Reeling Backward: "Atlantic City" (1980)

 

Lou Pascal is a liar. Because he is an older, courtly gentleman played by Burt Lancaster, we do not hold this against him as much as we ought. But a liar he is.

Everyone lies to some extent, and of course the art of film has contrivances, misdirection and outright fabrication at the core of its essence. Every movie lover fell in love with their beautiful lies, including me.

In Louis Malle's "Atlantic City," Lou lies to make himself seem more important than what he is, which is an elderly numbers runner subsisting on the lowest rung of the local underworld. But over time he begins to thrive on the rewards of those lies, most notably money and the attentions of Sally Matthews, the much-younger woman who lives in the apartment next door.

Eventually, Lou falls victim to the worst fate of inveterate liars: he begins to believe his own fibs. Only at the very end of the story, screenplay by John Guare, does Lou finally recognize the depth of his lies and learn to cast them aside.

"Atlantic City" pulled off one of the rarest feats in film notoriety: it was nominated for all of the "Big Five" Academy Awards: best picture, actor, actress, director and screenplay. It also failed to win any of them, becoming one of just eight movies (out of 43 total) to earn all five nominations and take home none of the statuettes.

It's a gorgeous movie whose luster has not waned these past four decades. A beautiful new 40th anniversary Blu-ray edition is out from Paramount this week.

Richard Ciupka's gauzy, sepia-toned cinematography made it seem like a very old movie even when it came out. The eponymous city is a gaudy mix of flashy new casinos and crumbling old beach hotels and tourist traps being gradually torn down to make way for more gambling palaces. It reminds me of the south Florida backdrop of "Harry & Son."

This is a story of love and loss on the boardwalk, as various characters strive and scheme for something better than what they have. Which is ironic, since many of them left their homes to move on up in the seedy seaside gambling town, Las Vegas' crummier East Coast cousin, and got stuck.

Sally is one of them, marrying the first guy who came along to take her out of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Turns out that her husband, Dave (Matthews!), played by Robert Joy, was a petty criminal who soon got them run out of Vegas. Then he ran off with her simple-minded kid sister, Chrissie (Hollis McLaren) and got her pregnant to boot.

Now Sally works the oyster bar at the casino but is studying to become a blackjack dealer, which can earn $20,000 or even $30,000 a year ($60K and $90K in today's dollars). She even harbors dreams of making her way to Monte Carlo to work in the grand casinos there, and is learning French and high-class manners from her gambling teacher (Michel Piccoli), a lecherous older man whose lust stands as counterpoint to Lou's own.

Every night, Sally stands at her kitchen sink limned in soft light, rubbing lemons over her arms and breasts to get rid of the fishy stink of her quotidian trials. And every night, Lou watches her through their opposite windows. He's never actually spoken to her, and in fact she's surprised to later discover he lives next door.  

To Lou, Sally represents not just a beautiful woman to desire but a representation of everything he never had or has since lost: youth, romance, wealth, status, reputation, importance. When against all odds he later succeeds in winning her affections, Lou's first thought is to run away with Sally to Miami, where he has lots of friends from the old days.

"I'll buy you new clothes, I'll show you off... just let the boys see how well I turned out," Lou proposes.

Lou passes himself off as an old-school gangster who reveled in Atlantic City's outlaw days, telling a story about taking a swim whenever he'd had a belly full of killing so he  could come out feeling fresh to start all over. He brags that he was Bugsy Siegel's cellmate, and people from Vegas are given his name as the man to know out east.

He counts the late mob leader, Cookie Pinza, as his best friend and himself the trusted guardian of his wife, Grace. Now he stays in the flea-bitten building so he can watch over Grace, who's ensconced in the apartment below as a well-kept invalid. Occasionally, he brags, he throws the old lady a bone by bestowing his affections on her to break up the loneliness, sort of a beneficent silver-haired gigolo.

All these things are not exactly lies, but stand sideways from the truth. 

He never killed anybody, but rubbed shoulders with men who did. He only bumped into Bugsy for 10 minutes while in the drunk tank. He was Cookie's lackey, not his friend, and was and still is Grace's servant -- she even has a bell rope strung between their windows so she can fetch Lou to walk her poodle or rub her feet. The real toughguys referred to Lou as "Numbnuts," and his actual name has never meant much.

Lou carefully tends to this ersatz version of himself. Though he lives in a cramped one-room apartment, he meticulously irons his suits and ties, and keeps himself coiffed and "in trim." He makes his daily rounds collecting numbers in the poor section of town for the illegal lottery, where nobody ever wins because, as Fred the bookie (John McCurry) says, "I can't afford winners." 

This is enough to keep Lou in cheap whiskey and cigarettes, barely.

Things start to change when Sally's husband shows up in town decked out in hippie garb with Chrissie very pregnant. He has made off with a large stash of cocaine he stole from a dealer drop in Philadelphia, and needs a place to stay until he can turn it into cash. 

Falling for Lou's anecdotes about being an old-school player, Dave recruits him to sell the drugs in stages to a man (Al Waxman) running a high-stakes private poker game in a smoky hotel room. Unfortunately, the Philadelphia guys track Dave down and kill him.

Now sitting with $4,000 in cash, Lou gets a head full of ideas. He trades in the numbers game for dealing the rest of the drugs. He buys a ridiculous (even in 1980) peacock white suit and hat, and offers to help Sally with the funeral arrangements, which segues into dates at fancy restaurants (Wallace Shawn is a waiter) and eventually confessing his desiring her and their (offscreen) coupling.

Lou's newfound confidence is shattered when the two drug dealers accost them, slapping Sally around while he is dismissed as a useless old man, not even worth their blows. This is compounded by Grace revealing Lou's true lowly status to Sally.

Completely unmanned, Lou's first instinct is to run away. But something inside pulls him to try and make real the life he's always fancied for himself. He pockets his old .38 snubnose and hits the casino, possibly with the idea of turning his goodly sized stash into a fortune.

When Sally chases him onto a bus out of town, Lou is further embarrassed when she poses as his daughter to get the driver to throw him off, under the ruse he's an addled old man who needs his meds.

"I made love to this woman earlier today! I held her in my arms!" he bellows to everyone, and no one, but mostly to himself, needing that confirmation of his newfound status as a lover and protector.

Things get better for a time, as Lou stands up to the two toughs when they confront them again, gunning them down, stealing their Cadillac and driving off with Sally for Miami. Lou positively revels in the media coverage of the slayings -- even going so far as to brag to the hotel manager that he did the deed.

In the end, Lou's lies finally catch up with him and the reality of a 70-ish man running away with a 30-ish woman asserts its inherent absurdity. He spies Sally stealing most of the money from his wallet, and rather than become angry he lets her go, offering the keys to the car and advice on how to get away. 

Lou returns to Atlantic City and his partnership with Grace, who has bonded with Chrissie in a marathon session of foot massages and philosophical musings that feels like it should've taken place 30 minutes earlier in the movie. Things end on a happy note for both Lou and Sally, with her finally having the freedom and wherewithal to do as she pleases, and Lou having found more appropriate companionship, now on a more equal footing.

It's a strangely giddy ending for a film so infused with tragedy and regret. 

Sally's redemption is more straightforward, though Lou's needs some proper vantage angles to see all the facets. In Lou's mind, his lies all finally came true -- he's now a killer, a lover of a pretty young thing, with a wad of cash in his pocket and a reputation. Early on Grace goaded him with taunts of being on the law's most-wanted list, and now he really is.

And yet, he knows it won't last. Sally will leave him, sooner or later, so he speeds along that process, for both her and his sake. He is satisfied to return to Grace and his crumbling hometown, passing into history as the city is perpetually torn down and rebuilt -- just like the reputation he so craved.

"Atlantic City" remains a great movie because it's not just the story of a liar, but one who confronts his own lies and finds them unworthy. Lou would rather end as an anonymous old man who is content with what he has than a scrabbler who needs to concoct an ersatz version of himself. 

The truth can be hard, but it is always beautiful.

 

Reeling Backward: "Kiss the Blood Off My Hands" (1948)

Film noir is to movies what the blues is to music -- it looks/sounds great, but the storytelling isn't always terribly ambitious.

(To the offended blues fans -- I've always felt the wonderful soulful sounds would be better used if accompanied by more than a dozen or so words in the lyrics, rearranged slightly.)

"Kiss the Blood Off My Hands," despite that memorably grisly title, is more or less a forgotten entry in the film noir genre, despite starring heavyweights Burt Lancaster and Joan Fontaine. Perhaps because it's set in London and all the actors except Lancaster speak in British tones, ranging from Fontaine's erudite high-class lilt to the clanging Cockney of the more common folks.

The story isn't terribly meaty, and director Norman Foster doesn't seem to have a good bite on the material. He was a journeyman most known for the "Mr. Moto" series. But it's a fantastic-looking film with some first-rate work by director of photography Russell Metty, full of shadows, slanting light and tilted angles.

It's now out in a gorgeous reissue on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber that shows off its cinematography to wonderful effect.

Metty is one of those quiet legends who worked with many giants of cinema, including Orson Welles on "Touch of Evil," Howard Hawks on "Bringing Up Baby," Steven Spielberg on an episode of "Columbo," John Huston on "Misfits" and Stanley Kubrick on "Spartacus," working steadily from the 1930s to the 1970s.

He won an Oscar for "Spartacus," though he clashed with Kubrick constantly over his slow pace, lighting choices and micromanagement approach to the camera.

Burt Lancaster stars as Bill Saunders, a Canadian (by way of Detroit) ex-soldier who was a POW in a German camp for two years, is still hanging around Europe and in many ways he never really left World War II behind. As the narration sets up, Bill is one of those lost souls who is deeply impacted by the horrors of war and has never truly healed.

The interesting thing is that Bill really is a villain by the contemporary standards of Hollywood movie-making. As the story opens he kills a bartender by accident and then flees from those trying to apprehend him. In the course of the rest of the story he threatens several other people, steals, robs, schemes, pummels a policeman and imprisons Jane Wharton (Joan Fontaine), a humble nurse whose flat he breaks into while on the lam.

There are several scenes that indicate Bill is always just a second away from giving into rage and violence. Jane eventually recognizes this after a budding romance develops between them, and shuns him for a time, mostly owing to finally his actions catch up to him and doing six months in prison.

We wonder if his penchant for brutality will ever turn her way. It seems inevitable, though in the convention of a classic Hollywood film she is the angelic muse who bends his will toward goodness.

At 79 minutes, "Kiss" is based on a book by Gerald Butler, screenplay by Leonardo Bercovici with adaptation by Ben Maddow and Walter Bernstein, with additional dialogue by Hugh Gray. (If you're wondering how to parse what those credits mean and how they reflect each person's contribution, I haven't the faintest.)

The romance is pretty cut-and-dried: after Bill breaks into Jane's apartment and threatens her into remaining silent, he steals a cigarette lighter that belonged to her beau, a soldier who was killed in the war. This is a ruse to give him an excuse to see her again to return it, and he follows her about incessantly, pestering her for attention.

It's only when he suffers a panic attack in the zoo -- flashes from his long imprisonment -- that she starts to feel affection for him. Later on as various threats start to surround them, they talk about running away to somewhere, anywhere, with a ship to Lisbon as their first stop.

Having gotten a job as a truck driver at Jane's hospital delivering penicillin and other sought-after medical supplies, his initial plan is to trade a load of stolen drugs -- hilariously labeled "DRUGS" on the wooden boxes -- to pay their passage.

Lancaster and Fontaine both seem very invested in their roles, though there's a notable contrast in the acting styles. She seems rather restrained in the British way and struggles with her better instincts. Lancaster had a thing for playing men ruled by their passions, an early man/boy screen idol.

Aside from the photography, the best thing about the movie is Robert Newton as Harry Carter, a sort of dandy con artist who spends half the movie trying to enlist Bill as his partner. Harry was present when Bill accidentally killed the bartender and uses that as subtle -- and later not so subtle -- extortion to get him to participate in various schemes.

Bill eventually gives in and agrees to let Harry and his henchman steal the hospital truck, with the proviso that they beat him up to make it look convincing and that he takes no cut from the job. But then Jane decides at the last minute to accompany him on the trip -- her first real outreach to him after their split -- and Bill has to fight off Harry and company off instead.

Harry's big scene is where he drops in on Jane unannounced professing to be a friend of Bill's, and he gradually turns from ingratiating fop to nefarious kingpin all in one scene, the camera leering at him in fish-eye lens closeup as he threatens her. She gets the better of him with some sewing scissors, fearing killed him, and it's up to Bill to clean up the mess.

There's another terrific scene near the end where Jane, hiding out in Bill's apartment, starts to feel her mind unravel. Metty appears to use a dolly shot -- rare in those days, especially for indoor scenes -- with a distorted lens following her as she walks, the angles morphing like a tilt-a-whirl. Brilliant.

"Kiss the Blood Off My Hands" ends on the barest of hat tips to morality codes of the day. With Harry dead, a truck full of drugs in their possession and no police on their immediate trail, Bill and Jane decide at the last minute -- quite literally, the last minute of the film -- to instead turn themselves in and face the consequences for their actions.

Bill had already gotten away with manslaughter, and doesn't seem to have much qualms about his other acts, which include beating and robbing a rich man in a tuxedo in a darkened alley. So it registers as a cheap conversion tacked onto the movie.

It would be easy to imagine if this film was made in the 1970s instead of the '40s that Bill would be a complete anti-hero who relishes inflicting pain and Jane is the upstanding woman who falls, literally, for his bad boy ways.

Overall I think I'd rather see that movie than this one, though the gorgeous black-and-white photography is the main reason to give "Kiss" a look.

Reeling Backward: "The Kentuckian" (1955)

Usually when a movie star gets big enough to be in charge of their own films, the resulting pictures tend to be vehicles for them to portray larger-than-life heroes who bestride the globe like a colossus.

So it's interesting that in "The Kentuckian," the first of only two movies he ever directed, Burt Lancaster plays an unsophisticated common man who frequently finds himself the brunt of ridicule and misfortune -- losing the skin off his back, both figuratively and quite literally.

He plays "Big Elias" Wakefield, a rustic son of the Kentucky hills who is on the run -- though he eschews those words -- with his son of about 10 years, Little Eli (Donald MacDonald, who had a short run as a child actor with just three years of credited roles). It seems the Wakefields and the Fromes are the Hatfield and McCoys of the Bluegrass State, carrying on a war of dark deeds so long and bloody, the enmity has engendered its own bit of well-known verse.

Though it's never directly stated, it appears Elias killed a Frome in some sort of dispute, and lit out for Texas to escape his troubles and find some elbow room. An apparent widow (again, we're left to surmise), Elias is an expert hunter and tracker who has little ken when it comes to city life -- which, in 1820s Kentucky, means any collection of shanties where more than a dozen people congregate.

His true home is in the woods, his faithful hunting dog Pharaoh chasing after foxes, their meals whatever game they can catch or shoot, and their bed made by shuffling together a pile of leaves. Lancaster's wide face beams with smiling pride in the outdoor scenes, while a stoic frown overtakes him when they must go into town for supplies or whatnot.

Elias carries the Gideon Horn -- which is also the title of the novel by Felix Holt upon which A.B. Guthrie Jr. based the script -- a massive bone hunting horn that he uses to call Pharaoh back from the chase. Little Eli often bears the horn for him, a totem of their untamed heritage, and tries unsuccessfully to blow out a note himself. When he's finally able to, that means he's become a man, Elias says.

Troubles befall them in myriad form. Elias has the princely sum of $235 saved for their trip, mostly to pay for the ferry ride down the Mississippi River to New Orleans and the ship to Texas. But in town he runs afoul of the local sheriff, who sicced his dog on Pharaoh and didn't like when it lost the fight.

Thrown in jail for resisting when the constable made to shoot his dog, Elias is helped escape by Hannah (Dianne Foster), a local "bought" woman -- aka an indentured servant -- who works for the pub owner in virtual slavery. Little Eli insists she come along with them to Texas, and it seems a nice little domestic group has formed.

But the sheriff and bartender catch up with them (too much sleeping in the leaves, I guess) and demand all their money in bribe to let them go.

Elias had hoped to stop off to visit his older brother, Zack (John McIntire) and his wife, Sophie (Una Merkel), in the riverside village of Humility. But the lack of funds forces them to hole up there for a few months so they can work up a grubstake. Zack's stated intention is to tame Elias and turn him into a businessman like himself, running a trade depot that deals in tobacco, furs, etc.

Sophie takes an instant dislike to Hannah, seeing the lines of affection forming between her and Elias, deeming a "bought girl" as socially unfit to join the family. Hannah takes up working at the local bar run by Stan Bodine, the resident dandy/bully played by Walter Matthau. He has his eyes set on the schoolmarm, Susie Spann (Diana Lynn), so when she takes a shine to Elias that sets up the inevitable conflict between the two men.

Things do not go well for big and little Eli in Humility. The latter can't abide being cooped up inside a schoolhouse all day long when there's sunshine, trees and a great river to enjoy. Elias even lets Aunt Sophie tie up Pharaoh, which breaks both the boy's heart and the dog's spirit.

Elias is mocked by the townsfolk for his buckskin clothes and quaint ways. The derision grows to a fever pitch when he finds a huge pearl while harvesting river oysters. He consults a traveling salesman, Ziby Fletcher (John Carradine), impressed by the man's eloquent speechifyin'. Elias is cagey enough to know the (almost literal) snake oil shyster is a fraud, but figures someone that learned can clue him in where to get a good price on the pearl. Little does he know freshwater pearls are worthless compared to the saltwater kind.

Seeing a chance to secure his place in town by kowtowing to Bodine, Fletcher makes up a story about former President James Monroe being the biggest collector of river pearls in the land. Elias writes a letter to the ex0president, paying four bits in postage. The ruse sprung, the menfolk all enjoy a good laugh at Elias, while little Eli endures taunts by schoolchildren: "Your pa is President Pearl!"

Undoubtedly the most famous scene in the movie is the showdown between Elias and Bodine. It's initiated when Bodine sends his son to pick a fight with little Eli -- much the same way that sheriff sent his dog after Elias' -- and the boy is bloodied by a makeshift whip of rope. The boys are separated and the fathers take up their places, with Bodine wielding a real whip against the unarmed Elias, who is soon cut to pieces. He finally prevails, but only when Hannah surreptitiously intervenes to trap Bodine's whip under her wagon wheel.

I also enjoyed a jaunty little gambling scene aboard the steamboat Gordon C. Greene -- the same one used in "Gone With the Wind." Elias makes a show of his big bag of gold (actually Zack's money) to pass himself off as a rube, conning the con men by placing some smaller bets in conjunction with the experienced gambler demonstrating the game of roulette.

The idea is to lure in the sucker by showing him how easy it is to win, but Elias knows the game is rigged and he will win as long as he mirrors the other man's bets. After winning $280, he, little Eli and Pharaoh are then chased around the ship by the gamblers, who instruct the pilot not to stop at Humility, so they're forced to jump for it and swim to shore.

The proprietor of the steamboat -- though not involved with the gamblers -- is Pleasant Tuesday Babson (John Litel), a colorful figure who's recruiting pioneers to help settle Texas. He takes an instant liking to Elias, seeing him as the perfect specimen for wide open lands. However, by this time Zack and Susie have gotten their claws into him, and Elias is determined to stay.

The story wraps, not entirely convincingly, with the arrival of two Fromes brothers to claim their revenge. Played without credit by Paul Wexler and Douglas Spencer, these are twin, grim specters, so lean and hollow-eyed they appear to have set aside all nutrition in their crusade. After the obligatory shoot-out, in which both Bodine and Babson are collateral casualties and Hannah against saves Elias' bacon, Hannah, Elias and Eli resolve on the spot to unite into a family.

It brings the film to an abrupt end, without even so much as a final pull-out shot of the trio riding the steamboat south toward their fate.
 
As a director, Lancaster gets lively, authentic performances out of his cast. He seems to have largely left the camera work to veteran cinematographer Ernest Laszlo, resulting in some picturesque scenes of the countryside and river. The film was shot almost entirely on location in Kentucky, and it shows.

"The Kentuckian" is a very atypical adventure story for its time. Elias Wakefield is an ordinary man who carries a rifle, but never even fires it once in the course of the picture. He largely looks to avoid conflict, and when he does resort to battles of fists or wits, he always comes up on the losing side -- or would, if it weren't for help from Hannah.
 
It would be interesting to see this film remade from her point of view. She's actually the one who makes everything good happen for Elias, and in that sense Hannah is the truest Kentuckian.

Reeling Backward: "Valdez Is Coming" (1971)

Let's get one thing out of the way first: Burt Lancaster does not pass for Mexican, or even half-Mexican, even with the help of a deep tan and possibly the judicious application of brownface makeup.

One of the stupidest and most useless human endeavors is the imposition of modern sensibilities upon cultural material from years, decades or even centuries past. Of course people in 1971 didn't think about cultural appropriation the same way they do in 2018. Caucasian actors routinely played Latino, Arab, Asian and even African characters in Hollywood movies up until fairly recently in our cinematic history.

If John Wayne can play Genghis Khan and Laurence Oliver can play Othello, then I'm not going to get too worked up over Lancaster posing as an over-the-hill Mexican-American lawman.

He pulls off the accent pretty well, playing Bob Valdez, the constable of a small border town somewhere around the turn of the century. His authorities extend only to the "Mexican half" of the city, perhaps owing to his title of constable rather than sheriff (as many references to the film erroneously call him).

It's not even a full-time job, as Valdez supplements his income riding shotgun for a shipping company, and he travels to and fro riding a wagon rather than a horse. He's bordering on elderly, and doesn't even carry a six-shooter, the standard arm of the Western hero, but a two-barrel scattergun -- the weapon favored by those with failing eyes and shaky hands. Valdez shuffles about in an obsequious manner, and speaks to the wealthy whites who run things with shoulders stooped and hat in hand.

Valdez clearly doesn't like having to kowtow, but it's how he gets by in a land where his kind is dismissed as "greasers." At least, that is, until he finally gets pushed too far.

The story opens with an ugly scene, where a posse has trapped a man suspected of murder in a lonely shack, and a crowd of women and children has gathered to watch as the men playfully plug bullets into its bleached-out boards. The accused is a black man, so it seems the standoff will end either with a lynching or a hail of rifle rounds.

Valdez walks down to talk to the man in an attempt to deescalate the situation. But a hotheaded young sharpshooter named R. L. Davis (Richard Jordan), operating at the behest of Frank Tanner (Jon Cypher), the rich cattleman leading the posse, fires in the middle of Valdez' parlay with the accused, making him think the whole thing has been a ruse. Valdez is forced to kill the man, after which it becomes clear he was innocent after all.

To me, the most interesting part of this sequence is not all the manly strutting and pronunciations. It's the part where the holed-up man's wife, an Apache woman, blithely walks out of the house during the barrage to fetch a pail of water. R. L. repeatedly shoots near her to scare her off, but she doesn't even flinch.

Valdez decides to take up a collection as a gesture of goodwill to the widow, and the townsmen agree to put up $100 if Tanner will pay the other $100. Tanner angrily refuses, first having his men shoot at Valdez, in much the same way R. L. did at the Indiana squaw, and then resorting to crucifixation when he returns for another try. That's when Valdez snaps and vows revenge.

(Curiously, Valdez himself never offers to pitch in any of his own money toward the sum, even though he was mostly directly responsible for the murder.)

The rest of the movie follows a fairly traditional revenge/redemption cycle. Valdez takes up arms and his old uniform, revealing that he was a U.S. Cavalry soldier during the Indian wars. He stalks Tanner and his men, picking them off in ones and twos. His favored method is a Sharps rifle, a single-shot weapon notorious for its long-range accuracy.

"Valdez" was directed by Edwin Sherin in his feature film debut behind the camera. He would direct one other movie later in 1971 before turning to television, where he worked busily well into the 2000s. Screenwriters Roland Kibbee and David Rayfiel, adapting the novel by Elmore Leonard (unread by me), keep things taut and spare, with nary a spoken word or image that's not absolutely necessary to the plot.

Frank Silvera plays Diego, a humble Mexican farmer and Valdez' best (possibly only) friend, who helps him recover from his wounds and is made to pay for it by Tanner's gang. Héctor Elizondo turns up in one of his earliest screen roles as a lookout for Tanner's gang. Mason (Phil Brown) is the chief of the white aristocracy, notable for sharing a degree of respect with Valdez.

Barton Heyman plays El Segundo (literally, "The Second"), Tanner's right-hand man, who proves far cagier than his boss. He repeatedly urges Tanner to break off from pursuit of Valdez to go through with a lucrative sale of rifles to the Mexican army. Segundo would seem to be a standard Western henchman at first, but as more of his men perish he carefully weighs the loss of life against any possible benefit. He eventually gains the upper hand over Valdez, but not before developing a health reverence for the old man's skills.

The other major character is Gay Erin (Susan Clark), who is Tanner's consort and, at least at one point, his betrothed. The whole story has been set off by the murder of her husband, Tanner's friend. Tanner carries on the quest to find the killer mostly because many people believe Tanner himself killed him to get Gay.

She's a proud woman who seems to despise Tanner, and yet on some level embraces his dastardly nature because she think she deserves no better. About halfway through the movie, Valdez takes her captive and tries to use her as a bargaining chip for the $100. It's a classic fruitless quest, since the Apache woman has long departed to return to her people. Valdez treats Gay tenderly, but without any suggestion of romance.

Tanner himself is an interesting character. He cuts an imposing yet slightly comical figure, with hair and mustachio suggesting a resemblance to Colonel Custer. He revels in the power of having his own gang, enjoying giving orders to torture somebody who has bothered him: "Fix him like we did that other fellow." But in the end Tanner reveals a distaste for getting his own hands dirty.

"Valdez Is Coming" ends with an odd standoff, with no overt resolution. It would seem impossible that events play out in any way other than with Valdez' death, but you never know. It's a grim story of lost causes embraced and good intentions wasted. And maybe how we should treat the meek a little nicer.

Reeling backward: "1900" (1976)

"1900" is a movie that is at once very large and very small.

It was Bernardo Bertolucci's self-conscious attempt to create an epic film about Italy's struggle between fascism and socialism. He framed his tale around two characters, the son of a rich landowner or padrone and the son of a peasant, who were born on the same day and raised together. We watch them from boyhood to middle age to dotage, striving against each other, eternal friends and combatants.

The title is somewhat confusing. In Italian it was known as "Twentieth Century" to indicate the scope and sweep of the story, but perhaps they thought American audiences would confuse it with the studio. So they came up with "1900," which itself is something of a misnomer, since the movie explicitly begins on the day Giuseppe Verdi died, in 1901, when both boys are born.

Released nearly 40 years ago, "1900" is known today for three things.

There is the sexual content, which at one point earned an NC-17 rating during a 1991 re-release. It includes a scene where fully nude stars Robert De Niro and Gérard Depardieu are masturbated by a women simultaneously -- one (obstinately flaccid) cock in each hand.

There are the various edits of the film, all of them long. Bertolucci fought with his financial backers, at one point being literally locked out of the editing room, and different iterations of "1900" have been shown at different times and venues. Traditionally the movie has been exhibited in two parts, though the run time has varied quite a bit. I saw the full director's cut, a hair over 5¼ hours, which places it among the longest narrative films ever released.

(There is no official intermission, and my viewing took place over several days, by necessity.)

Lastly, there is the pretty uniform perception that the film is a dog, a disaster even. Right after "Last Tango in Paris," Bertolucci was being hailed as the new European master. Many people were expecting the Italian equivalent of "The Godfather" parts 1 & 2, and were left sorely disappointed by the shambling narrative.

Roger Ebert put it succinctly in his review: "Bertolucci had his pick of actors, a free run with his budget, the freedom to make a personal film. And he blew it."

I think it's still a worthy cinematic experience, and certainly it is a very beautiful film to gaze upon. Ennio Morricone, one of my favorite film composers, came up with a lush score to back up the visuals of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. The rustic, slightly dreamy look of it reminded me very much of Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven."

The main problem with the film is that it wants to use the two main characters, Alfredo Berlinghieri and Olmo Dalcò (De Niro and Depardieu, respectively), as representatives of the competing aims of fascism and socialism, and neither one is a particularly good fit.

Olmo is a born troublemaker who instinctively identifies with the collectivist agrarian ideas of his large clan, who have worked the Berlinghieri lands for generations, essentially as indentured servants. He has a tendency to provoke conflict but then shy away from the consequences, so he doesn't make for a very heroic leader of the proletariat. When he finally stands up enough to make the fascists respond, he runs away, so their punishment is visited upon his family instead.

Alfredo is even thornier. As played by De Niro, he's a pampered rich boy who takes his wealth and status for granted, but is more sympathetic to the socialist sentiments of his workforce than are his fellow landowners. When we first meet him in young manhood, Alfredo is extremely cocky and hedonistic, preferring parties, booze and cocaine over the dull homestead. Later, after taking his place as padrone, he becomes defined by his indecision. A main character who won't make a choice is rarely a compelling one.

He won't stand up to the local leader of the fascist blackshirts, Attila, even though he is Alfredo's employee. Donald Sutherland plays Attila, a snarling, depraved man who sees the fascist movement as the proper vehicle in which to express his masochism and lust for power. We see him use his forehead to smash the life out of a helpless cat, and later he sodomizes and then kills a young boy in a similar fashion.

Sutherland is arresting in the role, by far the most vivid character in "1900." But narratively he's problematic.

It's much the same issue I had with the Michael Fassbender character in "12 Years a Slave." By making a single person the representation of all evil in a movement that entailed millions of people, you end up making that character a cartoon. And you let the multitudes who embraced fascism/slavery/the Holocaust, etc. -- or were complacent in its atrocities -- off the hook.

So why exactly won't Alfredo simply fire Attila and banish him from his lands, given that the essentially existed in a feudal system with himself as lord? It's never really answered, or even explored.

The best part of the film is the first 90 minutes or so when Olmo and Alfredo are rambunctious boys. Roberto Maccanti and Paolo Pavesi play them as youths of about 12, and are both terrific. (They have their own controversial nude scene in which they compare their foreskins.)

They have all sorts of spats and adventures, such as Olmo lying underneath a passing locomotive. (Alfredo takes up the dare but then balks.) In one of the film's most visually memorable moments, Olmo catches live frogs from the farm's irrigation canals and ties them, alive and wriggling, to his hat.

Two figures who lord over this section with magisterial sweep are the boys' grandfathers. Leo Dalcò is played by the great Sterling Hayden, while Burt Lancaster is Alfredo Berlinghieri the elder. Each man has an intuitive grasp of his place in the world, and their relationship to each other. In some ways it mirrors that of their grandchildren, a strange brew of respect, affection and antagonism.

Leo is initially hostile to the socialist movement, teaching Olmo that he will always be a peasant and to accept his fate. Still, his heart is with the land and the people, so it doesn't take much to convince him to join a strike. Leo is a servant of capitalist tradition, but socialist ideals aren't much of a stretch for him: "If it's yours," he tells young Olmo, "then it belongs to all of us."

The older Berlinghieri has traits of both nobility and venality about him. He sees his workers as chattel, much like the stock in his milking pen, but he's also the sort of man who believes in treating his animals well. His own son, young Alfredo's father, inherits all of the man's pride and entitlement but none of his wisdom. In another seminal moment from the film, when the new padrone tells the workers he's cutting their wages in half, one of the men slices off his own ear and offers it to the master as a symbol of his lost dignity.

"1900" loses focus and momentum in the second half. Much of it is taken up with Alfredo's relationship and marriage with a half-mad Parisian woman, Ada, played by Dominique Sanda. Her face and low, dusky voice reminded me very much of Lauren Bacall. She's one of those women who insists on being the center of attention in any room she occupies, even if she has to act completely batty to force the limelight. Predictably, she becomes resentful of life in the country and turns to drink.

Olmo's own wife, Anita (Stefania Sandrelli), checks out of the movie midway, dying in childbirth. She is actually Olmo's instructor in the ways of socialism, but their relationship doesn't have much spark outside of that.

The other significant character is Regina, Alfredo's cousin and childhood playmate. She clearly expected to become his wife one day, and when he chooses a wan foreigner over her, it drives Regina into the arms of Attila. She becomes his hate-whisperer, urging him on to ever more destructive acts as a way to spite Alfredo.

Regina is played by Laura Betti. About 20 years older than De Niro and Depardieu, with a matronly build and stout face, Betti's presence is an incongruous one, seeming more like the witchy aunt than the third leg of a supposed love triangle.

It's interesting to note that Bertolucci filmed "1900" with actors from America, France, Italy and other nations, and instructed them all to speak in their native language. This was a not uncommon practice with international productions of the 1960s and '70s -- Sergio Leone did so with his spaghetti Westerns. So watching the film on video poses a dilemma.

In general I prefer to view non-English films in their own language with subtitles. But doing so meant watching De Niro, Lancaster and Hayden with obviously dubbed voices -- and not very good ones, either. Meanwhile, Depardieu speaks in French, the Italians in Italian, and so forth.

So I opted to watch mostly in English, but would switch to French for Depardieu's long dialogue scenes and occasionally to Italian. (This revealed that Sanda, with her distinctive low moan, apparently did her English and French lines herself.)

It was somewhat distracting, but not much. I can only imagine how it complicated the give-and-take between actors on a set.

"1900" is a flawed film, but it's certainly a noble failure. Seeing it is obviously not a thing to be undertaken lightly, given the sheer investment in time alone. But I am glad I did so.

Reeling Backward: "The Professionals" (1966)

Regular readers of this column will know that I am endless fascinated by the life cycle of movies -- how some films see their reputations wax with the passage of time, while other worthier pictures end up largely forgotten. Ensconced firmly in the latter category is 1966's "The Professionals."

The movie, written and directed by Richard Brooks, was a big commercial hit at the time, revived Burt Lancaster's career and helped propel Lee Marvin into mainstream stardom. It was also a critical success, and earned three Oscar nominations, including two nods for Brooks' screenplay and direction.

And yet, it's not a film that your average movie-lover would know by name. Thematically, it's very similar to the iconic Western "The Magnificent Seven," about a bunch of disparate group of experts rounded up for a near-impossible mission -- a trick Marvin would repeat next year, this time in a World War II setting in "The Dirty Dozen." So it's possible it got lost in a crowd of similar flicks.

There's that title, which is rather generic and unmemorable. And Brooks is one of those filmmakers who doesn't get the respect he deserves, leaving behind an oeuvre -- "Blackboard Jungle," "In Cold Blood," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Elmer Gantry" -- as impressive as any other mid-century writer/director.

Still, why has this Western "oater" fallen so low that even I had never heard of it until recently?

It's certainly a strong picture, with a mildly to moderately revisionist take on the genre. Four over-the-hill mercenaries take a cold-blooded job, going after one of their old compadres, no less. They include an African-American among their number, which causes no discernible ruckus. And they see the job through to the end, only to double-cross the employer who had misled them about the true nature of the mission.

It's not quite "The Wild Bunch" in terms of turning the Western on its head, but Brooks certainly took a little-known novel by Frank O'Rourke and made it into something grim and ironic.

There's also an unsettling subtext of sexual barter at play. Sometime in the 19-teens, the boys are hired by a rich oilman named Gates (Ralph Bellamy) to rescue his young Mexican wife, who was kidnapped by a revolutionary/bandid named Jesus Raza (Jack Palance, equipped with makeup and accent to make for a sufficient representation of a Latino). One of his henchmen (-women?) is Chiquita (Maria Gomez), who reputedly never turns down an offer for sex, and is seen topless from a three-quarter vantage point.

The crew used to fight with Raza in the Mexican Revolution, and are dismayed that he would have turned to kidnapping (and, presumably, raping) innocent women as a means of earning a living. As Dolworth (Lancaster), the explosives expert and most amoral of the adventurers puts it, I'll happily steal, lie and kill for money, but not that.

They eventually realize Maria Grant (Claudia Cardinale) is not a hostage, but an active participant in blackmailing her husband to support the revolutionary zeal of Raza, whom she has loved since childhood. Nevertheless, Fardan (Marvin), the taciturn leader and weapons master, insists they honor the contract and bring her back across the border. The busty, haphazardly clothed Maria even offers herself to Dolworth in exchange for her freedom, though both are too cagey to consummate the exchange.

The other, lesser members of the gang are Woody Strode as Sharp, the tracker/scout, and Robert Ryan as horse wrangler Ehrengard, who in a modern setting would be the wheel man.

I don't think Strode utters more than a few sentences throughout the entire picture, and is mostly around as a reliable presence, buttressed by Strode's famous physique. He was a decathlon competitor in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, player in the nascent NFL and still cut an imposing figure in 1966 when he was in his early 50s. Sheriff Woody from the "Toy Story" movies was named after him.

Ryan is the resident team member laden with distemper, who always seems to be at odds with the others, especially over the treatment of the horses. When they kill a group of Raza's scouts and bury the bodies, Dolworth advocates shooting the horses since, let free, they might run back home and give warning. Ehrengard convinces the group against that course of action, and in the end the horses do lead them right into trouble. After he is shot in the ensuing standoff, Ehrengard is more or less sidelined the rest of the movie.

Although, I should point out, the seriousness of wounds in "The Professionals" is somewhat tenuous, depending on the necessities of the plot. Ehrengard is shot through the shoulder, at one point appears to be dying, and Fardan talks of him slowing them up from Raza's pursuit. By the next day, though, he's lifting Maria into her saddle with little ill effect.

In perhaps the film's most memorable sequence, Dolworth lags behind to hold off Raza's group in a mountain pass to give the others time to make good their escape. Single-handedly, he out-guns Raza and six others, getting shot himself in the process -- "in the ass," he brassily informs an also-shot-up Raza, as the men exchange pleasantries from behind cover. Dolworth also survives a shoot-out with Chicquita, with whom he has exchanged amorous attentions in the past, granting her a dying kiss. Hours later, though, Dolworth and his punctured hindquarters will jump on and off horses with no problems.

I quite enjoyed "The Professionals," though I don't think it's quite the masterpiece it's made out to be. It's an action-heavy picture, with the planning and assault of Raza's fortress taking up most of the first hour, and actually being rather on the dull side.

Still, it's superior to "The Dirty Dozen" and probably "The Magnificent Seven," too, which enjoy far richer reputations. Cinematic posterity, earned or otherwise, is a twitchy little sumbitch.

Reeling Backward: "From Here to Eternity" (1953)

Last year I wrote dismissively of the 1955 film "Battle Cry," with my chief complaint being that it was a war movie with very little war. The story mostly concerned itself with the various romances of the soldiers as they geared up for battle. When the fighting finally arrived, it was only a cursory bit near the end.

Only after recently reading Eli Wallach's autobiography did I realize that this narrative rather closely followed that of the revered classic "From Here to Eternity," which came out two years earlier and won a slew of Oscars, including Best Picture and statues for director, screenplay, supporting actor and actress and cinematography.

As to the latter, my guess is Burnett Guffey cemented his award for black-and-white photography with the now-iconic scene of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr embracing on the beach as waves crash over them. It's a gorgeous scene, and technically difficult as hell -- shooting day for night, with a host of unpredictable elements.

The pair are nearly carried away by the waves, which were probably much more forceful than director Fred Zinnemann intended. According to legend they were supposed to kiss standing up, but Lancaster suggested they lie down. It's also notable that the camera is much more revealing of his body than hers, which is nearly hidden except for her head and shoulders.

So why is "Eternity" such a thrilling success while "Battle Cry" is an utter bore? The storytelling is much sharper, obviously, with Daniel Taradash's script based on the popular novel by James Jones. And the cast is just splendid -- in addition to Kerr and Lancaster there's Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed, Oscar winners both, plus Montgomery Clift in his prime. Ernest Borgnine and Jack Warden even have small roles.

The tale of how Sinatra got the role has entered into mythology, even being portrayed in "The Godfather" building up to the infamous horse-head-in-the-bed scene. It's no secret that Sinatra coveted the role and sent the studio chief many letters and telegrams, and agreed to a massive pay cut to secure the role. It's doubtful, though, that the Mafia actually played any role. In Wallach's version, he had discussions about the role but was never officially offered it. People forget Wallach was entirely a Broadway star at the time, and wouldn't even make his film debut till "Baby Doll" three years later.

It's interesting that the Lancaster/Kerr pairing is what most people remember about the movie. Watching it again recently, it's clear to me that it's really Clift's story, and everyone else around him is a supporting player. He's the nexus of the story -- every other character's tale is derived in relation to how they interact with his character, Private Robert E. Lee "Prew" Prewitt.

It's a bold, authentic portrait by Clift, who goes sideways from conventional Hollywood acting style. He plays Prewitt as a determined man who's defined by his principles, to the point that even those who like him think he's too stubborn for his own good. As the story opens, Prew has just requested a transfer out of the bugle corps because he lost his position as first bugler through favoritism -- absorbing a bust from corporal to private in the process.

Having suffered for his convictions, Prew is immediately forced to do so again: the company commander, Captain Dana Holmes (Philip Ober), demands that he resume his promising boxing career so his outfit can win the regional Army boxing championship. Prew refuses, and refuses to say why -- though he later reveals that he blinded a friend of his while sparring, and vowed never to fight again.

This sets off a long reign of quiet terror as the NCOs team up to give Prewitt "the treatment"  until he agrees to box again. This involves extra unpleasant detail work, being singled out for undeserved punishment, and outright physical abuse. Prewitt absorbs it all stoically, earning the silent approbation of First Sergeant Milton Warden (Lancaster), the "top kick" who really runs the company.

Sinatra plays Angelo Maggio, a skinny, tough kid from the Bronx who takes no guff from anyone. He repeatedly scrapes with "Fatso" Judson (Borgnine), the belligerent sergeant who runs the stockade. Fatso icily warns Maggio that he's the type of hothead who invariably ends up in the clink, where he'll receive a lesson or two. It turns out exactly that way, and Sinatra is a vivid presence as the proud, doomed Maggio.

Prewitt's love interest is Lorene (Reed), a hostess at the local members-only club for soldiers. (It's exclusive to only those with the $4 membership fee.) Her role is to entertain the men, flirt and be pleasant, a job she admits is just a couple of steps above working the street. Her plan is to save a bundle of money and return home to settle down with the right kind of man. But she finds herself drawn to the fatalistic Prewitt. He's so smitten he's even willing to go back on his word and start boxing again, if it means earning sergeant stripes so he can better take care of her.

Warden's affair is a risky one -- with his commanding officer's lonely wife, Karen (Kerr). It's a strange, antagonistic relationship where they end up sparring more than they do wooing. She has a reputation as a loose woman, something Warden repeatedly throws back in her face as a way of testing her feelings for him.

Both Kerr and Lancaster were nominated for Academy Awards in a leading role, although both are really supporting parts. I think the fact that they were big stars put them over the top.

The film also has a few notable musical interludes I'd forgotten about, including a couple where Prewitt improvises jazzy melodies on the bugle, and later just the bugle mouthpiece. He carries that mouthpiece around in his pocket like a totem, a signal to the world that he's a man who keeps himself to himself, except for the little bits he's willing to share on his own terms.

The war finally arrives with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A lot of it is portrayed through stock footage and models of ships blowing up, but there are also some expertly-staged scenes with the company fighting off some Zeroes. But the action scenes are always subservient to the human drama.

In the end, the reason I prefer "From Here to Eternity" over "Battle Cry" is that it's simply a damn good movie.

Reeling Backward: "The Scalphunters" (1968)

One of the pleasures of doing the Reeling Backward column is discovering new talents I hadn't heard about before, or rediscovering new aspects of actors and filmmakers with whom I had some familiarity.

I've enjoyed finding more films from Ossie Davis' long movie career, and I encountered another delightful performance in 1968's "The Scalphunters." It was Sydney Pollack's third feature film credit after his TV apprenticeship, an enjoyable Western comedy about a grizzled fur trader (Burt Lancaster,) an educated slave out of his element (Davis), some enterprising American Indians with their own peculiar take on capitalism, and the aforementioned scalphunters.

In a previous column, I marveled at Davis' ability to play a young soldier in "The Hill," despite being nearly age 50 at the time. The year "The Scalphunters" came out, Davis turned 51, yet convincingly portrayed a character much younger.

I think I figured out Davis' trick: He simply declined to age, until he reached the point in his career that he felt ready to tackle older-man roles. Talk about Method.

Lancaster is ostensibly the lead, Joe Bass, but it's worth nothing that he largely disappears from the center of the movie, residing both literally figuratively on the periphery of the story. During this time Joseph Lee, a cagey slave who plays the underhanded motives of the white people against each other, takes the limelight.

In terms of narrative, there isn't much of one. A trapper, Bass has his winter's worth of fur pelts stolen from him by a Kiowa chief named Two Crows (Armando Silvestre, a Mexican actor who makes for a charismatic but unconvincing Indian). As payment, they give him Joseph Lee, whom they had captured from the Comanches.

Bass, with Lee in tow, follows the Kiowa with the intention of stealing back his furs, when the Indians are attacked by a large group of marauders led by Jim Howie (Telly Savalas). Indian scalps are worth $25 apiece, and Howie and his gang are the sort to acquire money in whatever way they can get it. Bass' mule laden with furs is merely a bonus.

After slipping down a cliff wall, Lee is captured by Howie, who figures he'll fetch $1,500 at the slave auction before they move on to Mexico and out of the reach of the long arm of the law. Lee, who realizes slavery is abolished south of the border, begins ingratiating himself with Howie and his mistress, Kate (Shelley Winters), in hopes of accompanying them entire way to freedom.

Meanwhile, Bass shadows the wagon train, attempting through various means to get back his furs. The most clever of these is poisoning the next water hole with locoweed, so the group's horses bolt and go crazy, killing several men.

Even though story-wise there really isn't much going on, I so enjoyed the four main actors in their roles. Lancaster does his wonderful high-low thing, playing a man of dubious cultural refinement who somehow seems to retain his sense of human grace. He's an illiterate liar who isn't above stealing and fighting dirty, but by gods, he reasons, at least he doesn't trade scalps for a living. The man's stubbornness is his calling card, and his curse.

Telly Savalas had one of those careers where he could play lecherous villains and noble heroes, and yet the characters had a similar through-line. His Jim Howie is not a truly dastardly man -- he does evil things not because he enjoys them, but because they profit him. And profit is all that Howie truly cherishes. Even his relationship to Kate is largely transactional: She figures he's the best chance she's got at a lifetime of comfort, and he gets regular sex and companionship.

It is a marvel to me that anyone, anywhere, at any time ever considered Shelley Winters an attractive woman. With a brassy attitude, screechy voice, three chins and a girdle that groans mightily at its task, Kate is a walking study in repulsion. She at least treats Joseph Lee with something like compassion, seeing him as a more refined companion than Jim Howie -- especially since he's servile and doesn't hit her.

But Ossie Davis' Joseph Lee is the star that makes "The Scalphunters" shine brightly. I loved the way Davis delivers his dialogue, in bright, clipped readings of perfect enunciation and diction. His voice carries almost like he's on a stage and trying to reach the back row.

I shivered with delight whenever he addressed Joe Bass, calling "Mr. Baaasss!!" with a rising crescendo. That over-the-top enthusiasm hides a mountain of obsequiousness, of course, but that is the plight when you are a slave at the mercy of people far less intelligent than yourself.

It could have been just a minor piffle, but Ossie Davis and the rest of the cast transform "The Scalphunters" into a joyous comedic reverie on the dusty plains of the West.

3 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "The Train" (1964)

For a film with a silly premise, "The Train" is a really gripping action/thriller. It's about a French Resistance member outwitting the Germans to prevent them from shipping hundreds of great paintings to Berlin in the waning days of the war. The protagonist, played by Burt Lancaster, demands early in the story why his men should risk death for a bunch of art. "The Train" never adequately answers this question.

In fact, the antagonist -- splendidly played by Paul Scofield -- articulates exactly thus in the movie's final moments. Alone, defeated, he confronts his opponent and taunts him:

"Labiche! Here's your prize, Labiche. Some of the greatest paintings in the world. Does it please you, Labiche? Do you feel a sense of excitement at just being near them? A painting means as much to you as a string of pearls to an ape. You won by sheer luck. You stopped me without knowing what you were doing or why...
"Now, this minute, you couldn't tell me why you did what you did."

And he's exactly right. Paul Labiche (Lancaster), the Paris train station master who's secretly the ringleader of a Resistance cel, had already refused to stop the train. If any action were to be taken, he would have preferred to simply blow it up. His primary mission was to make sure another train was delayed long enough to be destroyed in an Allied air raid. Once that was accomplished, though, Labiche suddenly finds an unexplained need to keep the paintings in France.

The Allies' thinking of why exactly they should stop the paintings from leaving is fuzzy. Surely they knew the Nazis would not destroy such prized art. And by August of 1944, with the liberation of Paris days away and the German war machine in full retreat, they must have known it would only be a matter of time before Berlin fell and the paintings were reclaimed.

The reason provided by Scofield's German colonel, Franz von Waldheim, holds no more water. He convinces his recalcitrant superiors to allocate a much-needed train to the paintings' transport by arguing that they're worth a billion German marks, and could supply their fatherland with a trove of weapons and supplies for its defense.

Not likely -- exactly which nation or private enterprise would be in the market of selling massive supplies of guns and artillery to Germany, when it was clearly losing the war? Even assuming they could somehow get through the Allied lines? Col. von Waldheim's claim that the art is a commodity that can be traded like gold was doubtless a ploy to convince his bosses in the Reich. He simply wanted the paintings for himself, or the glory of his nation. He makes it clear in the same final speech:

"The paintings are mine. They always will be. Beauty belongs to the man who can appreciate it. They will always belong to me, or a man like me."

Finally, there's the central question that goes unasked throughout the story: Why is it the Germans can locate an entire train when they're in critically short supply, but keep having to rely on French engineers to operate them? Especially when one after another turns out to be part of the Resistance? Surely there was a Franz or Hansel somewhere in the local German forces with knowledge of running a train. Or they could have even brought in a German civilian engineer.

And yet, despite all the illogic of the narrative, the film works on most every level. I credit the presence of director John Frankenheimer, who was brought in after Lancaster had original director Arthur Penn fired. Penn wanted to do a more contemplative film that would barely show any of the train stuff, but Lancaster desperately needed an action-filled hit. The studio gave Frankenheimer double the budget, final cut and (according to Wikipedia) a Ferrari to turn it into a taut thriller.

He succeeded. Although I do sort of wonder what the Penn film would've been like.

I really liked Michel Simon as Papa Boule, an ancient train engineer given the assignment of driving the art train. When he learns what is on board, he risks his life to race it out of the bombing attack. We sense that he does so based on his barroom musing that he once had a girlfriend who posed for Picasso; perhaps he thinks her portrait is among the absconded paintings.

Papa Boule has the face of a troll, and the temperament of one, too, but beneath that craggy surface beats the heart of ... well, not a poet, but someone who at least knows what poetry is.

After saving the train, he sabotages the engine by placing French franc coins in the oil line. When it is brought back to the train yard for repairs, the German major demands Papa Boule turn out his pockets, revealing the telltale oil-smudged francs. Old fool, the major says before taking the engineer away to be shot. Why didn't you simply throw them away?

"Four francs is four francs," he says, which is about the only thing you can say when you're about to be machine-gunned full of holes.

Jeanne Moreau shows up as a French tavern/hotel owner where Labiche holes up when he's on the run. She demands to be paid for every scrap of help rendered or damage sustained to her property, and spouts a lot of talk about how men are such fools to always be playing at war. As written, the role feels rote.

The action scenes hold up really well nearly five decades on. And that's because Frankenheimer crashes real steam locomotives on several occasions -- including a three-way pileup that puts any modern Jerry Bruckheimer CGI conflagration to shame. You can't fake the incredible mass of those machines, and the devastating effects when they collide.

There's also a really clever sequence where Labiche, now piloting the art train himself, tricks the German officers on board into thinking they're traveling to Germany, when in actuality they've turned around and headed back for Paris. They get a small army of station masters and collaborators to disguise the names of French towns with German ones, post guards in German uniforms, etc.

The premise of "The Train" may be silly, at least in my view, but that does not preclude it from being based on historical fact. The screenplay, by Franklin Coen and Frank Davis, was based on a non-fiction book by Rose Valland, "Le front de l'art."

In reality, though, the French Resistance stopped the train not through brave sabotage or explosive plastique, but by entangling it in bureaucratic red tape. Proving once again that in real life, desk jockeys trump action heroes every time.

3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Zulu Dawn" (1979)

About a year and a half ago I wrote about "Zulu," a 1964 movie that marked Michael Caine's film debut, while noting that it wasn't the one I remembered seeing as a child. That was "Zulu," a 1979 film about a different battle in the same Anglo-Zulu War, so I thought it was about time I caught up with it to see how it jibed with my memory.

"Zulu Dawn" is in essence a prequel, portraying the historic Battle of Isandlwana in 1879, while "Zulu" is about the smaller Battle of Rorke's Drift, which took place a few hours later on the same day. If "Zulu" is a heroic tale about a small band of British soldiers repelling a horde of Zulus, then "Zulu Dawn" is a cautionary tale about a modern army being routed by a "primitive" army.

I was surprised by how much I remembered about the later film, and how much I didn't. The key sequence that stayed with my young mind was the unctuous quartermaster (Peter Vaughan) refusing to dole out ammunition without proper procedure, making the men stand in line for bullets even as the battle lines have exhausted their supply and are being massacred by the Zulu impis, or warriors.

For me it encapsulated everything about the downside of the military mindset, which often puts rules and regulations above the very lives of the soldiers.

I'd also had a pretty clear memory for the battle scenes, with a lot of running to and fro and impaling with spears. The violence is a lot more graphic than "Zulu," but still subdued enough to earn a PG rating from the MPAA.

The Zulus take heavy losses, but ultimately break the British lines and handed the English their first major defeat at the hands of a native army. The idea of warriors so freely sacrificing themselves to achieve victory seemed alien to me when I first saw it. In Western cinema and schools of thought, we are taught that the culture that embraces suicidal attacks is the inferior one, since they place less value on human life.

Many other things about the movie had escaped my recollection. I didn't remember that Burt Lancaster starred in the picture, playing the one-armed Col. Durnford -- well, he still had his left arm, but it was paralyzed and useless to him) -- a veteran cavalryman whose advice to the supremely confident commander, Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole, whom I also didn't remember), is ignored, leading to catastrophe.

I had a vague notion of a gruff sergeant who commands his soldiers with an iron fist but also harbors deep affection for them, but back then had no idea who Bob Hoskins was. It was one of his early film roles, and I can't believe he didn't make a deeper impression. Perhaps it's because this sort of character seems to exist in virtually every war movie.

Likewise I didn't recognize Ronald Lacey as Norris Newman, a prominent British journalist who shadows Chelmsford and offers barely-concealed criticism of him, his motivations for starting this war and the way he is conducting it. Of course, it would be two more years before Lacey became cult-famous for playing the piggish Nazi villain Toht in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Like "Zulu," I was again impressed that the Zulu were not portrayed as savage brutes, but clever warriors. Indeed, it is the overriding historical opinion that Chelmsford and his commanders were completely out-strategized by their Zulu counterparts. Chelmsford even refused to entrench his camps by laagering his wagons, or encircling them into a defensive unit.

The two "Zulu" movies are tied together by the contributions of Cy Endfield, who co-wrote both movies and directed the first one. Alas, Douglas Hickox doesn't prove as skilled behind the camera in "Zulu Dawn," which comes across as a simple two-act play: Prelude to war, and the war. The former is concerned with a lot of British derring-do and priggish behavior. The latter is the real movie, battle scenes with a lot of kinetic energy but not as much emotional punch as they should have.

2.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Seven Days in May" (1964)

"Seven Days in May" is considered one of the all-time great political thrillers, but I found the 1964 film directed by John Frankenheimer a bit stiff and theatrical. It's still a good ripping yarn, but hardly worthy of the accolades that have been heaped upon it.

Partly is that its subject matter -- about an attempted military coup of the United States -- felt a bit stale, even in 1964. The nuclear age spawned a tidal wave of anxiety and fear, and movies like this played upon them. Frankenheimer's own previous film, 1962's "The Manchurian Candidate," touched upon very similar themes.

Also in 1964 we had "Fail Safe" and "Dr. Strangelove," two movies with schockingly similar stories about a runaway American military setting off war with the Soviet Union, that approached the subject from polar opposite ends -- straight and satirical, respectively.

I can only imagine what it must have been like in that year, right after the assassination of an American president for reasons that still remain murky, with all these movies coming out about sinister plots to subvert the presidency and the democratic process. In some ways, it makes the previous decades' duck-and-cover drills seem reassuring.

Rod Serling wrote the screenplay based on the book Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, which was the best-selling novel in the country for almost an entire year. Serling's version centers around three pivotal characters: General James Scott (Burt Lancaster), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Jordan Lyman (Fredric March), president of the United States; and Col. Martin "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas), the man caught in the middle.

Lyman has just agreed on a proposed treaty with the Soviets to disarm all nuclear weapons. A great outcry has risen up against the movie, calling it foolish, and a gripping opening scene shows a riot between protesters in front of the White House. (Astonishingly, this was shot in front of the actual building. President Kennedy, before his untimely demise, gave his permission due in part to his relationship with Kirk Douglas.)

Scott is the shadow leader of this movement, and Jiggs Casey is his unknowing right-hand man. Casey's internal radar is set off by some communications among senior military leaders over secure channels regarding a wager on the Preakness horse race, to be held next Sunday. Only the leader of the Navy (an uncredited John Houseman) has declined to place a bet.

Casey also gets a visit from "Mutt" Henderson (Andrew Duggan), an old friend who says he's just been given a new post at eComCon -- an installation he's never heard of. With a little digging, it turns out to be a secret military base in the Texas desert established by Scott to train special forces for a military takeover.

Interestingly, the wondering part is quite small -- Casey immediately goes to the president with the plot, and from there it's a battle of wits between the president's advisers and Scott and his cohorts to outflank each other. Lyman was scheduled to attend a huge military practice operation on the Sunday in question, and he correctly guesses that he would have been kidnapped and possibly executed while in Scott's custody.

This is the part of the movie I found weak. Once the president learned of the plot, why wouldn't he immediately fire Scott and have him arrested? There's this whole long section where Lyman frantically searches for proof of his joint chiefs chairman's treason before he can make a move. He sends top advisor Paul Girard (Martin Balsam) to coerce the Navy holdout into signing a confession, while the lush of a senator from Georgia, Raymond Clark, is dispatched to drive around in the desert looking for this mysterious military base. (Edmond O'Brien earned an Oscar nomination for his colorful portrayal.)

All this is hooey. All the president's cabinet and advisers serve at the pleasure of the chief executive, and can be dismissed by him or her at any time, for any reason. Lyman could fire Scott because he doesn't like the way he parts his hair.

There's a powerhouse of a scene near the end where Scott and Lyman confront each other, alone, in the Oval Office. The president reveals that he knows all about the plot, laying out his evidence in a prosecutorial fashion. Scott angrily denounces Lyman as a "weak sister" whose treaty amounts to a willing surrender to the enemy. Lyman persistently demands that Scott resign, and Scott refuses.

It's a fun scene, with Lancaster thundering away about protecting the country, and March makes a tidy speech about democratic processes must be respected or the nation into an abyss. Great acting, fiery dialogue, and all built on a premise that's utterly ridiculous. (My understanding is that in the book, Scott immediately resigns when confronted by Lyman.)

There's also a whole left-handed side plot about Ava Gardner as Scott's former mistress who supposedly has some incriminating letters written by him. Casey, pretending to pitch woo at her, gets his hands on the letters and turns them over to the president to use as leverage against Scott. But Lyman resists the urge to use the underhanded tactic -- which is supposed to demonstrate what a noble character he is.

It's a good, engaging movie -- great-looking, too, with top-notch photography and production design -- but it tends to fall apart when you start kicking the tires and peek under the hood.

3 stars

Reeling Backward: "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962)

Good movie, but they got the title wrong: Robert Stroud kept and studied birds for decades while imprisoned in Leavenworth. When he got transferred to Alcatraz, he was not allowed to have pets or scientific equipment. The "Birdman" spent 17 years at Alcatraz, with nary a bird to call his own.

But I guess the title "Birdman of Leavenworth" doesn't sing as sweetly.

This 1962 drama about a two-time killer who was saved from the hangman's noose to serve a life term studying birds is fairly typical of its era. The truth -- that Robert Stroud was a pretty hateful and despicable guy who also happened to be brilliant -- is rewritten and glammed up by Hollywood.

Played by Burt Lancaster, one of the most handsome men to ever grace a screen, Stroud is turned into a symbol of the nobility of man, and the wrongness of locking that away in a dank corner when he could be contributing to society.

Although, given the real-life narrative of Stroud's incarceration -- which the film follows fairly accurately -- it's pretty hypocritical to spend the first third or so of the movie in which Stroud and his mother fight to prevent him from getting the death penalty, and then spending the last two-thirds sermonizing about awful it is to deny him parole.

When Stroud stabs a prison guard to death in the cafeteria because he insists on reporting Stroud for a minor infraction, thus preventing him from seeing his mother, it's presented as a moment of supreme oppression -- against Stroud. That guard -- nay, the very penal system -- is just a big ol' meanie, so as the music soars and director John Frankenheimer sends his camera into opera-esque swoops and swoons, we're meant to see him as the hero striking back against a corrupt system.

Stroud goes on to mellow out quite a bit, becomes a leading authority on the anatomy of birds, and even ends the movie by heroically ending a prison riot, sagely advising the hot young guns that all life is precious. But never once does he express any remorse for his crimes.

Although I don't agree with the socio-political conclusions "Birdman of Alcatraz" steers its audience toward, I still enjoyed it. It's a skillfully-made film by a top-notch filmmaker who could still crank out a lean, mean thriller like "Ronin" at age 68.

There's a really nice crop of supporting performances. Karl Malden plays Harvey Shoemaker, Stroud's first and last warden, who vows to keep him locked in solitary until the end of his days. Their relationship starts out adversarial, morphs into something more or less civil, but retains a steel edge of enmity even into their old age.

A young Telly Savalas, who started and ended on television, plays Gomez, a dim-witted but amiable fellow prisoner who gets caught up in Stroud's affection for birds, and starts keeping some of his own.

Thelma Ritter plays Stroud's mother, who stood by him, even petitioning President Woodrow Wilson to commute his death sentence, but cut ties when he marries his business partner (Betty Field) to generate publicity. (Stroud sold birds and medicine that he made right in his cell.)

Neville Brand gives a really touching performance as Bull, a crotchety guard who forms a grudging respect for Stroud. On the day they come to pluck Stroud out of Leavenworth to transfer him to Alcatraz and back under Shoemaker's control, Bull shakes his hand and calls Stroud a friend. Because the film has patiently taken its time to sketch their relationship over the years, the moment feels true and right. It's the sort of thing a lot of modern filmmakers skimp on now.

Narrative film lends itself better to fiction, because facts almost never have a satisfying story arc. Real life is inconvenient. The real Robert Stroud was diagnosed as psychotic and possibly was a pedophile, and his bird-filled cell was a hygiene nightmare. But good stories need inspiration, and the life of Stroud certainly provided that.

3 stars

Reeling Backward: "Brute Force"

I had high hopes for this 1947 prison movie starring Burt Lancaster, but was mildly let down by it. Still, it's an interesting enough film to make a few points about it.

One of the least successful things about the movie is also the most intriguing: A series of flashbacks as various prisoners recall the circumstances that led to them being locked up in Westgate Penitentiary. As a critic, I think it weakens the movie because it gives a lot of screen time to a bunch of minor characters who clearly are not the center of the story.

But in the genre of prison flicks, what's notable is that all the men are guilty -- up to and including the hero, Joe Collins (Lancaster). Usually in prison movies, even the best ones like "The Shawshank Redemption," filmmakers find it necessary to provide a protagonist who's innocent of his crimes. That gives them free rein to explore the dehumanizing aspects of imprisonment, with the hook that "it could be you," sentenced for a crime you didn't commit.

Not here. Every one of the flashbacks shows the prisoners willfully committing crimes, knowing it could send them to jail. One guy embezzles to buy his wife a fur coat, while another is a soldier who steals food for his Italian war bride. Collins' racket was knocking over banks to save up money for his wife's operation.

Another interesting choice is to have the main heavy, the prison guard Captain Munsey, depicted as an out-and-out evil character. Don't forget, in 1947 it was a pretty ballsy thing to portray the prisoners as decent men, and their chief incarcerator as a sadist. But that's exactly what he is.

Hume Cronyn, who I most remember as one of the lovable oldsters from "Cocoon," gives an icy and quiet performance as Munsey. It reminded me very much of Ralph Fiennes' portrayal of the Nazi prison chief in "Schindler's List" -- especially in one scene where he's cleaning his rifle. This is immediately followed by a brutal scene in which the captain beats a prisoner with piece of rubber tubing.

The other main characters are a sympathetic prison doctor, who's also a drunkard, and a prison tough named Gallagher (Charles Bickford) whose loyalties lie somewhere between Collins and Munsey. Gallagher orchestrates the prison gangs, trying to keep Munsey at bay while protecting the welfare of the prisoners. He's not above enforcing a code of justice that lives within the prison walls, such as arranging the murder of a prisoner who planted a shiv on Collins, sending him into isolation.

Interestingly, Gallagher's prison job is running the prison newspaper. This allows him to send his men into any part of Westgate, carrying information or smuggling contraband.

Oh, and Calypso singer Sir Lancelot has a minor role as a prisoner who narrates the goings-on through a sing-song commentary.

Anyway, they're building a drain pipe for no good reason that I can see, and Collins comes up with the idea of using it to attack the guard tower from two sides at once. Things go horribly awry, as you might expect.

Overall, the movie just didn't really go anyplace for me. The Collins character maintains a resolute opaqueness, and the Munsey character -- once we get over the shock of his harsh portrayal -- is kind of a one-note character.

I can't say as I was dying to escape from "Brute Force," but I wouldn't want be locked up with it, either.

2.5 stars