Reeling Backward: "Harry and Tonto" (1974)

Jack Nicholson did not win the Best Actor Oscar for "Chinatown." Nor did Al Pacino for  "The Godfather Part II." Or Dustin Hoffman for "Lenny." Or Albert Finney for "Murder on the Orient Express."

No, the golden statuette went to stage and TV actor Art Carney, then best known as Jackie Gleason's dimwitted sidekick Norton on "The Honeymooners." He played elderly ex-teacher Harry Coombes, evicted from his rent-controlled New York City apartment, briefly ensconced at his son's middle-class suburban home and then off on a destination-less journey westward accompanied only by his tabby cat, Tonto.

In keeping with the tropes of the road picture, there's not much rhyme or reason to Harry's journeys, other than discovering new places and people. The plot is more or less determined by his encounters, some of them profound, some of them merely amusing, a few depressing. Carney carries the picture as a man of structure who finds that he's grown tired of his confines, and yearns to ramble.

(I do feel compelled to point out that Carney was actually only 55 when the movie came out, playing 70-something Harry. As a result, he became one of those actors, like Alec Guinness and Wilford Brimley, who was actually much younger than the populace thought the was. Carney rode the success of "Harry and Tonto" to a couple more decades of busyness in Hollywood in "old man" roles.)

Director and co-writer Paul Mazursky (with Josh Greenfeld) made movies that were largely about the in-between spaces that most films skip over. He seemed less interested in the big clanging events in life than what happens right before, or after.

His recent passing, along with that of Robin Williams, prompts me to recall the lovely "Moscow on the Hudson," about a gentle Russian who defects to the West. Mazursky was a strange species in Hollywood, an animal who could effortlessly swim in the intersecting tides of sadness, drama and laughter without ever seeming like he was stretching for an emotional crescendo that wasn't there.

His films also eschewed easy stereotypes and simplistic characterizations. Take Harry's eldest son, Burt (Phil Bruns), who takes in his dad after he is forcibly evicted from his apartment so it can be torn down for a parking garage. Normally this sort of guy is used in the  movies as a demonstration of middle-class desperation, the hard-working "family man" who finds himself estranged from his loved ones and bereft of his youthful passions. But while clearly high-strung, especially about the fates of his own young adult boys, Burt is portrayed as a loving son who looks out for Harry and genuinely cares about him, even if he can't fathom his motivations.

I also admired the depiction of Harry's grandson Norman (played by Joshua Mostel, Zero's boy), a gentle young man who is experimenting with various aspects of youth culture, including a vow of silence and mild-altering drugs. Harry, forced to share a room with the boy, is entirely non-judgmental about Norman's choices, even asking to borrow the books he's reading so he can better relate to the younger generation.

But ultimately Harry decides it's time for him to move on, especially after his best (only?) friend dies, a Polish radical, Jacob (Herbert Berghof), who angrily dismisses everyone he dislikes as a "capitalist bastard" -- even his own father. Harry's only real social structure was going to the store for groceries and treats for Tonto, good-natured banter with his fellow senior apartment dwellers and park bench conversations with Jacob.

Harry plans to visit his daughter in Chicago (Ellen Burstyn), but refuses to go through security at the airport when they want to X-ray Tonto's pet carrier. Similarly, a bus drive ends abruptly due to more Tonto troubles, so he buys an old jalopy for $250 and commences the road portion of the trip. Along the way he picks up a teen runaway (Melanie Mayron), who embarrasses him by revealing her breasts upon emerging from their hotel shower.

Other adventures include meeting a man who sells New Age-y medicinal health food (and blenders); a drunken stroll through a Las Vegas casino, where he brings an epic win streak to an end; a night in jail with an American Indian healer (Chief Dan George) who admits to practicing both good and bad medicine, depending on how he feels about the patient; reuniting with a long lost love, now wasting away from dementia in a  nursing home; a road quickie with a hooker; and bursting through the bluster of his other son (Larry Hagman), a failed real estate broker in Los Angeles.

The cyclical, episodic nature of the story lends a sense of deep perspective and sanguine wisdom gained. Harry flitters from here to there, seeing what each new day brings, and maintaining the same optimistic (but discerning) mood no matter what nature it may hold.

The ending is a little abrupt, and tends to prompt thoughts along the lines of "Well, what was that all about?" In the end, Harry is still Harry, if now in a different zip code and with a broadened outlook on life.

If "Harry and Tonto" doesn't have a big overarching Something Important statement to make, it's out of design rather than happenstance. This is a beautiful tale about following wherever your feet and heart take you, and accepting what you find for whatever it is, rather than what you'd like it to be.

Reeling Backward: "Watch on the Rhine" (1943)

Sometimes when a movie is totally different from our expectations, it can be a glorious thing. I remember going into "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" expecting a slapdash prequel, and came out convinced I'd just seen the best movie of the summer.

But diverging too far from what people thought they were going to get can be a fatal drawback, too, and I admit I approached "Watch on the Rhine" expecting to see a gripping spy thriller. This was, after all, a film that was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Screenplay and Supporting Actress, and won a golden statue for Paul Lukas as Best Actor.

Alas, "Rhine" couldn't be more different than I expected, and it seriously sapped my enjoyment of the picture. I went in thinking spy thriller with lots of twists and turns in the plot. It's much more a dramatic piece of high-toned propaganda, as characters speechify about the evils of Nazism and the nobility of those who stand up against it.

As its opening screen crawl makes clear, the film is an ode to Germans who resist the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich through armed resistance. Coming out in 1943, it couldn't be seen as anything other than an overt appeal to the fighting resolve of Americans and their allies abroad.

Set in 1940 and based on a famous play by Lillian Hellman, "Rhine" concerns an American woman, Sara Muller, (Bette Davis) who returns home after 18 years abroad with her German husband Kurt (Lukas) and children in tow. It soon becomes clear that Kurt is not just the mild-mannered engineer he seems to be, but is one of the key leaders of the German resistance.

Alas, Sara's wealthy mother Fanny (Lucile Watson) has a disgraced Romanian count loitering as a house guest on an extended stay -- why, it's never made clear since she doesn't really know him very well -- and he conspires to sell the information about his identity to the Germans. He threatens to blackmail the husband, who shoots and kills him, then returns to Europe to fight on.

If that doesn't sound like a lot of plot, it's because it isn't. Dashiell Hammett was a famous novelist used to seeing his books turned into movies and television, but as near as I can research this was his only screenplay credit. He tries in vain to breathe some life into the proceedings, but it's hard to escape the story's stilted stage origins, as characters talk and talk and talk ... and talk.

Similarly, director Herman Shumlin was a stage veteran with no experience behind the camera, and it shows. His camera work is stagy and stiff, with characters tending to plant themselves in one spot and barely move around. The performances are also uniformly formal and inorganic, as the actors recite their lines by rote as if schoolkids who have proudly memorized a speech for class.

Shumlin only directed one other feature film, and promptly went back to his native soil on Broadway, where he racked up an impressive array of Tony Award nominations and wins. I'm glad he found success in the medium where he was most suited, because clearly film work was not for him.

The scene where Kurt shoots the count, Teck de Brancovis (George Coulouris), was controversial in its time because the Romanian is only looking for a bribe, not threatening his life. Kurt forces him into the garage at gunpoint, and a shot rings out. It's pretty clear that Kurt kills him in cold blood.

At first this ran afoul of the censors of the time, since the Hays Code stipulated that criminals always had to be shown getting their comeuppance in the end. According to a book about Davis' career, the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures actually suggested changing the ending so Kurt is captured and executed by the Nazis. In the end, the producers managed to convince the censors that Teck was the true villain, and he intended to betray Kurt even after extorting money out of him.

All the Germans except Sara speak in very stilted tones as if English were not their first language. I can understand what the filmmakers were going for, but the result is stiff and strange, with the children speaking like little academics. There's also the odd youngest child, a chubby child who informs his grandmother that he is "not beautiful," and she does him one better by telling him she adores him despite his being ugly.

There's also a distracting subplot about Sara's playboy brother David (Donald Woods) having a thing with the count's young wife Marthe (Geraldine Fitzgerald). It adds nothing to the tale, and only serves to distract from the spy story. Of course, since that is so spare, perhaps they just needed something, anything to pad out the script.

All the European names makes for a difficult time remembering who is who -- Teck, Anise, Marthe. Even "Kurt" comes out sounding more like "Koort."

Maybe it's just because I was expecting something completely different -- I was picturing back-alley assassinations and a potboiler plot -- but I just couldn't get engaged in "Watch on the Rhine." Even the title seems like a misdirection, since the action rarely leaves the Farrelly mansion, let alone shifting to Germany. But this is a whole lot of pompous pontificating with little dramatic punch.

Reeling Backward: "The Pawnbroker" (1965)

Sol Nazerman, the feckless proprietor of a Harlem pawn shop, offers two dollars for an old radio.

It's probably not worth even that, since the jittery junkie looking to pawn it for a quick fix can't get it to tune a single station. As Nazerman is filling out the receipt, the customer, veritably vibrating with the shakes of withdrawal, screams at him about the low offer, calling him a "bloodthirsty kike."

Nazerman, who bears a crooked tattoo of numbers on his left forearm courtesy of the Nazis, does not even look up. "Do you still live at the same address?" he asks neutrally.

The man nods, takes his two bucks and dashes out of the shop, no doubt headed straight for his dealer.

This is the world of "The Pawnbroker," an unheralded but seminal 1965 film that launched the career of Rod Steiger, helped put a nail in the coffin of the gasping Production Code, and opened a floodgate of movies about the Holocaust and its lingering effects on millions.

Nazerman, whom everyone in the colorful neighborhood calls "uncle," is a man who sees no profit in human connections. He lives with his sister and her family on Long Island, making the long commute each day to Manhattan's low-rent north side. He has a girlfriend, if you can call it that, where he eats his dinner and endures the constant berating of her father, a fellow survivor who recognizes that Nazerman has nothing left inside him.

The woman, Tessie, is the widow of a friend killed while trying to scale the concentration camp fence. She is there to provide meals and sex, which Nazerman consumes without appetite, simply fulfilling his basic human impulses.

His shop is a labyrinth of cages and bars, ostensibly to keep the customers out, but one senses Nazerman desires the security of this self-imposed prison. The only employee is Jesus Ortiz (Jaime Sanchez), a small-time crook trying to go straight, who's smart and exuberant and wants to soak up all the knowledge he can from Nazerman so he can open his own business one day.

Nazerman treats Ortiz with disdain, lumping him in with all the "rejects and scum" on the streets outside the shop. This sends the young man, angry at being dismissed by his idol, running into the arms of a local hood, who wants to knock over the pawnbroker for his fat safe.

The safe is full because of Nazerman's dealings with Rodriguez (a chilling Brock Peters), the local crime lord who uses the pawnbroker to launder money. This appears to be the only actual source of income for the shop; Nazerman's clientele is a never-ending string of down-on-their-luck neighborhood denizens, looking to pawn this or that bit of scrap for a few dollars. Nobody ever buys.

This motley cast of characters is sad and funny and diverse. There's an elderly man who likes to come in and ramble about the classics. A man trades in an oratory prize he won as a youth for a few bucks. The hoods bring an obviously hot lawn mower, and after delivering barely-veiled threats, are paid off with $30.

One day a woman about Nazerman's age, Marilyn (Geraldine Fitzgerald) wanders in representing a youth center, looking for a donation and, even more urgently, a human connection. Her overtures of friendship escalate, to the point that Nazerman rudely tells her to stay out of his life.

One of the great ironies director Sidney Lumet employs is to depict every location other than Harlem -- the Long Island suburbs, the high-rise apartments of Manhattan -- as cold, anti-septic and impersonal. It's only the ghetto, with the urban decay and human depravity, that seems vibrant and alive.

The film is also notable for its inclusion of nudity and fairly blatant (for its time) sex scenes. The Production Code prohibited such things, but the movie was granted a special exception because of the weight of its topic. (A prostitute bares her breasts to Nazerman to entice him into giving her more money for a gold locket, which causes him to flash back to seeing his wife used as a whore by the German soldiers.)

Steiger underplays for most of the film, but as Nazerman approaches a breakdown of his carefully built-up defense mechanisms, the man seems to literally implode before our eyes. Steiger had been around for years as a solid supporting player, but this role earned him an Oscar nomination and made him a reputable leading man.

Lumet, working from a screenplay by David Friedkin and Morton S. Fine based on Edward Lewis Wallant's novel, was the first major filmmaker to tackle the Holocaust as seen through the eyes of one of the Jewish survivors. He uses hyper-fast editing, sometimes just two or three frames at a time, to show how what Nazerman sees in everyday life evokes the horror he witnessed.

An idyllic opening shows a young Nazerman, his wife and young children enjoying a picnic in a field, only to see them taken away by the Nazis. "I lost everything I loved that day, but I didn't die," he says. His physical existence goes on, but his soul suffered a fatal blow.

"The Pawnbroker" is the story of a man who became a prisoner on the day of his liberation from a concentration camp.

3.5 stars out of four