at the film’s finale in Six Flags Magic Mountain on the 4^th of July? They’re called Sparks, a respected music act from what I gather despite their resemblance to an 80’s hair metal band as seen in the film. Their song Big Boy is played as a bomb squad is attempting to find and disable an explosive on the rollercoaster and on first viewing, it feels like the song is on loop for a comically absurd amount of time, even with several intervals in which the film cuts to other scenes in which the song is not played. When watching the film again and timing how long the song is actually played for it only lasts 5 minutes but on first viewing, I could swear it felt more like 20 minutes (good tune though). The roller coaster featured in film’s climax is the Revolution at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California which opened the year prior in 1976 and is the first rollercoaster in the world to feature a complete 360-degree vertical loop. The score by Lalo Schifrin on the other hand is surprisingly varied. The carnival motifs are original pieces composed for the film and not just lifted stock music, and like any carnival music, its one part joyous and the other part sinister. The score also occasionally transitions into the style of Bernard Hermann’s Psycho score and even throws some nice blaxploitation style funk into the mix at the beginning of the Magic Mountain sequence.

The film’s writers Richard Levinson and William Link were primarily involved writing for TV, thus Rollercoaster does have a made-for-TV vibe to it which it can’t quite shake off. The plot itself does sound the type of premise which would be the basis for a TV movie and unlikely to make it to cinematic A-picture. The characters themselves in Rollercoaster are only surface-level interesting but the plot has enough intrigue to keep it engaging. George Segal is likeable as everyman Harry Caulder who gets caught up in the Hitchcock tradition of an ordinary man getting trapped in an extraordinary situation. He is also given an odd but memorable introduction seen trying to give up smoking via Clockwork Orange style methods. Likewise, the always cool Richard Widmark does his reliable thing however I’m just disappointed Henry Fonda’s role in the film barely goes beyond a cameo. Fonda’s part could have provided some entertaining comic relief with the antagonist relationship he shares with George Segal by popping up now and then but instead only appears in two scenes and is clearly phoning in his performance – the part must have been a quick pay-cheque. Regardless of shortcomings, for now, Rollercoaster is probably the best film in the not so contested category of best rollercoaster film of all time.

The Mad Miss Manton (1938)

Manhattan Murder Mystery

Melsa Manton (Barbara Stanwyck) and her ilk of rich, bored socialites use Manhattan as their playground similarly to the wealthy socialites in My Man Godfrey, using the city for bizarre escapades such as sleuthing in the middle of the night and all while still dressing to impress at the same time in The Mad Miss Manton. Stanwyck’s enthusiasm alone is infectious and the quick-fire interactions of the girls are one of the film’s highlights (“I was never much of an individualist, if the upstairs has to be searched we search it together – why that’s communism!”). They even partake in a number of Scooby-Doo like moments, in particular actions reminiscent of the character Shaggy, i.e. making a sandwich in the kitchen when sleuthing in a trespassed apartment. The other memorable addition to the cast is the sarcastic, wisecracking Hattie McDaniel who takes no nonsense from anyone and has a comeback to everything despite her socio-economic status (“Comes a revolution and we’ll start being exploited by our help”).

Francis Mercer is real dead ringer for Gail Patrick

Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda – one true pair if there ever was one. Their chemistry makes it more believable that Peter Ames (Fonda) with his dorky bow tie would fall head over heels for this spoiled Park Avenue princess who is trying to sue him for a million dollars over an editorial. He is even driven to the point in which he casually imposes marriage on her. Henry Fonda isn’t given enough credit for his comic abilities, in particular, the scene in which he fakes his own deathbed in order to extract information from Miss Manton. In one scene Fonda is even seen holding a knife, in the same manner he would years later in 12 Angry Men.

The Mad Miss Manton was one of many films throughout the 1930’s which attempted to get a piece of that Thin Man pie. The formula of the 1934 comedy-mystery romp was an effective one and could easily be recreated with low budgets. It doesn’t matter that the mystery in The Mad Miss Manton is incomprehensible. The comedy and the atmosphere are what makes the movie, of which the picture succeeds in creating with the high contrast, film noir-like lighting during the sleuthing sequences (especially with the sequence in the subway) even though the film is visibly a low budget production.

Madigan (1968)

Bad Cops, Bad Cops

Madigan is my kind of cop movie. Everything about it feels so quintessentially classic. All the tropes are there from the officer who doesn’t play by the book, police corruption, guys in suits who show off their identification, one-liners galore and all this aided by the aura of cool which film-noir icon Richard Widmark brings to the screen – plus is there a more cop name than Madigan?

Many of the men in Madigan wear suits and fedoras with this being the late 60’s and the final days in which it was common for working men to do so; although there is a sense of New Hollywood creeping in with the film’s villain appearing in that 1970’s mould along with various snippets of once-taboo subject matter. Madigan is also one of the best uses of location in film; I haven’t seen another film in which the grit and grime of the New York streets have been captured so vividly in this neo-realistic record of NYC in the late 1960’s.

11 Days Already! Hooray!

The opening credits of Madigan are a fantastic montage of New York in the early hours of the morning. This should come as no surprise as director Don Siegel had been a montage editor before becoming a director. I could happily have this movie playing in the background just to listen to the music as the score by Don Costa itself is one of the most underrated film scores I’ve heard; it’s so motivating and makes you want to go and kick some ass.

Much of my appreciation of Madigan is due to the film’s aesthetics. The film’s main plot and many subplots are good if not entirely exception, primarily the tension between Henry Fonda as the commissioner who “likes the book” and spends his day at superficial social events to promote the image of the force and works from behind a desk versus the unethical Madigan trying the catch crooks on the street. Siegel would go on to do better in Dirty Harry three years later but dam does Madigan have some fine aesthetics.

The Best Man (1964)

With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility

The Best Man can be boiled down to one simple reality; politics is a phoney sham in which image matters over actual policy – I mean who knew right? The Best Man is a look at what goes on behind closed doors away from the pomp and flair of the convention arena. This stands in ironic comparison to the dignified slideshow of all then 36 US presidents over the opening credits.

The Best Man is a film which doesn’t hold much appeal beyond the politics geeks like myself, although does offer a lot of insight to sink your political teeth into. Writer Gore Vidal clearly knew his political insight and this really comes through in the writing. Every other line of dialogue brings up thought-provoking talking points of political insight (“No girls in the white house” – did Vidal know something about JFK?) as two presidential candidates fight for the endorsement of a former president (Lee Tracy) in this dirty game of chess.

No party is mentioned in the film although it is more than likely the party featured are the Democrats due Vidal’s ties to the party and with the play in which the film was based on being widely recognised as a parallel to the 1960 Democratic convention. Another hint this is the Democratic Party is the southern influence present at the convention (Democrats still dominated the south in the 1960s) from the brief shot of a woman in the convention waving a confederate flag to the former President positively referencing the confederacy.

Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson) is a more conservative democrat running on an anti-communist platform from the days when conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans existed. The man wants to lower taxes, increase military spending and is for state’s rights. Reportedly the ethically dubious and ruthless character was based on Richard Nixon – he even goes as far blackmailing the former president for the endorsement.

The liberal counterpoint to the conservative and strong-minded Cantwell is the liberal William Russell (Henry Fonda); a candidate tainted by extramarital affairs, a nervous breakdown and a demonstrated inability to take decisive action. It is even hinted that Russell may be an atheist based upon his comment regarding human’s animal descent only for one of his advisors to state, “No mention of Darwin, before The Garden of Eden was the world”. The Best Man does offer some comic relief however in the form of Ann Southern as Mrs Gamage, a loud-mouthed, feminist type, pestering Russell that he doesn’t appeal to the female vote.

“Russell’s Got Muscle”

Eventually, Russell, against his will blackmails Cantwell with info outing him as a homosexual. The word homosexual is not used as first but it’s more than apparent that’s the accusation levelled against Cantwell (“What we called when I was a boy, a degenerate”). The film does, however, drop the word homosexual later on, surely one of the earliest films to do so. The Best Man was itself released on an election year and one of several political movies to be essential viewing for anyone running who is for office.

The Fondathon Has Arrived!

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The Fondathon has arrived! A big thank you to everyone who took part. We look forward to reading your entries. Please check back over the next three days as I will be updating the blogathon as participants post their entries.

Please be sure to leave comments on the participant’s blogs. I’m sure they will enjoy the feedback!

I will be hosting another blogathon in the not too distant future, so stay tuned for details!

The Entries (In Alphabetical Order):

It Came From the Man Cave!: 9 to 5 (1980)

The Wonderful World of Cinema: 12 Angry Men (1957)

The Flapper Dame: The Big Street (1942)

The Midnite Drive-In: Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974) & Race with the Devil (1975)

Realweegiemidget Reviews: Easy Rider (1969)

Sat In Your Lap: The Electric Horseman (1979)

The Pure Entertainment Preservation Society: Jezebel (1938)

Musings of a Classic Film Addict: Let Us Live (1939)

In The Good Old Days Of Classic Hollywood: The Lady Eve (1941) & Barefoot In the Park (1967)

Dubism: Mister Roberts (1955)

Silver Screenings: My Darling Clementine (1946)

Thoughts All Sorts: Once Upon a Time In the West (1968)

Overture Books and Film: Rings On Her Fingers (1942)

Pop Culture Reverie: Shag (1989)

The Story Enthusiast: Sunday In New York (1963)

Movierob: The Tin Star (1957), Klute (1971) & Ulee’s Gold (1997)

portraitsbyjenni: Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)

Announcing The Fondathon!

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Update: All entries can be read here!

The Fondas are an acting dynasty headed by patriarch Henry Fonda (1905-1982) who’s children Jane and Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda and grandson Troy Garity all became actors.

-For this blogathon please write about any film or TV show starring any of the Fondas or any topic relating to them.

-No more than two duplicates on any film or TV show will be allowed.

-To participate please comment along with the URL and name of your blog, and the subject you wish to cover of course. Or if you desire you can email the same details to me via mmallon4@gmail.com. Once your topic is approved please take one of the banners below and add it to your blog.

Date: February 1st – 3rd, 2019. Please submit your entries on these dates. I look forward to you joining in February!

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The Roster:

Sat In Your Lap: The Electric Horseman (1979)

The Pure Entertainment Preservation Society: Jezebel (1938)

Silver Screenings: My Darling Clementine (1946)

In The Good Old Days Of Classic Hollywood: The Lady Eve (1941) & Barefoot In the Park (1967)

portraitsbyjenni: Yours, Mine and Ours (1968)

The Story Enthusiast: Sunday In New York (1963)

Realweegiemidget Reviews: Easy Rider (1969)

Dubism: Mister Roberts (1955)

Thoughts All Sorts: Once Upon a Time In the West (1968)

The Wonderful World of Cinema: 12 Angry Men (1957)

It Came From the Man Cave!: 9 to 5 (1980)

Movierob: The Tin Star (1957), Klute (1971) & Ulee’s Gold (1997)

The Midnite Drive-In: Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974) & Race with the Devil (1975)

Musings of a Classic Film Addict: Let Us Live (1939)

The Flapper Dame: The Big Street (1942)

Overture Books and Film: Rings On Her Fingers (1942)

Pop Culture Reverie: Shag (1989)

The Grapes Of Wrath (1940)

California, Super Cool To The Homeless

The Grapes of Wrath was impressively released less than a year following the release of the novel and yet within this short timeframe director John Ford crafted one of the greatest motion pictures ever made. A number of John Ford’s movies have that foreign film feel – a feeling of very raw, lifelike emotion. The Grapes of Warth itself is one of the most emotionally draining films of all time with one scene after another drawing up such feelings of pity; everything is rough, dirty nor is there makeup on any of the actors. Just take the scene in which the depression-ridden Joad family on their way to California attempt to buy bread from a dinner (a scene which really puts the value of money in perspective) – The emotion is one part humility and the other part pathetic.

Yokels, rednecks, hillbillies – everyone’s favourite punching bag. The Grapes of Wrath doesn’t look down America’s uneducated, rural white folk nor presents them as a caricature but that still doesn’t change the fact that none of the Joad clan are the sharpest tools in the shed nor don’t understand how the outside world works. Just as we are introduced to the family the youngest daughter Rosasharn is pregnant and married when still a teen while the family is dirt poor and huge as it is.

Henry Fonda’s performance as Tom Joad may be the pinnacle of his acting career. His stone face alongside the laid-back manner in which he walked and talked is mesmerising yet Joad is not someone I would fancy being in the vicinity off. Fonda’s performance has a sinister edge to it and a sense of barely restrained violence. His proclamation to the truck driver near the beginning of the film when telling him the reason he was in prison, a simple uttering of “homicide” could come straight out of a horror movie. Jane Darwell on the other hand as Ma Joad is the other great scene stealer with her hauntingly sombre, tour-de-force performance as a character with one ultimate aim – keeping the fambly together.

The amazing landscape shots, use of German expressionism and high contrast lighting give way for such unforgettable images from a car light driving along the horizon to silhouettes walking across a hill, thanks to cinematographer Gregg Toland. Take the scene at the campsite in which the characters discuss their present situation; it’s so dreamlike with the odd, unnatural angles, it couldn’t be more mesmerising. I also recommend watching the South Park episode Over Logging which parodies this scene (and the movie as a whole), right down to the black & white cinematography.

Once the Joads arrive at the Farmworkers’ Wheat Patch run by the Department of Agriculture it is a temporary relief to see something good happen to the family, after all, they have been through. When The Grapes of Wrath was released in 1940, the US Secretary of Agriculture was Henry A. Wallace, whom that same year was running for Vice President with Franklin D. Roosevelt; a message of support for FDR and the New Deal no doubt? At the government camp they are greeted by a seemingly genuine, honest man who looks like FDR and tells them they have washtubs with running water; a world away from the corporate run camps the Joads took residence earlier in the film – all sounds too good to be true? The government is the solution to the Joad’s problems (temporally at least as they end up leaving at a later point), nor at any point in the film do we see any charitable organisations out to help the poor. It’s fairly obvious that The Grapes of Wrath doesn’t exactly lean to the right of politics; evil bankers running people off their land, corrupt police, capitalists treating people like dogs, total collapse of the free market, socialist camp run by the government is only decent place to be in which cops are not allowed to lines of dialogue such as “people are going to win rich, people are going to die”. – A world of oppressor and the oppressed if there ever existed one. Regardless of one’s politics, I still contend The Grapes of Wrath to be one of the most emotionally draining films in all of cinema.

The Wrong Man (1956)

Manny Balestrero Dindu Nuffin

***This Review Contains Spoilers***

The Wrong Man is based on the true story of Christopher Emmanuel “Manny” Balestrero (Henry Fonda), who was arrested in 1953 after being mistaken for an armed robber. Like in the other Henry Fonda film 12 Angry Men, The Wrong Man is also an examination of the flaws in human cognition – in this case, the issue of faulty eyewitness testimony. However, this isn’t actually Fonda’s first film on the subject matter. Previously he starred in 1939’s Let Us Live, another film about a man who is falsely arrested due to poor eyewitness testimony. Both films differ greatly in their plot structure and characters but surprisingly the one thing they share in common other than the subject matter and the lead actor is interestingly enough, an emphasis on Catholicism. It remains to be seen however if Alfred Hitchcock looked at Let Us Live as a source of inspiration for The Wrong Man.

The Wrong Man is absent of any Alfred Hitchcock or Hollywood artifice but rather the movie has that European, neo-realism feel. A film which really captures the urban landscape in all its glory which is only enhanced more by the sounds of the city and the jazz music score; a hallmark which really characterises noir in this period with films such as The Sweet Smell of Success. Likewise, the film has several shots really worth examining from Fonda walking through the doorway of his house and closing a door we the viewer never see to the zoom through the open slit in the prison door onto Fonda and then back out again.

The Wrong Man has no witty dialogue or Roger O’Thornhill style adventures to capture the real culprits. Rather Hitchcock creates something which is oppressively real. A story which really gets under your skin, questions your faith in the criminal justice system, arises your inner skeptic and makes you ask: what if this happened to me? The Wrong Man does as effective a job as possible in both showing and making us feel the degradation Manny Balesterero goes through. In my mind there existed the doubt that Manny really did commit the crime but such a crazy plot twist never comes to fruition.

During the scene early in the film in which Manny visits the Insurance Company Office and the woman at the booth goes over to her work colleagues and asks them to look at the man standing over there in which they all agree he is the man who robbed them months earlier is an example of what we would now refer to as confirmation bias. It this scene an unintentional representation of this or did Hitchcock have knowledge of this phenomenon (the term itself wasn’t coined until 1960).

Some of the elements of the criminal procedure shown in The Wrong Man would not be permissible today; subjects being arrested without being given the Miranda Rights or informed of the crime they are suspected off, interviews being conducted without a written or taped recording being kept, two witnesses allowed to be present together during an identification parade. Manny is even denied the formality of letting his wife know where he’s going despite literally being in the house he is right outside off: would that even have been allowed at the time? Likewise, notice how the friendly cops keep referring to Manny as Chris. The name on his license if Christopher Emmanual Balestrero thus they assume he is called Chris. – The Wrong Man is full of little details like this.

On a lighter note though, what is up with the Balestrero’s two kids? “We ought to get two music lessons today because we didn’t get any yesterday” – You’re father was just in prison yesterday child, cut him some slack. Likewise in another scene on the kids answers the phone and just puts it down and when his mother asks who it was he just says “it was some man, he didn’t say” – stupid kids.

When Manny is at the police station being questioned by two cops he is made to write down on a piece of paper the words from a note the robber had written himself. The results show that Manny’s handwriting is similar to that found on the note (although the cops don’t hold this against him as they state people tend to write in a similar manner when using upper case) but also that Manny misspells the word “drawer” as “draw” in the same manner that the criminal did on the original note. Surely this is a flawed piece of evidence? Firstly a real criminal could take advantage of the situation and alter his handwriting. Secondly, the officer reading out the note to Manny has a heavy accent and made his pronunciation sound like “draw” not to mention the actual note he is reading from says “draw” and not “drawer” which could have affected his pronunciation a very subtle, subconscious way. Not to mention there is something very suspicious about the way the two cops handle the notes as they hand them back and forth between each other.

The courtroom scene in The Wrong Man is itself chilling. People are chatting, walking in and out, bored, dozing off, the jury is disinterested and Manny’s lawyer appears to just ask the witnesses stupid questions which lead nowhere. Manny’s entire future is on the line yet nobody seems to care. Regardless the real criminal gets caught and Balestrero is acquitted. However, the Fonda “lookalike” does not resemble Fonda and looks far more thuggish other than having the same face shape and cheekbones (in the real-life case Balestrero and the actual criminal looked far more alike). The last appearance of those two smarmy women who first identified Manny at the police station, making no apology to Manny when they see him after his exoneration for all that has happened to him and his family. I always had a bad feeling about them since their very first appearance.