Reeling Backward: "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (1969)

I warmed to "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," but very slowly.

This was one of those situations where I went into a movie expecting something, and the film I saw delivered something very different. Shortly after Peter O'Toole's death I realized I had several notable omissions in my viewing of his filmography and decided to rectify that, starting with his Oscar-nominated performances. Only "The Ruling Class" remains unseen by me, and hopefully I'll get to it before long.

Anyway, James Hilton's novella has previously been adapted to film in 1939. The story of a meek, shy British schoolmaster who gradually comes out of his shell to become a beloved institution unto himself, it had notes similar to other teacher tales, like the underrated "Mr. Holland's Opus." To wit: the focus is on the relationship between the instructor and his pupils.

Alas, "Chips" is not overly concerned with life in the classroom, containing only two sections set there toward the beginning and the end, mostly to serve in juxtaposition as to how Arthur Chipping (O'Toole) is regarded by his young charges. Which is to say: unspeakably reviled in the former, and warmly embraced in the latter.

In truth, the 1969 film version is a romantic drama, and a musical one, at that. I confess I was not aware of the movie's tendency to break out into song until I started watching it and encountered O'Toole's low-key, amateurish warbling. It registers somewhere between Rex Harrison's talk-singing in "My Fair Lady" and Lee Marvin's deep-throated gurgling in "Paint Your Wagon" in terms of cadence.

Apparently, the 1960s was a time when filmmakers thought it was a great idea to cast actors who couldn't sing in musicals.

The songs in "Chips" are mostly forgettable, and mostly sung by Katherine Bridges (Petula Clark), the London stage soubrette -- in Broadway terms, the singing ingenue -- who becomes his unlikely wife. Clark was a famous recording artist at the time but not much of an actress; Richard Burton, who was originally to have played the role of Chipping, declined to appear with a "pop star," leaving the way open to O'Toole.

O'Toole's performance is a thing of wonderment. At first, his character is so off-putting and annoying, we can't stand watching him but for a short while. O'Toole affects an air of absolute mortification whenever he encounters behavior that is off-putting, which is essentially all the time. His first meeting with and courtship of Katherine is nearly grating, as we cannot possibly comprehend what she sees in this older, sad chap.

But she soon smooths out his rough edges, making him more passionate and agreeable. He stands up to his insular school's board of governors when he is passed over for promotion, something we cannot imagine the mouse-like Chipping doing beforehand. Katherine transforms him into a better man, and their relationship deepens with the passage of time, despite their lack of children.

(My understanding is she had a miscarriage in the film's original editing, but that was taken out. "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" exists in several iterations, from barely over two hours to nearly three hours running time. Many of the songs were removed during the various culling processes.)

Katherine dies during a WWII bombing while she's performing one of her old stage numbers for the troops, which leaves Chipping devastated, but in some ways still complete. He is able to engage with his boys in a manner that is instructive and clipped, yet nurturing rather than ostracizing.

One of the final scenes shows Chipping, now headmaster of the school, giving his farewell address to the boys in their massive meeting hall. He tries to be modest and downplay his tenure, but is swarmed with their support and adoration. It's practically a one-man masters class in acting, as O'Toole underplays beautifully.

I started out rather disliking this film, but near the end it almost had me in tears. This was director Herbert Ross' first effort in the chair, going on to make wonderful and/or famous pictures like "Steel Magnolias," "The Goodbye Girl," "Footloose" and  "Pennies From Heaven."

Reeling Backward: "Footloose" (1984)

For such an iconic film, "Footloose" is a strange bird of a movie. Most people remember it as a rock 'n' roll flick about a kid who brings back dancing to an uptight Midwestern town where the local preacher has successfully had it banned. The songs, the now painfully dated clothes and dance moves and the Rebellion Lite mood have it positioned in most people's minds as a delightful confection.

Basically, it's thought of as a music video -- back when MTV still played those things -- with a hip teenage movie wrapped around it.

Those are the parts that interested me least upon watching "Footloose" for the very first time. (Yes, I know, how can any self-respecting Generation Xer have missed it? The same way I've never seen "Dirty Dancing": They were movies about dancing at a time I was doing everything in my power to avoid it. I was probably trying to sneak into some horror flick instead.)

What I liked most about the film is the stuff most critics seemed to hate at the time of the film's original release: The more contemplative sequences devoted to the preacher, Shaw Moore. I think it's one of John Lithgow's best performances, as a conflicted man of God who swings between righteous certitude and soul-crushing doubt.

Quite frankly, I would love to have seen the same story told from the perspective of the preacher: A man who's devoted his life to binding the community together after the tragic loss of his own son, only to see the entire town and even his daughter stirred up by some cocky young interloper.

Diane Wiest also has a terrific role as Moore's wife, a woman whose position as preacher's wife requires her to linger in his shadow, but isn't afraid to give him counsel and try to nudge him toward the light of modernity.

I feel compelled to point out that Lithgow was only 38 years old when "Footloose" came out, while star Kevin Bacon was 25. Bacon's co-star Lori Singer was a year older, which made her a mere 12 years younger than the actor playing her father, and only nine years older than Wiest, playing he onscreen mother.


Two years earlier, Bacon had gotten his big break in Barry Levinson's "Diner," in a story of a bunch of guys facing post-college angst. Now here he is trying to look 17 -- though I'll admit the transformation is more convincing than a lot of stuff you see.

(At least Chris Penn and Sarah Jessica Parker, both memorable in supporting roles that kick-started their careers, were each 18 when the film debuted.) 

I think the reason studios usually decline to cast actual teenagers in high school movie is that they don't feel they can find actors that age who have the acting chops to pull it off. That, and most people tend to romanticize those years, forgetting the pimples, awkwardness and depression that are what most people actually experience. Better to wait until they're 25, their complexions have cleared up and their bodies filled out.

Filled out, that is, except for Singer, whose costumes emphasized her scary-skinny physique. There are several scenes where she looks downright anorexic.

Singer's role as Ariel, the prototypical rebellious preacher's daughter, is all over the map. She acts sweet and virginal around her parents, but becomes a near-psychotic hellion while hanging with her friends. The early sequence where she balances with one foot each on two speeding cars as a tractor-trailer barrels down on them is totally nutso. As is the bit where she stands in front of an oncoming train screaming her head off, waiting for Bacon's new kid in town, Ren, to save her.

There's actually not all that much dancing in "Footloose." Ren has a big solo dance scene inside the trainyard, where he begins leaping and swinging all over the place like a champion gymnast, that's totally ridiculous -- and not just because the cutaways to Bacon's (several) body doubles are so ham-handedly obvious.

Director Herbert Ross, who had a long and productive career including "The Goodbye Girl," "The Sunshine Boys" and "Steel Magnolias," lets the tone of the movie slip and slide all over the place. The main character, Ren, is actually one of the least interesting people onscreen -- not due to Bacon, but simply because the script doesn't really give him much to do. He ends up falling back on a more or less generic James Dean type of persona, but less angry.

Too many false notes doom "Footloose," giving me little hope this week's remake will be any better.

2 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Steel Magnolias" (1989)

I am secure enough in my manhood to proudly proclaim that I enjoy chick flicks -- good ones, at least. Two hours of maudlin sentiment and bitchy encounters may be some guys' idea of torture. But if it's well-executed and engaging, I'm there.

Somehow I'd missed "Steel Magnolias" in the 21 years since it came out. It's fair to say my teenage self was not as enlightened about feminine-themed movies, so I didn't catch it in theaters. And even the most ardent film lover will have a few seminal films they just never got around to.

I'm so glad to have rectified the oversight. What a wonderful pageantry of lively Southern womanhood. The film is based on Robert Harling's play (he also wrote the screen adaptation), which is a fictionalized account of his sister's death at a young age. Director Herbert Ross (who also helmed "The Sunshine Boys," featured here not long ago) has a wonderful touch with his huge cast of talented actresses.

This was Julia Roberts' big break-out role (she earned an Oscar nomination for supporting actress), but for me the film is notable for having so many great parts for actresses of a certain age: Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis. It's hard to imagine a movie being made today with so many gray-haired spitfires.

And what great one-liners they get: "Steel Magnolias" is filled to the brim with crackling dialogue. They're delivered in a showy, punchy way -- so much so that you can practically hear the wind-up. But even if there's that bit of inescapable artifice whenever a stage work moves to the screen, we don't mind because the lines are so great, and delivered with such panache.

Consider:

"The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize."
"I'm not crazy, I've just been in a bad mood for 40 years!"
"I'm just screaming at my husband; I can do that any time!"
"Well, you know what they say: if you don't have anything nice to say about anybody, come sit by me!"
"I think we should pray." "Oh, I'd rather eat dirt!"
"We went skinny dipping and we did things that frightened the fish."

The plot itself is pretty simple, centering around the mother-daughter relationship of M'Lynn Eatonten (Field) and her daughter Shelby (Roberts), who's about to get married. M'Lynn has spent her whole life fretting after he daughter because of her severe diabetes, and isn't quite ready to cut the apron strings.

Later, Shelby insists on having a child of her own, despite dire warnings from the doctors about the impact it could have on her health. Sure enough, her kidneys fail and she has to receive a transplant from her mother. But eventually she succumbs and dies.

The men stay on the sidelines, where they belong. (The stage version takes entirely inside a beauty shop, and the males are discussed but never seen.) Tom Skerritt has a nice turn as Drum, M'Lynn's exuberant husband, and Dylan McDermott plays Jackson, Shelby's new husband.

By the way, you can tell we're in the Deep South by all the character's names. There's also Truvy Jones (Parton), the town's best beautician and gossip; Annelle Dupuy Desoto (Daryl Hannah), the resident Bible-thumber; Clairee Belcher (Dukkakis), widowed wife of the mayor and number-one socialite; and Ouiser Boudreaux, the neighborhood S.O.B. who dresses like a charwoman but knows that "the only reason people are nice to me is because I have more money than God."

These names may sound made up, but anyone who's actually spent time below the Mason-Dixon Line knows that colorful monikers abound. Consider Tillie Tooter, the Florida woman who became famous a few years ago for surviving several days trapped in her car.

The story takes place in Chiquapin Parish, a fictional Louisiana town that is apparently devoid of black people. (Actually, one mother and her child crop up near the end.)

"Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion," one of the women says, and it perfectly sums up the wonderful appeal of this Southern-fried gem.

3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "The Sunshine Boys" (1975)

The biggest joke in "The Sunshine Boys" is that the two old vaudevillians are funnier when they're not telling jokes.

The set-up of the 1975 comedy, based on the Neil Simon play, is about the duo of Lewis & Clark, hysterically funny on stage, and horribly estranged off it. They're brought back together by an offer to do their act one more time for a big television special, if they can only stand to be in the same room.

The highlight is supposed to be when they do their old doctor sketch during rehearsals, which is the least funny time we see them together. They're still pretty damn funny, but after an hour or so of wisecracks and great comic timing, we long for them to get to arguing again.

Simon's play was a big hit on Broadway a few years earlier, so it only made sense for it to follow "The Odd Couple" from stage to screen. Jack Benny and Red Skelton were set to star, but Benny grew sick and died and Skelton pulled out. Walter Mattheu stepped in as irascible Willy Clark, and George Burns -- a real vaudeville straight man -- was brought in to tackle the role of Al Lewis.

This was Burns' first motion picture in 36 years, and it was a doozy. He won the Oscar for best supporting actor at age 80, prompting him to joke that he should only do one movie every 36 years. Offers soon came flooding in, and 60-odd years into his career Burns became a movie star with the "Oh, God" films and several others.

Lewis and Clark hate each other, though neither would give the other the satisfaction of saying so. It's more a long, cold war, with every interaction a game of one-upsmanship. Even after Clark suffers a heart attack and is bedridden, he makes a point of setting up his chair on the far side of the room to receive Lewis, and stuffs pillows beneath himself, so his old partner will have to walk as far as possible to see him, and look up when doing so.

Richard Benjamin plays Ben, Clark's hapless nephew and agent, who can't convince his uncle to show up on time and in the right place to audition for a potato chip commercial. A number of other notable actors turn in supporting roles, including a young F. Murray Abraham -- all that hair! -- as a mechanic.

Matthau was only in his 50s when they made the movie, but he was believably aged up 20 years or so through makeup and his own acting skills.

What's really funny is that the comedy duo's disagreements are so trivial. Clark insists that Lewis deliberately poked him during their performances, and spit on him when pronouncing his T's. Lewis wanted to retire and Clark didn't, and he's obviously bothered that he doesn't have any identity outside of their partnership. Lewis gets steamed when Clark changes the opening line of their routine from "Come in" to "Enter."

There's a great, serious scene where Clark is haranguing Lewis to Ben, who finally asks him why he worked with him for 43 years if he hated him so much. Clark forcefully calls Lewis "the best." He was a great actor with terrific comic timing, Clark praises. "As an act, nobody could touch him. As a human being, nobody wanted to touch him!"

The jokes come fast and furious, building in speed and intensity until the audience is rolling with laughter. It's not vaudeville, but it sure is funny.

3 stars



(Apologies... after all my talk about how the vaudeville routine wasn't as funny as the rest of the movie, that's the only video clip I could find.)