Reeling Backward: "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957)

Charles Laughton is today's Morgan Freeman. He was good in supporting roles or leads, as comic relief or deadly serious, and he made every movie he was in better. I've enjoyed catching up with some of his roles while writing this column for more than five years (!), and "Witness for the Prosecution" features one of his most delicious performances.

First, a word about film credits. Tyrone Power was the top-billed actor and the face on most of the posters, with Marlene Dietrich a close second. Both give nice turns in "Witness," but it's clear from watching even five minutes of the movie that they're the supporting characters. The story is focused entirely through Laughton, playing ailing British barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts, defending an acccused murderer in the trial of his long and storied career.

Power plays Leonard Vole, the accused, a seemingly hapless fellow and natural charmer with the ladies. It turns out (spoilers ahead) that he actually did commit the murder he's accused of, and relied on the skilled thespian powers of his German war wife, Christine (Dietrich), to construct an elaborate ruse to get him off. It was deliberately playing against type for Power, who was known mostly for heroic swashbuckling roles such as Zorro.

"Witness" was also his final film -- Power succumbed to a sudden heart attack at the tender of age 45, literally with a sword in his hand while filming his next big production.

Dietrich, still a stunner at age 57, continued to perform for many more years, including a live stage show in which she flaunted a "nearly nude" sheer dress in her 70s. She was also laid low during a performance, falling off the stage during a show in Australia and suffering a seriously broken leg. She endured until age 90, alcoholic and largely bedridden.

So why was Laughton, certainly no small fry as a movie star himself, relegated to third billing despite carrying the entire movie? Who really knows, as showbiz has rarely made a lot of sense. Maybe the advertising boys preferred the winsome couple over the famously frog-faced Laughton.

Laughton certainly garnered all the meaningful attention, earning an Academy Award nomination (the third of his esteemed career) as well as a BAFTA nod. The film also got Oscar noms for best picture, best director (Billy Wilder), editing and sound recording. Neither Power or Dietrich were recognized, though strangely Elsa Lanchester was for her comic relief role as Robarts' nagging nurse.

Based on a short story (later turned into a play) by Agatha Christie, "Witness for the Prosecution" wears the clothes of a whodunit while existing more as a character study of its leading trio. Wilder and Harry Kurnitz adapted the story for the screen, and while the last few minutes are deliberately shocking, the actors carry the narrative rather than the other way around.

Probably three-quarters of the picture takes place inside a courtroom, in the British version of the familiar courtroom drama genre. It's much more stuffy and genteel than American courtroom films, which tend to have a lot of big emotions and sweaty stand-offs.

Christine was thought by Robarts to provide the key alibi for her husband, who dilly-dallied with an older heiress in hopes that she would loan him money to develop his eggbeater invention. She turned up with her head bashed in, and the woman's crotchety maid points the crooked finger of blame at Vole. Things aren't helped when it's revealed that the victim changed her will to make him the beneficiary of an £80,000 inheritance -- about $2 million in today's dollars.

Robarts is vexed when Christine is instead called as a witness for the prosecution, and proceeds to throw Leonard under the bus, saying he came home with blood on his sleeves and at 10:10 p.m., not the 9:26 p.m. he swore to. But then Robarts receives some letters from a mystery woman that claim the whole thing was a plot to get rid of the husband she'd grown tired of.

I won't reveal the very end, but suffice it to say that the brilliant barrister finds out that he's had the wool pulled over his eyes.

Robarts has just returned from a long convalescence, with a strict nurse in tow and instructions not to try any more criminal cases. Of course, he gives in to the temptation of a juicy murder case -- along with cigars and brandy snuck into his thermos full of cocoa.

Blowsy, charismatic and indulgent, Robarts can't leave behind the life of outfoxing his opponents he's grown to love so much. There's even a funny little trick he does of using his monocle to shine a reflected light in a person's face to find out if they're lying. Turns out it isn't so reliable, as Vole passed with flying colors.

"Witness for the Prosecution" is good old-fashioned filmmaking -- a thriller-cum-drama where all the real action is confined to the courtroom. It's there Robarts, and Laughton, ply their considerable skills with reptilian panache.

Reeling Backward: "The Lost Weekend" (1945)

For 1945, "The Lost Weekend" was an exceptionally brave film. It was an uncompromising look at alcoholism, at a time when addiction was considered a personal failing to be swept under the rug of polite society. It certainly wasn't the sort of subject matter a country just coming out of the horrors of World War II seemed eager for. In fact, most people in Hollywood thought it was box office poison.

So much for underestimating audiences. It went on to be a big commercial hit, and won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay. It cemented the career of director Billy Wilder, proving that the previous year's "Double Indemnity" was no fluke. And it made a star out of Ray Milland, who hesitated taking the role after Cary Grant and Jose Ferrer turned it down.

It chronicles the four-day weekend of a struggling writer who reaches the absolute bottom of his drinking nightmare. It's based on an autobiographical account by author Charles R. Jackson, whose novel was adapted for the screen by Charles Brackett and Wilder. Wilder supposedly became interested in the subject of a brilliant writer haunted by booze after working with Raymond Chandler on "Double Indemnity."

The question people always ask is how somebody as smart and talented as Don Birnam (Milland) could allow himself to become a slave to whiskey. The film adroitly shows how even a brilliant mind can become soured by bending its entire power toward finding the next drink. "The Lost Weekend" doesn't pull any punches or engage in any Hollywood puffery -- Don's soul-wrenching misery is displayed with harsh candor.

Perhaps the most cringe-inducing scene is when Don finds himself in a stupor in a busy nightclub and realizes he doesn't have enough money to cover his tab. He swipes the clutch bag of the woman sitting next to him and ducks into the men's room, intending to remove the money and return the purse unnoticed. But a crowd has gathered to find the culprit, and he's humiliated and thrown out onto the street.

Less convincing is a bit where Don is hallucinating in his apartment and imagines a bat flying around the room. I realize it was 1945, but special effects were still more advanced than a bad-looking puppet on a string. But it's only a brief interruption of the dark mood Wilder and company create.

What's really impressive is that Milland isn't afraid to show off the character's terrible self-loathing. He puts on the veneer of the charming writer/drunkard, evoking Shakespeare and Hemingway as he describes the world around him in the dulcet tones of barroom poetry. Later, though, we glimpse the scared little man who's so obsessed with his own failure that he can't even appreciate the love of Helen St. James (Jane Wyman), the woman who's spent the last three years dealing with his binges.

In an era of John Wayne Westerns and heroic war pictures, depicting a man so cowardly was downright radical.

There's a couple of strong supporting performances I really enjoyed. Howard Da Silva plays Nat, the owner/proprietor of Don's favorite watering hole. Nat is his blue-collar confessor, dispensing cheap rye whiskey and grim advice. Nat -- who pronounces Don's last name "Boin-um" -- cheerfully warns Don that if he keeps drinking, he'll end up jumping off a building or throwing himself in front of a subway. Nat cares about his best customer, but knows to keep him at arm's length.

Doris Dowling is quite a presence as Gloria, a prostitute who works out of Nat's and has been carrying on a low-level flirtation with Don. I love how she strokes the nape of his neck with her finger whenever she walks by him -- safe from the Production Code, but highly sensual. With her slightly asymmetrical face and cool screen presence, she would go on from "The Lost Weekend," her first credited role, to a long career in film and television.

3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Ninotchka"

"Ninotchka" may just have been the very first romantic comedy.

Although Hollywood produced many romances around 1939, and many of them were funny, I think "Ninotchka" stood out for several reasons. One is that it was Greta Garbo's second-to-last film. She famously abandoned acting in her mid-thirties, at the height of her fame.

Another is that it was among the first mainstream movies to explicitly criticize the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Don't forget, he was "Uncle Joe" until after the war.

But watching it today, what most jumps out at me is how closely it resembles the structure and form of modern films like "The Proposal," "When Harry Met Sally" or "Leap Year."

The basic formula of the romantic comedy is two very different people meet, hate each other, but eventually come to realize they're in love. External forces conspire to drive them apart, but they subvert them and end up together. The End.

There are obviously a lot of variations, but most films that we dub romantic comedies follow this basic outline. And "Ninotchka" trailblazed the way.

Garbo plays the title character, an envoy from Russia (the movie never refers to the U.S.S.R.) sent to Paris to negotiate a settlement to the jewels belonging to the Grand Duchess Swana, a former member of Russian aristocracy. She lost her family jewels in the Communist takeover, and is trying to prevent three bumbling Russian diplomats from selling them.

The unsmiling, brusque Ninotchka is brought in to iron things out. On the street she runs into a suave gentleman, Leon (Melvyn Douglas), who pitches woo. He's a slick capitalist who prefers not to work, and basically represents everything she reviles. Nevertheless, she's soon smitten.

Soon they realize that Leon is a friend (and perhaps lover) of the duchess. As soon as the business with the jewels is concluded, Ninotchka has to return home and end the romance. Leon attempts to follow her, but is denied as a counter-revolutionary.

In the end, Leon cooks up another diplomatic mess in Constantinople that forces the Russian minister (Bela Lugosi, in a bit part) to send Ninotchka, reuniting them.

The film was directed by Ernst Lubitsch, the German-born master who segued easily from silent to sound pictures. But I think the real triumph of this film is in the screenplay, by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch. It just crackles with great dialogue and humor that bites without ever seeming nasty.

For me the best exchange comes when Ninotchka and the duchess meet at a swank restaurant. Ninotchka is there with Leon, and Swana is none too happy with the presence of the woman who has (from her perspective) stolen her jewels and her man. Ninotchka has just made a pointed reference to the aristocracy using the Cossacks to whip the people into line:

Duchess: "You're quite right about the Cossacks. We made a great mistake when we let them use their whips. They had such reliable guns."

Or this exchange, when Ninotchka steps off the train and refuses to let a porter take her suitcase.

Ninotchka: "Why should you carry other people's bags?"
Porter: "Well, that's my business, ma'am."
Ninotchka: "That's no business. That's social injustice!"
Porter: "That depends on the tip."

I can't say as I was particularly dazzled by the Garbo/Douglas pairing. It's one of those goofy movie romances where the leading man falls in love within minutes of meeting his lady, and he spends the next reel or two convincing her -- and the audience -- it's true love.

If "Ninotchka" were made today, it would come off as a cliched knock-off of the old romantic comedy model. But it endures because it is the mold, not the imitation.

3.5 stars