"A Place in the Sun" was a sensation when it came out in 1951, though its place among the cinematic greats has faded considerably. This, despite the fact it won the first Golden Globe for best picture. And it took six Oscars including director, screenplay, cinematography, editing and musical score, beating out "A Streetcar Named Desire" in all five categories.
I think most modern observers would call those prizes sorely misplaced.
It stars a powerhouse cast of Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters in a tragic love triangle based on Hoosier author Theodore Dreiser's book, "An American Tragedy" (unread by me), later turned into a play and then this movie, script by Michael Wilson and Harry Brown. Clift plays the poor nephew of a women's clothing magnate who is invited into a world of privilege, falls for a wealthy socialite but is conflicted after impregnating a female coworker.
There is very much a "The Great Gatsby" feel to the story, and the indeed this novel came out a few months after F. Scott Fitzgerald's in 1925. Though the film is set in contemporaneous times instead of the Roaring Twenties, much is made about the contrast between the wealthy and the poor, the perceived nobility of the privileged and the venality of the common folk.
I admit I had a hard time even getting through "The Last Time I Saw Paris."
It represents exactly the sort of Golden Age filmmaking that so turned me off as a youth: melodramatic, slowly paced, maudlin to the point of groan-inducing. It's a romantic film that starts off as a joyful scamp, turns into a drama and soon a tragedy. It's what was known in the old days as a "weepie" -- I laughed, I cried, I couldn't wait for it to end.
I chose to feature it mostly because of the presence of Van Johnson, a largely forgotten performer whose career I've been wanting to explore further. During the filming of "A Guy Named Joe" he nearly had his scalp torn off in a horrible car accident, resulting in deep scars on his forehead that Hollywood makeup and lighting couldn't fully hide.
He was held out of the military as a result of his injuries, while many big stars of the era served (often in morale-boosting roles far from the danger). So for a brief moment in time, Johnson was arguably the biggest American film star. Though, like Rosie the Riveter, he soon relinquished his title when the boys came home.
Tall, freckled and strawberry blond, Johnson was a song-and-dance man whose charismatic, amiable onscreen persona left many to underestimate his talents as an actor. MGM, facing financial trouble, dropped his contract after this movie came out, but he segued into a busy career on television, and ended up doing summer stock and dinner theater into the 1970s and '80s.
The pairing with Elizabeth Taylor is an electric one. Just 21 years old, she plays Helen, a vampy seductress who pursues Charles, a Stars and Stripes correspondent, in the aftermath of the war. Her family is not wealthy but lives like they are, scraping up champagne and evening wear for a never-ending party with her father, James (an agreeable Walter Pidgeon), as the emcee and raconteur.
As Charles segues into a job as a correspondent for the Europa News Service while dreaming of writing novels, James advises him to stock his stories with the good stuff: "Riches, ruffians and rape."
Alas, his novelist career never takes off and Charles, inundated with rejections from publishers, soon turns his frustration on Helen, who withdraws back into her role as the most famous American in Paris -- noted for dancing in fountains and the like.
Neither of them are particularly good parents, with Charles off drinking and Helen socializing. This, despite the presence of an adorable moppet, Vicki (Sandy Descher). Things only compound when they become suddenly wealthy, the result of some "worthless" oil fields in Texas that yield a gusher.
Very loosely based on a semi-autobiographical short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the film has a very episodic feel, with distinct movements as judged by the changes in Helen and Charles' relationship. Director Richard Brooks ("Blackboard Jungle") co-wrote the screenplay with the Epstein twins, Julius J. and Philip G.
The title comes from a song that was already a golden oldie when the movie came out. It actually won the Academy Award for Best Song for 1941's "Lady Be Good."
The film moves in slow waves and eddies, undulating toward a sad denouement and an uplifting finale. This is the sort of movie where a perfectly healthy woman in her 20s can fall deathly hill just be being exposed to some cold weather for a few minutes. It was either that, or somebody was going to get run over by a car and crippled.
The most interesting aspect of the film is underplayed criminally. Charles does not first meet Helen, but her older sister, Marion (Donna Reed). She clearly is smitten with him, but after arriving at the party she invited him to Charles is snatched up by Helen, whom he had briefly kissed as strangers during the VE celebration in the street.
Marion is very cold to Charles the rest of the movie, even after she marries a kindly French attorney. For his part, Charles is completely ignorant of her feelings. She despises him for never returning her love. But this is all kept very much in the background, until literally the second-to-last scene, where her husband chastises Marion and urges her not to let her contempt for Charles color her actions.
To me, the story of a love triangle that goes on for years, with a man reviled for loving the wrong sister, is much more interesting than the movie we get. Marion sort of flits in and out of the background, so her emotions never really have time to register. The whole movie seems like an overlong wasted opportunity.
A couple of other stars have notable but small supporting roles. Eva Gabor plays Lorraine, a professional divorcee who marries and casts aside rich men. Charles is assigned to profile her for his news service, and the two start up a chaste companionship. Meanwhile, Helen falls into the arms of Paul, an itinerant tennis pro played by Roger Moore in one of his very first screen roles.
Hopefully, I'll find more to like about Van Johnson's career than "The Last Time I Saw Paris."
"Cleopatra" is remembered today almost entirely for its largeness -- its budget, its ambition, its length, the ego of its two stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the scope of its fiscal disaster. It was the top-grossing film of 1963 but still nearly put 20th Century-Fox out of business due to spiraling costs: $44 million for production and marketing, the equivalent of $340 million in 2016 dollars.
The film single-handedly killed off the big-budget Hollywood period epic for a couple generations. Many careers were sunk or least laid low for a time, including director Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Though not Taylor and Burton, who scandalously carried on a public affair during the shoot while married to other people, eventually leaving their spouses to wed and star in a number of other notable pictures together.
Its name has become synonymous with the term "flop," often mentioned in the same breath as "Waterworld," "Ishtar" and "Heaven's Gate." Taylor's health often delayed shooting, including an emergency visit to the hospital where she received a tracheotomy, resulting in a scar that's visible in many shots. Her weight also fluctuated dramatically over more than a year of shooting as a result of her medical issues -- the London sets were torn down and rebuilt in Italy during the hiatus -- so that Cleopatra's double chin and waistline come and go from scene to scene.
There is in fact so much ridicule associated with "Cleopatra" that people tend to look past its magnificence.
Yes, at four hours and change it is entirely too long (especially with the curious omission of an intermission, direly testing patience and bladders). Things flow well until about the 2½ hour mark, when the brooding romance between the Egyptian queen and Mark Antony sends the film into a torpor, revived only at the end with the pair's dramatic deaths, recalling Romeo and Juliet.
It seems like there is a solid hour of screen time in which Burton does little more than swig from his ever-present flagon of wine and shout ineffectually at those around him.
Yet the grandness of its spectacle cannot be denied. The procession of Cleopatra into Rome should rightly be regarded as one of the most opulent, jaw-dropping moment in cinematic history. The scale of the sets, thousands of extras, Cleopatra's moving sphinx stage -- the mind boggles trying to take it all in at once.
"Cleopatra" may have cost a boatload, but the millions are right there on the screen to behold.
The story actually covers about 20 years of history, and fairly faithfully. Julius Caesar -- played by Rex Harrison in one of his best performances, I think -- comes to Alexandria while fighting enemies on all sides. He had previously installed teenage siblings Cleopatra and Ptolemy as co-rulers of Egypt, but the brother had pushed her out.
The much-older Caesar regards the young Egyptian girl as an impertinent pest, but in time he comes to see her as a prized pupil in the ways of leadership, and eventually something more intimate. Taylor plays Cleopatra as an intensely intelligent and calculating person, who absorbs the wisdom of Caesar and then puts it to her own use.
She bore him a son, Caesarion, and they wed despite Caesar already being married to a proper Roman woman. Upon being named dictator for life -- but still requiring the consent of the Senate to do anything -- he summons Cleopatra to Rome, resulting in the spectacle mentioned above. She is at the height of her powers, and Taylor positively thrums with authority and confidence.
Eventually Caesar is brought down and assassinated, and loyal right-hand man Antony shares leadership for a time with two others, notably Octavian, Caesar's cunning nephew. He's played by Roddy McDowell in a coy turn, clearly presented as homosexual, but a far superior politician and tactician than Antony.
Given stewardship of the eastern portion of the Roman Empire, Antony soon falls into Cleopatra's arms himself. Here, rather than using her wiles to distract a potential conqueror, Cleopatra seems to genuinely fall in love with the complex, proud Antony. Like Caesar he is accused by his peers of "going native," and is later summoned back to Rome and forced into a political marriage to Octavian's widowed sister.
Eventually Octavian, who would go on to become the first Roman Emperor, solidifies his power and maneuvers Antony into war, where his overconfidence undoes him in the naval Battle of Actium. It's an amazing sequence, with full-size ship replicas, flaming ballistas, the works.
Unmanned in defeat, Antony's despondency increases when his troops abandon him before a bold land attack against Octavian's legions. He took his own life and then Cleopatra took hers.
This all sounds fairly incredible, one woman at the center of so much pivotal history, but as I said the movie is actually pretty accurate to the known historical record. The film's major omission is removing any reference to the three children the pair had together, who were spared by Octavian and brought to Rome to be raised by his sister.
(Caesarion and Antony's other son by a previous marriage did not fare so well, literally dragged screaming to their executions.)
The cinematography, sets, special effects and costumes are lavish beyond imagining. The film won Oscars in all four categories, setting industry standards that could only be achieved today through the extensive use of CGI. "Cleopatra" also earned Academy Award nominations for best picture, sound, editing, music score and best supporting actor, for Harrison.
I was surprised by how much flesh there is in the film. Taylor appears nude twice, obscured by a towel during a massage and by the water of a bath. Various servants and such in the background are often scantily dressed. A dancer during the procession appears wearing only a thong and pasties over her nipples, which must have made quite an impression in 1963.
Martin Landau and Hume Cronyn are solid in supporting roles as cagey advisors to Antony and Cleopatra, respectively. Carroll O'Connor turns up as Casca, one of Caesar's leading murderers, and I admit encountering Archie Bunker in a toga was disconcerting. Andrew Keir is a stalwart presence as Agrippa, a longtime foe of Antony's.
I'd been meaning to get to "Cleopatra" for several years, and am pleased by what I found. Like "Gone With the Wind," it's a terrific movie that got swallowed by a much longer film. The difference being that while the former is lavishly overpraised, "Cleopatra" deserves much better than to be regarded as a cinematic punchline.
Here is Hollywood moviemaking teetering at the end of its golden age, grand and gaudy, its flaws inseparable from its many virtues.
My biggest complaint about family films is that they usually aren't for the entire family. They're generally pitched at a child's level of comprehension, and adults find the movie predictable or silly. "Tooth Fairy" is a recent example.
"National Velvet" is a perfect example of a film that anyone of any age can enjoy. It's full of joy and youthful enthusiasm and boundless optimism. It's about a humble girl who has a dream, and perseveres in pursuing it, believing firmly when all the naysayers dismiss her, and who wins all the glory in the end.
How can a story about a girl named Velvet Brown who rides her horse in the Grand National race be compelling, when we know she's going to win? Mostly, with strong supporting characters, expertly played.
In 1944, Mickey Rooney was one of the biggest movie stars in the world, despite standing not much above five feet tall. He plays Mi Taylor, a ne'er-do-well former jockey who stumbles across the Brown family in a tiny English hamlet. His deceased father had Mrs. Brown's name in a memo book, but Mi doesn't know why. He traipses the land doing a bandy-legged jig, whistling a rakish tune and not a care in the world.
He intends to use his dad's connection to rob the Browns blind, and in fact finds where Mrs. Brown hides her savings in a coffee tin. But after hearing Velvet's unabashed, innocent belief in him, he relents and replaces the money before anyone was the wiser. Velvet convinces Mr. Brown to hire him in his shop.
Mrs. Brown is played by Anne Revere, who won an Oscar for her role. Wise and serene, she once was famous herself for becoming the first woman to swim the Channel. But while proud of her accomplishment, she recognizes it's in her past, and belongs there, fondly remembered but not obsessed over.
Mr. Brown (Donald Crisp) is the town butcher, constantly harping on the price of everything without recognizing its value. He sees Velvet's goal of entering her horse in the Grand Nationals as sheer folly, good money after bad. But he's smart enough to know that Mrs. Brown is smarter than he, and listens to her admonishments that everyone should have the right to pursue folly once in their life.
I really adored the relationship between the Browns, everything down to the fact that they address each other as "Mrs. Brown" and "Mr. Brown." I don't think they ever share anything more demonstrative than a pat on the arm, but their love for each other practically radiates off the screen. As someone who's soon to become a parent himself, I took special note of how they behave a certain way when the children are around, and the tone of their conversation changes when they're alone.
A teenage Angela Lansbury has a juicy little role as Velvet's older sister, who's something of the town tart. It's something to behold her as a young sexpot.
Oh yes, the girl and her horse.
It was Elizabeth Taylor's breakout role, all of 12 when she made the film. Still a cute kid and not the great beauty she would become, Taylor just seems to glow whenever Velvet is talking about horses. The family owns only an old nag they use for delivering meat, but a chance to drive the cart is still sheer heaven for her.
Then one day she meets The Pie, and it's love at first sight.
In the tradition of films of this sort, The Pie is a wild creature whose rebellious nature immediately quiets down once the one who loves him climbs on his back. Velvet wins him in a raffle when his owner grows tired of The Pie constantly leaping his pen, wreaking havoc. Mi spends months teaching Velvet how to jump The Pie over every hedge in the countryside in preparation for the daunting leaps at the Grand Nationals.
They're supposed to find a jockey, but of course the audience knows Velvet is destined to ride The Pie in the race herself. Mi cuts her hair and claims she's a Latvian youngster who speaks no English. Dressed in her bright purple-and-yellow jockey livery -- the film's colors really pop off the screen -- she looks so dainty and fragile.
The race is quite thrilling as staged by director Clarence Brown. Steeplechase is a hard sport to watch, since the threat of serious injury, or even death to riders and steeds is quite real. Amazingly, Taylor -- who was an accomplished young rider -- performed most of her stunts herself.
With its mix of a gutsy pint-sized heroine, an array of engaging supporting performances and the invigorating racing itself, "National Velvet" is everything a family film should be.
In reading about "Ivanhoe," the 1952 film version of Sir Walter Scott's classic novel, I learn it was the most expensive movie made in England up until that time. All I can say is, they must have been shooting movies with pin-hole cameras before that, with the crew subsisting on Ritz crackers and pond water.
Granted, it's more than a half-century old, and we have digital trickery now and costume budgets that run into the millions. But still, after the spectacle of movies like "Braveheart" and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "Ivanhoe" looks positively embarrassing.
The hero, a beleaguered knight just returned from the Crusades, first shows up in this green-and-red outfit, posing as a minstrel. He rides a mule and claims that he has no armor or horse to joust in the tournament being held by evil Prince John, who's trying to usurp the throne. Well, how did he lose them? How does a knight go to battle in Jerusalem, survive and make it back without the tokens of his profession? Was his sword stolen by a thief, a la King Arthur in "Excalibur"? Did his armor get itchy, so he ditched it?
Nevermind. Because it turns out that when he finally does get some armor, he looks even more ridiculous than his minstrel show. All the knights in this production wear draping chain armor and helmets that are obviously not made out of metal. There's one scene where you can see how uneven the surface of the helmet is, like warped wood.
And the battle scenes are simply laughable. At one point the squire of Ivanhoe is caught in battle, and you can see his fake sword bending and swaying after it's struck.
And arrows. My God, the arrows.
There's a big castle siege scene, and you'll see the soldiers running here and there, and then suddenly what looks like a bundle of sticks appears from off-screen, rapidly dispersing into a cloud of wooden arrows. Most of them aren't even pointed in the right direction. They travel too slow to have been launched from a tot's slingshot, let alone an English longbow. You can see them hit some of the actors and bounce off like matchsticks. It literally looks like they had a crew member standing with a pile of fake arrows just outside of camera range, and then on cue he hurls them into the scene.
The one exception I can cite is the final showdown between Ivanhoe and his arch-enemy, Sir Brian De Bois-Guilbert (played by George Sanders). Ivanhoe fights with an axe, and De Bois-Guilbert wields the ball-and-chain, and it's actually a pretty convincing fight.
I did not think much of Robert Taylor as Ivanhoe. When I was young and hadn't experienced a lot of classic movies, one of the things I didn't like about them was what I considered a very stiff sort of acting style that was prevalent around the time. Taylor delivers his lines in fast, crisp tones that barely modulate, and a facial expression that occasionally slips from blank to serene. Now, of course, I know that there were plenty of actors of that era who were much more expressive. I guess Taylor's just a dud, or at least he is in this picture.
"Ivanhoe" also features a 20-year-old Elizabeth Taylor as Rebecca, the Jewess who sells her jewels to outfit Ivanhoe and becomes enamored with him. Nowadays she would be the young ingenue just breaking into movies, but this was actually Taylor's 19th film. People tend to forget that she was one of the few child actors who went on to have a truly robust career that spanned decades.
I'm sure in its day, "Ivanhoe" probably looked like a grand spectacle to audiences. But some films simply don't age well, and this is one of them. It's stiff, cheap-looking and dull.
