Reeling Backward: "Executive Suite" (1954)

While a fairly typical Golden Age drama in a lot of ways, "Executive Suite" diverged from other Hollywood dramas of the day.

Most notably, it was set inside the top leadership of a national furniture company and focuses on a struggle for power when the enigmatic president suddenly drops dead. That's it. There is no spy intrigue, no murders, not very much sex (or the implication thereof, this still being 1954).

Nope, it's a business story set in a business world.

Hollywood has never liked business settings, then or now. Since few writers or directors came up in the business world, they struggle to find something interesting to tell a story about in a common office setting. Even when creative stories are set at work, they tend to focus on the personalities rather than the actual job, like the TV series "The Office."

Try to think of some modern films that are entirely set in the quotidian workplace, and you'll be hard pressed to name many, especially those that aren't "sexed up" with murdery-mystery elements. "Working Girl," "Glengarry Glen Ross," "9 to 5" and "Michael Clayton" are the only ones I can come up with off the top of my head.

Director Robert Wise also made the interesting choice not to use any musical score or soundtrack of any kind, which was very unusual for the day. The board room proceedings play out in tense silence, which I don't think would've been helped with a ladling of syrupy strings.

"Executive Suite" features the prototypical 'cavalcade of stars' that was popular in that era, particularly from MGM., which had a vast pool of talent to pull from. This includes William Holden, Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Pidgeon, Fredric March, June Allyson, Paul Douglas, Dean Jagger, Louis Calhern, Shelly Winters and Nina Foch.

In a lot of ways it reminds me of a forbear of "Modern Men," focusing on the men and women carousing the Big Apple corridors of power, often winding up in each other's laps or beds. (Or at least what I know of the show from pop culture, having never seen an episode.)

These great actesses are largely relegated to the role of the wife, the secretary, the jilted mistress, the girlfriend -- or some combination thereof.

Produced by John Houseman (who does not appear), written by Ernest Lehman from a script based on the book by Cameron Hawley, this is defintely a tale of a man's world where the womenfolk populate the fringes of the story.

The president, Avery Bullard, is never actually depicted in the film, other than his body being seen put into an ambulance from afar. The film actually opens with a first-person perspective of Bullard exiting the Wall Street headquarters of the Tredway Corporation, filling out a telegram calling for a board of directors meeting for that Friday evening at 6 o'clock, then keeling over dead from an apparent heart attack.

His wallet, which he'd just used to pay for the telegram, flies out of his hand into a street gutter, where it is pilfered for cash and the ID tossed into a trashcan. So it takes a few hours for the police to identify Bullard.

As it would happen, two people in the Tredway building saw the commotion and identified Bullard: George Caswell (Louis Calhern), a conniving playboy board member, and Julius Steigel (Edgar Stehli), an old hand who would seem to be a lawyer or similar advisor. This sets all sorts of higgledy-piggledy into motion.

The men had just been arguing about Bullard's failure to appoint one of his vice presidents as executive VP, thereby anointing an heir apparent. Julius had waved the need off, pointing out that Bullard was a hale 56 years of age, while he himself is almost 71.

Caswell responds to the death by immediately selling off of as much of his stock as possible, anticipating the price will crash when Bullard's death hits the news. But because of the snafu with the wallet, this happens after the stock market has closed, so on Monday he will either turn a handsome profit or be wiped out.

As the story plays on, we learn the identity of the other executives and the background of Tredway. It seems the company's founder died some years ago leaving it in a lurch, and Bullard was able to turn things around and make it very profitable. But in recent years they've gotten away from their hallmark of well-made furniture in favor of cheap stuff like the new K-H line, which is little more than the DIY pressboard so common today.

Don Walling (William Holden) is a hard-charging young designer who was brought in personally by Bullard five years ago to develop new styles and experiment with more efficient production methods. He's mostly a rolled-up-sleeves type hobnobbing with workers in the factory rather than authoring memos in "the tower," aka the NYC HQ. His wife, Mary (June Allyson), is supportive but assertive, insisting that it's time for him to move on from Tredway.

Frederick Alderson (Walter Pidgeon), the treasurer, would seem to be the obvious pick to succeed Bullard. He's been at the company forever, is appropriately grey-haired with a patrician mien, and yearns for a return to the company's glory days.

However, Alderson is outmaneuvered by Loren Shaw (Fredric March), the controller who sees everything in terms of dollars and cents. He gets to the office before anyone, handles the press, the official statement, even arranges the funeral so it will not interfere with Monday's day shift. Shaw also takes the liberty of releasing the company's stellar earnings report early to mitigate the hit to the stock price.

Of course, this has the effect of underming Caswell's little scheme. The two men hatch an arrangement to transfer some of the company's reserved stock to Caswell to cover his wager in return for his vote to make Shaw the next president.

It's a very subtle, internal performance from the great Fredrick March. He plays a man of quiet ambition who has been licking his chops for the top job for years, and obviously has done the legwork to make it happen. If there were an element of intrigue in this story, I'm sure it would be Shaw who had poisoned Bullard's martini or something.

Shaw's not a bad guy, or certainly he would not see himself as such. He's just a (then) new breed of corporate denizen who believes everything should be about maximizing shareholder dividends rather than thinking about and investing in the future.

After Shaw undercuts Alderson's self-confidence, he feels he's blown his own chance at taking over the corner suite, and withdraws his own candidacy. (This is ludicrous, of course; though surrendering after one minor defeat is probably a good indicator he doesn't possess the mettle for the job.)

Alderson and Walling flail around trying to find somebody else who would be less objectionable than Shaw, but the most obvious choice, manufacturing chief Jesse Grimm (Dean Jagger), had already determined to retire, tired of the company's decline in quality products. They try to tag Walter Dudley (Paul Douglas), the likeable sales VP, but Walling feels he'd do little to halt the company's wayward path.

What they don't know is Shaw has already secured Dudley's vote by subtly blackmailing him over his affair with his secretary, Eva (Shelley Winters). Meanwhile, Walling puts himself forward as an alternative. Alderson is initially hesitant given his age, and likely his own pride, but eventually comes around.

The other major player is Julia Tredway (Stanwyck), daughter of the company founder and owner of the largest share of company stock. It was also a well-known secret that she had carried on a 10-year affair with Bullard, who ultimately rejected her in favor of the company. She's easily manipulated by the men, particularly Shaw.

Stanwyck has one great scene where she's confronted by Walling, and she nearly throws herself off the skycraper balcony. It's not a big part, but Stanwyck makes the most of it.

Foch plays Erica Martin, the president's secretary and keeper of secrets. It's an interesting role, played very close to the vest as the loyal person who carries out orders. She's the one who makes the calls, arranges the meetings, tallies the votes. Shaw tries to press her for dirt on Bullard but is sharply rebuffed.

Foch is in the only peformer in the film to receive an Oscar nomination, which must have stung for all these male thespians wearing their three-piece suits and spouting urgent dialogue. The film also received nods for the cinematography (by George J. Folsey), costumes (Helen Rose) and art direction.

In general I love black-and-white pictures, though I do wish this one had been in color. All the handsome wood board rooms and costumes probably would've looked quite amazing in Technicolor.

An odd egg of a movie that still slides seamlessly into mainstream Hollywood fare of that era, "Executive Suite" is well-acted and undeniably entertaining. Even if business films have hardly ever been a going concern, this one is cinematically profitable.

Reeling Backward: "Hombre" (1967)

Paul Newman, of course, looks about as much like an American Indian as I do an Aboriginal chieftain. Even as half-breed Apache John Russell, it's an entirely unconvincing portrait -- the bad wig and bandana he wears briefly during the opening scene doing nothing to help.

But Russell is a compelling anti-hero in "Hombre," notable for two reasons. First, he's a powerful advocate for a revisionist look at how Indians are portrayed in Western films, delivering a stern uppercut to white characters who look disdainfully down on his people. To the snooty upper-crust woman who talk in horrified tone about seeing some Apaches eat dog meat, he tells her she's never known real hunger. "You'd eat dog, and fight for the bones."

And that line gives a clue to the other aspect of the character: He is one of the unkindest, most unlikable men  you're apt to meet in a mainstream film. He kills without enjoyment, but he does so with a total lack of hesitation or compassion. Russell is not above shooting a man in the back after he's come to parley if he thinks the other a threat.

Lots and lots of men of this ilk are portrayed in movies, particularly Westerns, but their grimness is always a front for a fairly typical heroic outlook ... or, at the very least, their severity is eventually triumphed by altruistic feelings. Think of the Man with No Name, whose trilogy was recently profiled in this space. Clint Eastwood wears the visage of a selfish killer, but almost from the get-go he's looking to help out the downtrodden.

Not John Russell. Newman's steely performance makes quite clear that he gives not a fig for the Caucasians (and one Mexican) with whom he shares a stagecoach. when they find out he's half-Indian, Russell is forced to ride up top with the driver. When the coach is stopped and robbed by bandits -- one of them hidden among the passengers -- Russell is ready to let them all die so long as he's not harmed.

In the end, of course, Russell does sacrifice himself for the greater good. But it's damn clear he's not happy about doing it. It's an act of heroism, but executed with a sneer and resignation rather than a kind heart.

Elmore Leonard must hold some kind of record for most novels turned into films, due in part to the fact that he leapt through genres gleefully. Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch adapted the book for the screenplay, turning in a spare, economical script with surprisingly little dialogue. Russell himself rarely speaks more than a sentence or two at a time.

Director Martin Ritt was a well-regarded journeyman who had previously worked with Newman on "Hud," "The Long, Hot Summer" and and several other pictures. Visually "Hombre" isn't terribly novel, though Ritt has a flair for extreme close-ups of faces that is in some ways reminiscent of Sergio Leone.

His real strength as a filmmaker, I think, was in eliciting sharp, strong performances from his cast. All the characters in "Hombre," from the lead to the smallest supporting role, have a resonance and authenticity that's gripping. Even a Mexican bandit (Frank Silvera) -- who's only credited as "Mexican bandit" -- gets a few choice lines and a dramatic death scene.

It's no surprise that Ritt, who scored only one Oscar nomination during his long career, saw his films garner an astonishing 11 Academy Award acting nominations, with two wins.

The plot is pretty bare, though it bears some similarities to an updated version of John Ford's classic "Stagecoach."

A party of disparate souls are packed together for a journey through dangerous lands, with one of them an outcast. Russell, who had been corralling horses in the mountains with other Apaches, learns the white father who adopted him has died and left him a boarding house. He takes one look at it and the harried, soulful woman running the place and decides to sell it for a herd of horses.

Jessie (a terrific Diane Cilento), acts as the moral conscience of the group, repeatedly trying to shame Russell into helping the others instead of just looking out for himself. Jessie has her own problems. In addition to just losing her livelihood, she proposes marriage to her boyfriend, the local sheriff Braden (Cameron Mitchell), and is told, "Not a chance." By her own reckoning she's been married, widowed, used and abused, but she has a strong sense of self and is in some ways hardier than Russell himself.

Fredric March plays Favor, an elderly professor and Indian agent who's been robbing Russell's tribe blind, carrying $12,000 in cash along with his much younger refined bride, Audra (Barbara Rush). Also along for the ride are Billy Lee (Peter Lazer) and Doris (Margaret Blye), a very young and recently married couple whose lives seem headed toward misery. Mendez (Martin Balsam) runs the coach line and is the closest thing in the world Russell has to a friend.

Last and least is Cicero Grimes, the head of the robber gang who poses as a passenger (by intimidating a soldier into giving up his ticket). Richard Boone has a splendid turn as the amoral Grimes, who's relentless and folksy at the same time. He's a loathsome man -- at one point he makes a semi-serious rape attempt on Doris -- but the movie only hits its highest gear when he's around.

3.5 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: "Les Misérables" (1935)

I would not want to be a filmmaker faced with the daunting task of translating Victor Hugo's mammoth, epic novel "Les Misérables" onto film. The scope and sweep of the book are simply too huge to be diminished into a movie running two (or three, or four, or even five) hours.

Still, plenty have tried, with varying degrees of success. IMDb lists nearly 20 versions, including television movies. Perhaps it's due to the severity of the challenge that none of them are considered the standard, so more keep getting made.

The 1935 film with Fredric March as Jean Valjean and Charles Laughton as Inspector Javert is perhaps the most recognized iteration. It's a powerful version, centering on the antagonism between Valjean and Javert -- though the filmmakers had to jettison much of Hugo's pages to set up this dynamic.

I won't belabor every way in which a 1,500-page novel is redacted in order to fit into a 108-minute movie, though if you're curious the Wikipedia page has a pretty thorough rundown of the discrepancies.

But director Richard Boleslawski and screenwriter W.P. Lipscomb made one monumental alteration: Removing the villain of the piece, Thenardier. In fact, the entire Thenardier clan has been purged from the story, other than a very brief glimpse when Valjean rescues Cosette from indentured servitude at their inn.

From a movie-making standpoint, the choice makes sense. The rivalry with Javert has more narrative juice, and with Charles Laughton in the role, the film had to shrink down to better contain their antagonism.

I assume everyone is familiar with the bones of the story: Valjean, released from prison after 20 years for stealing a loaf of bread, has his soul enlightened by a kindly bishop. He endeavors to do good deeds, even as Javert and the hard hand of justice continue to pursue him. Valjean takes up the guardianship of the young girl Cosette, and they try to forge a new life together.

The travails of Cosette's mother Fantine are mostly dropped, which is too bad because the book establishes its tragic tone largely through her story. I mean, who could forget a woman who's forced to sell her own teeth? She's played by Florence Eldridge, who was Fredric March's wife.

It's not one of March's best performances. He gives Valjean a sort of flat nobility -- we see him struggle with his conscious, but not for long. Compared to Laughton's mesmerizing turn filled with fire and ice, March is more or less blown off the screen in their scenes together.

One of the earliest attempts to film "Les Misérables" was a series of movies starting in 1909 that followed the book's sections fairly closely. Though I enjoyed the 1935 film, one feels like they're watching the pale shadow of a great story, whispered over a tremendous distance.

I think the only way to do Hugo's masterpiece justice would be a "Lord of the Rings"-style approach, with multiple films and a huge budget. I doubt that will ever happen.

3 stars out of four

The Bridges at Toko-Ri

The Korean War has been called "the forgotten war," and the 1955 film "The Bridges at Toko-Ri" is an early look at the disillusionment of the men who fought it.

As I've discovered more war pictures from the 1940s and '50s, I've been struck by how anti-war -- and often downright cynical -- they can be. Most people consider the Golden Age of cinema an era of unquestioning patriotism when it came to movies about armed conflict. But in point of fact, filmmakers were quite capable of delivering harsh, sobering glimpses of war.

William Holden plays Harry Brubaker, a Navy lieutenant pilot who as the story opens is forced to ditch his jet in the ocean when he runs out of fuel returning from a mission. He nearly dies in the frozen sea, but is saved by the plucky rescue helicopter pilot Mike Forney, memorably played by Mickey Rooney.

We soon learn that -- like the Jimmy Stewart character in "Strategic Air Command" -- Brubaker was a reservist called back up to active duty, and he's none too thrilled about it. He had a successful law practice going, a wife (Grace Kelly) and two young daughters. Now he's risking his neck doing bomb runs over a country most Americans back home couldn't find on a globe.

Fredric March has a great role as the grizzled old Navy admiral who brutally assesses his men's grit and abilities while also extending a paternal hand to Brubaker. He sees much of his dead son in the brash young pilot, and even looks the other way when Brubaker's wife brings his family to Japan to see him, despite regulations to the contrary.

The film is based on a book by James Michener, based on his real experiences with an air command unit in 1951-52. The bridges of Toko-Ri are fictitious, but based on some real key bridges in the North Korean mountains that American air forces badly wanted to destroy.

The flight scenes are thrilling and realistic -- the film won an Academy Award for special effects -- but director Mark Robson doesn't romanticize the notion of combat or fetishize all the military gear. It's simply the backdrop to a great story about warriors that is less concerned with the war in which they find themselves.

There are numerous references to the war being a wasted effort, and something of which the Americans safe at home are barely even cognizant -- pretty radical stuff in late 1953 and early 1954, when the film was made.

I rather liked the Mike character, and how Rooney played him. He's an impish little hot-headed Irishman, who's an ace behind the yoke of a chopper but hell on wheels on land. He gets thrown in the clink when he learns his Japanese girl fell for another sailor while he was at sea, resulting in a huge brawl. Brubaker bails him out, and Mike eventually makes it back onto the ship, but not before nearly getting thrown in jail twice more.

Mike wears a bright green tophat and scarf while he's piloting his helicopter, despite the consternation of the captain. Mike is an interesting character, who flourishes in the tightly regimented society of the Navy, despite being a born hellraiser.

Brubaker becomes unnerved when a second low-fuel scenario nearly ends with him ramming his plane into a huge crane on the landing deck of his "flat top" -- aircraft carrier. He starts to lose his nerve as the big Toko-Ri mission approaches. But he does OK in the end.

The film ends with Brubaker and Mike dying in a muddy irrigation ditch in a Korean field. Brubaker completed his mission but took flak damage, and had to crash-land. Mike comes to rescue him but his helicopter is damaged.

"The wrong war in the wrong place, and that's the one you're stuck with," Brubaker intones just before perishing. It's a grim, unglamorous portrait of war, and one well worth catching.

3 stars

Reeling Backward: "Inherit the Wind"

I first saw "Inherit the Wind" when I was 11 or 12 -- right at the age when you start to question your upbringing, the values your parents endeavored to instill in you, even your religion.

What I most remember about the movie was the scene where the brilliant defense attorney questions his opposing counsel on the witness stand, and gets him to admit that the word of the Bible is not necessarily the literal truth. Since God didn't make the sun until the fourth day, how do we know the first three days were exactly 24 hours long, he needled? Couldn't it as easily been 10 million years? And if so, how are we expected to take every single word in the Good Book at face value?

The Scopes Monkey Trial -- of which "Inherit the Wind" is a fictionalized version -- may not seem that relevant today, more than 80 years on since a Tennessee schoolteacher was accused of giving lessons on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. But with recent polls showing public faith in evolution at an historic low, the 1960 film starring Spencer Tracy and Fredric March still resonates.

Funny what I just wrote: "Faith in evolution." It's amazing how quickly radical ideas become doctrine, ripe for the next wave of thinking to tear at their foundation. We are so quick to divide ourselves into believer and non-believer, whether it's faith in a deity or the theories of science.

Look at how the global warming debate generally goes: Anyone who dares to express skepticism, or even point to scientific data that casts doubt on global warming is labeled a "denier" -- as if they were some sort of apostate, rather than a thinking individual with a right to reach their own conclusions.

The trial was extremely famous in 1925, and 30 years later it was made into an equally regarded play (written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee) that formed the basis of the 1960 film directed by Stanley Kramer.

The trial itself became a spectacle because of the clash of two titans in the courtroom: civil liberties attorney Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state. The film needed to have equally giant cinematic figures standing in for them, so Tracy took on the Darrow role and March the Bryan role.

(Incidentally, the photo that runs with this article is not from the movie, but is a contemporaneous photo from the trial of Darrow and Bryan. If you watch the movie, you can see that the actors made for excellent physical matches for their parts, and the look of the small-town courtroom is also authentic -- right down to the hand fans everyone used to combat the suffocating heat. I was able to find a number of good images from the movie, but I used this photo just because I like it so much.)

The movie plays out as a series of thundering oratory battles between Darrow and Bryan, who were renamed Henry Drummond and Matthew Harrison Brady for the film. Drummond, of course, eventually gets the upper hand, though Brady is a sympathetic figure. After all, he is the one who attempts to calm the local preacher, who thunders fire and damnation upon his own daughter, who is engaged to the offending schoolteacher.

The two men spend more time addressing each other than they do the judge or the jury, and I am compelled to point out that such theatrics would not be tolerated in any courtroom, now or then.

Gene Kelly, in one of his few dramatic roles, plays a cynical Baltimore journalist who comes to cover the trial and ends up sticking his nose right into the middle of it, siding with Drummond and even sitting in at the defense table. He has a great line where the schoolteacher's fiance is summoned to be a witness for the prosecution, and he tells the teacher, "Sit down, Sampson, you're about to get a haircut." His character was based on real-life journalist H.L. Mencken, who covered the trial.

One of the most interesting things about the movie is how many supporting actors went on to have notable careers on television. The judge was played by Harry Morgan of "Dragnet" and "M*A*S*H*" fame, and Dick York as the teacher was best known as Darrin from "Bewitched." Claude Akins, as Rev. Brown, played Sheriff Lobo on "B.J. and the Bear" -- a show I'm ashamed to admit I watched religiously when I was about 9 -- and starred in a spin-off. Norman Fell, the immortal Mr. Roper from "Three's Company," played a radio guy.

"Inherit the Wind" has fallen a little in my eyes since I saw it as a questioning youngster. It's a little staged and long-winded, but still an enjoyable bit of courtroom drama. And to think that we once had movies that openly examined the relationship between God and science -- the notion of such a movie being made in Hollywood today is truly heretical.

3 stars

Reeling Backward: "A Star Is Born"

"A Star Is Born" has been made into three movies: the 1937 original starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March (which is the one I'm reviewing here); a 1954 musical version with Judy Garland; and a 1976 rock 'n' roll version with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. In all three the basic story is the same -- a fading star falls in love with a young up-and-comer, and resents seeing their star eclipsed.

In the 1954 and '76 versions, there was no question that the woman was the star of the picture. But in 1937, it was Gaynor whose career was fading, while March was in the midst of a long and distinguished career. By 1938, Gaynor's run as a Hollywood star was effectively finished, much like the character of Norman Maine. This film, directed by William A. Wellman, starts with the Gaynor character as the focus, but the story's emphasis shifts more and more to her husband as time goes on.

"Star" is a decent picture, but not the masterpiece it's made out to be. There were long stretches in the middle where I was fairly bored. I found it interesting, though, for its cynical and bleak portrayal of the Hollywood biz. It's essentially a critique of the star-making machine that ruled during the Golden Age of the 1930s and '40s, from the very people who were perpetrating it.

Esther Blodgett (Gaynor) is determined to be a star, but is warned by her grandmother that holding onto a dream so tightly often leads to heartbreak. To want something so badly, you must be willing to sacrifice everything for it. Oliver Niles (Adolphe Menjou), a big-time producer, gives her essentially the same advice. In her case, it's her relationship with Norman Maine (March) that withers.

The producer is depicted as a fairly benign figure, operating at the whim of whatever he thinks will generate the most publicity for the studio. As the film opens, it's Norman Maine. But when the light of Esther -- renamed Vicki Lester for her showbiz moniker -- begins to eclipse Norman's, the supposed old friend is quick to give him the boot.

The most depraved figure is the studio publicist, Matt Libby, played by Lionel Stander. I must confess that I only knew Stander from his role as the crony Max from that awful "Hart to Hart" television series, when he was an old bear of a man. It's hard to even think of a guy like that being young.

Libby sees everything through the prism of publicity, including how to stage the marriage of Norman and Esther/Vicki. He's furious when they sneak off for a quickie wedding at a remote town hall, rather than the big shindig he had planned. The Libby character also comes off as a Jewish caricature.

March gives a fine performance, especially toward the end after he becomes a sad-sack has-been, moping around and trying to hold onto the tattered shreds of his dignity, and stay off the booze. Considering how he starts out as a dashing, rapscallion gentleman drunk and ends up as such a pathetic figure, the film is also notable for tackling alcoholism in a scathing way.

This was my first Janet Gaynor movie. She has Betty Boop features -- exceedingly round face, tiny bow-tie mouth and big, puppyish eyes. I doubt a woman with that sort of face could make it as a star in Hollywood these days. Christina Ricci comes close, but her career hasn't exactly been gangbusters lately. Today's female stars tend to be have beautiful but bland faces. I think I prefer the old Hollywood days, when faces with character were the ideal.

3 stars