Reeling Backward: "Ryan's Daughter" (1970)

A lot of people were very upset about "Ryan's Daughter" when it came out, though feelings toward the romantic epic have warmed considerably with time.

Director David Lean was so hurt by harsh criticism of the film -- including some from the people who worked on it -- that he vowed never to make another. (He would, but only one more, "A Passage to India," 14 years later.)

Robert Mitchum said working with Lean was "like constructing the Taj Mahal with toothpicks." Others had already declined the role, including Pete O’Toole, and Mitchum nearly did so too, telling Lean he was contemplating suicide as an alternative. (Later, he would call Lean one of the best directors he ever worked with.)

Leon McKern lost his glass eye and nearly drowned while braving the crashing waves for a scene, and grumbled about the stretches of downtime on Lean's famously long, meticulous shoots.

How obsessed was Lean with getting a shot just right? He reportedly waited for an entire year for a sufficiently violent storm to film one of the most memorable scenes, when an entire Irish village turns out to help Irish Republican Brotherhood rebels retrieve weapons that have been dropped from a German ship for them.

Probably the person with the best case for complaining, though, is co-star Christopher Jones, playing the physically and spiritually mangled British soldier who falls for the Irish schoolteacher’s wife. “Ryan’s Daughter” effectively marked the end of his acting career.

Jones was already struggling with the death of ex-lover Sharon Tate in the Manson murders, and he repeatedly clashed with Lean on the set. Jones and star Sarah Miles detested each other to the extent that Lean struggled to shoot their love scenes together.

After Jones refused to film the famous forest tryst, Mitchum and Miles conspired to lace his morning cereal with a hallucinogenic, possibly with Lean’s consent, rendering him virtually catatonic and pliable. (No "allegedly" qualifier necessary; Miles herself confessed the deed in her autobiography.) Unaware of the drugging, Jones thought he was having a nervous breakdown, and crashed his car afterward.

As the final insult, Lean thought Jones’ line readings were too flat, and had his entire vocal performance redubbed by Julian Holloway. Jones didn’t even find out until he saw the movie. The vicious reviews made a point of singling him out -- "An actor could hardly express less without playing a corpse," wrote Roger Ebert -- and Jones gave up acting at age 29, spending the rest of his life as an artist and beach bum.

(Not counting a brief 1986 role.)

The only person who came out of the experience relative well was Miles, who broke out of a parade of rather obscure screen and stage roles to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She was helped by a bit of nepotism in that her husband, Robert Bolt, wrote the screenplay and pitched it to Lean with Miles in mind for the lead.

Bolt originally wanted to do a film version of “Madame Bovary,” but acquiesced to Lean’s request to change the setting and story dynamics. He chose 1916 Ireland in the days of the Easter Uprising, in the remote fictional seaside village of Kirrary on the Dingle Peninsula, where the movie was shot. (Though some of the beach scenes were filmed in South Africa.)

The town set was razed at the end of the production, but the ruins of the schoolhouse remain to this day and are a stopping point for tourists.

As you expect from a Lean film, the cinematography by Freddie Young and a lush musical score by Maurice Jarre, both constant collaborators, combine to give us a sense of immense space, and the tiny human contretemps happening as one small part of that vast environment. Young would win an Oscar for his work, beating out “Patton,” amongst others.

Whatever else you want to say about “Ryan’s Daughter,” it is a ravishingly beautiful movie to gaze upon.

Rosy Ryan (Miles), daughter of the local publican/pub owner, Tom Ryan (McKern), pines for her former schoolteacher, Charles Shaughnessy (Mitchum), a middle-aged widower. He resists her overtures, citing their age difference and lack of compatibility. She's a frisky Irish pony, and he's a dour dabbler in botany, collecting gorgeous native flowers just so he can press them into books no one will ever see.

But they marry anyway, and she is soon bored by a quiet life of little passion.

The local priest, Father Hugh Collins (a terrific Trevor Howard), tries to offer her counsel and comfort, to no avail. He’s up to his ears every day trying to keep his little flock of a couple hundred or so from straying too far into sinfulness beyond a little excessive drinking and carousing. He also protects Michael (John Mills), the resident village halfwit, from the taunts and abuse of the poor, plain folk.

Evin Crowley stands out as Moureen Cassidy, the brazen young woman leading the motley Greek chorus.

There’s a tiny British military outpost nearby, just over the hill from the schoolhouse. Insults are tossed but there’s little threat of real violence. But when a new commander is installed, war hero Maj. Randolph Doryan (Jones), things quickly sour – especially after he’s found to be carrying on an affair with Rosy.

Doryan is a complete wreck, shell-shocked and despondent. He wears the Victoria Cross for some vague heroics, and drags his right leg like a totem of the wounds inside. He even has a vertical scar near the corner of his eye that makes him look like he’s weeping. He’s treated with a slight sense of awe, but the man has nothing but the tatters of his soul.

The coupling with Rosy is sudden, almost violent, and inexplicable. He has a flashback to his war experiences while sitting alone in Ryan's bar, where Rosy is tending while her dad's away. Cradling the crumpled man in her arms, they kiss fiercely, which revives him instantly. Without exchanging names, they agree to meet again to consummate their passion.

Things go from there. Charles suspects right away, but receives her assurance that she'd never betray him. They carry out the affair more or less in the open, meeting for horse rides and walks, then sneaking off to ruined towers, beach caves or that idyllic forest to have sex.

There's one memorable scene where Charles' suspicions are aroused while taking his students on a field trip along the beach, and he spies footprints that he surmises belong to Rosy and the major. (His scraping walk is the telltale heart.) Lean intercuts Charles' imaginings with the couple playing out his dark fantasy -- when Rosy's footprints turn barefoot, he beholds Doryan tenderly removing her shoes for her.

Eventually, the cuckold and his betrayers are merged onto the same screen; Charles even slides behind a rock to conceal his spying.

He tracks them to a cave, and we expect a violent scene of discovery will follow. Instead, Charles turns away from that forbidding knowledge.

Rather, it is Michael who unwittingly gives them away. Sneaking into the cave -- possibly with the same suspicions as Charles -- he discovers Doryan's Victoria Cross in the sand. He pins it to his own chest and parades about town in a military uniform he makes out of junk, and the villagers put two and two together.

Mills would win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Michael, in a wordless performance of pantomime, yearning emotions and a mouthful of horrid teeth. He is desperately in love with Rosy, something that is apparent to everyone, though they try to pass off his pleading behavior toward her as characteristic of his quirks. She, in turn, is alternately mean and tender toward him, clearly embarrassed by the attention.

At Rosy and Charles' wedding, all the men push through the crowd to give the bride a kiss (on the cheek), but when Michael presents himself for the honor, everyone bursts into laughter and Rosy is humiliated. He finally gets that kiss in the end, though.

The role as written by Bolt seems rather antiquated now, not to mention insensitive toward the mentally and physically challenged. In addition to his simple-mindedness, Michael drags one leg around in a clear mirror of Doryan's. Both are wounded souls pierced by the arrows of outrageous fortune, who have little left to give. Their affection for Rosy is their one redeeming quality.

The storytelling moves along with the re-arrival of Barry Foster as Tim O'Leary, a famous Irish rebel who has decided to start a beach head of revolt on this quiet stretch of shore. He turns to Tom Ryan, the local publican -- a sort of small-town office dating back to medieval times -- for help in rounding up some good lads to help.

What nobody knows is that Ryan is secretly on the payroll of the British. You'd think somebody would be curious about his (relative) wealth in the poor fishing town, wearing smart suits and even buying an expensive mare for Rosy to ride. Faced with going turncoat against his people or being exposed by the English, he chooses to have it both ways -- with dire consequences for the village, and the tragic love triangle in particular.

Admittedly, there's not a lot of story for a film stretching past 3½ hours, including musical interludes at the beginning, middle and end. Much of the criticism of "Ryan's Daughter" upon its initial release focused on its indolent plotting. Ebert again: "Lean's characters, well written and well acted, are finally dwarfed by his excessive scale."

Some movies require the right moment and mood to be truly enjoyed. By today's standards, "Ryan's Daughter" is rather slow-paced and self-obsessed, stretching out shots that could be three seconds into 30.

But I just think that's part and parcel of the David Lean aesthetic. The man just didn't do small pictures. So even an intimate portrait of an Irish lass on the wrong side of love is churned up into a maelstrom of rent emotions and deeper meaning.

Whatever devastation it wrought on the lives of those who made it, it's a storm worth witnessing.

Reeling Backward: "Cottage to Let" (1941)

Though it's not a particularly good film, "Cottage to Let" is interesting to consider, both as wartime propaganda and with regards to genre.

Released in late summer of 1941, production would have had to begun right after the declaration of war between in England and Germany. Since it was based on a stage play by Geoffrey Kerr, someone must've been dreaming this thing up not long after Poland fell.

The bad guys are shifty German agents who have infiltrated seemingly every nook and cranny of the United Kingdom, including remote Thrail Manor in the Scottish moors. Essentially it's an Agatha Christie-ish whodunit, except instead of trying to find the murderer we're attempting to discover which of the residents, or which ones, are the Nazis.

The movie's title was later changed to "Bombsight Stolen," which may just win the award for worst film title, ever. Though "Cottage to Let" isn't much better, suggesting a frothy romance about Brits on vacation.

Narratively, the movie is structured like a slamming doors, upstairs/downstairs comedy of manners with plenty of potboiler elements mixed in. The audience's alter ego is Ronald (George Cole), an "evacuee" boy -- moved out of London amidst the bombings and forced to live in the country manor of the Barringtons. Ronnie is a puckish lad who takes Sherlock Holmes as his personal hero, believing him to be an actual historical figure. Soon he's sleuthing out clues all over the estate.

Mrs. Barrington (Jeanne De Casalis) is the adorably absent-minded matron trying to run various war fundraising efforts and social cotillions in the midst of urchins left at her doorstep, injured RIF Spitfire pilots being dumped into her lap and her eccentric inventor husband, John (Leslie Banks), in danger of blowing up the place.

Mr. Barrington is supposedly the most brilliant scientist in the U.K., though he stubbornly insists upon working in his isolated laboratory with a single assistant, Trently (Michael Wilding), rather than in London surrounded by military and intelligence handlers. Unfortunately, there's a leak somewhere in Thrail Manor, and some of Barrington's best inventions -- such as a self-sealing airplane fuel tank -- are getting into the hands of the Germans almost as soon as they go into production.

The injured pilot is Perry (John Mills), a dashing young officer who clearly is up to something. Director Anthony Asquith and screenwriters Anatole de Grunwald and J.O.C. Orton show him unplugging and re-plugging the phone to report his downing while lying bloodied and bandanged in a hospital bed at the cottage next to Thrail Manor, so we immediately know he's a bad egg. Soon he begins to woo his nurse, young Helen Barrington (Carla Lehmann), which puts the long-suffering, amorous Trently into a fit.

The M.O. for this story appears to have been to cast doubt on half of the cast members, and see who cracks. Trently is under suspicion because he was educated in Germany and traveled there before the war. The butler, Evans (Wally Patch), is a little too martial in his bearing and clumsy in his housekeeping skills to be a simple servant. The cook, Mrs. Trimm, quits suddenly in a huff, and confers with Trently after giving her notice.

Then there's Dimble (Alastair Sim), a strange bird of a man who has rented out the cottage before all the new boarders arrive. Tall, thin and with a false sense of friendliness, Dimble pokes his nose into everybody's business, often while peeling a potato with a penknife.

It would seem amateurish to make Dimble, so homely and awkard compared to the rest of the cast, the Nazi stooge, and the filmmakers pull a reversal on us near the end that's supposed to be a head-snapper. But I figured it out barely a third into the movie, and I doubt if any audience members wouldn't do so, too.

The stage roots, and flaws, of "Cottage to Let" are glaring -- a limited number of locations, who's-your-uncle dialogue repartee, a romantic angle that feels tacked-on and unnecessary. I rather liked Leslie Banks as the bumbling-but-decent inventor, but his limited screen time registers him as more a sideshow than the star of the picture.

Maybe if they'd made Ronnie the Boy Detective the bad guy -- then we really would've had something.

Reeling Backward: "Hobson's Choice" (1954)

A Hobson's Choice refers to a false choice, in which the chooser appears to exercise free will but in actuality is trapped in a situation beyond their control. It originates from a 16th-century stable owner who required his customers to choose the horse in the stall nearest to the door, or none at all, in order to prevent his best mounts from overuse.

A shorter, punchier description of a Hobson's Choice would be: "Take it or leave it."

Henry Horatio Hobson faces just such a choice in the 1954 movie bearing that name, though not until the very end of the story. Ostensibly the main character since he's played by cinematic giant Charles Laughton, Hobson is really just the sun around which the other, more interesting characters orbit.

As played by Laughton, Hobson is a drunk, a bully, an abusive boss and a poor father. Since this is a comedy, Laughton has a great many opportunities to play the stumblebum, tremulously pretending the results of the copious amount of alcohol he has consumed do not exist. Drunks are the most common form of actors in the world, since every inebriated thespian strives to appear not to be that which they are.

The director makes great use of Laughton's physicality, his rotund carriage and face so enveloped in multiple chins and cheeks that he appears to be always peering out from some hole, like a satisfied critter that has dug a burrow and backed itself into a haven of indulgence. Laughton's sharp, intelligent gimlet eyes, though, inform the audience that there is a brain at work behind the fat and fog.

If you'd be surprised to learn that this director is David Lean, then like me you will discover that the Brit known for his extravagant epics actually made average-sized movies at earlier times in his career. This movie is an adaptation of the play by Harold Brighouse, with a screenplay by Norman Spencer, Wynyard Browne and Lean himself.

"Hobson's Choice" ended up winning the BAFTA award for best British film. I wouldn't quite put it on that pedestal, but it is a wickedly funny and smart picture that boasts somewhat progressive views on the balance of power between women and men.

The real central character is Hobson'd eldest daughter Maggie (Brenda De Banzie), who runs his bootmaking shop and lords it over the two younger sisters (Daphne Anderson and Prunella Scales). She's much the carbon copy of her father, minus the drink and the mean-spiritedness. When she learns that her father has no intention of seeing her married because she's too valuable to his business, Maggie browbeats the simple-minded bootmaker who works in the basement, Will Mossop (John Mills), to become her groom.

Will is completely befuddled at first, acting the part of the humble employee following orders, even if they lead to the altar. Eventually, they start their own business and within a year have stolen away most of Hobson's trade, forcing him to accept a partnership with Mossop -- now tutored into a confident, savvy businessman by Maggie -- running the show.

De Banzie and Mills are terrific in their respective roles -- each received BAFTA nominations, while Laughton did not -- though they're quite long in the tooth to play youngsters. Maggie is explicitly stated as being 30 years old, and meek Will is probably even younger, while the actors portraying them were both in their mid-40s.

Mills wears an unattractive haircut with shaved sides and a prominent cowlick, which (intentionally?) resembles Adolf Hitler's odd 'do. This helps give him a boyish look, later replaced with a more grown-up one.

Lean & Co. have a great deal of fun with Hobson's drunken revelries, imbibing with the same handful of similarly-situated businessmen at the same bar every night. They trade barbs like fresh-mouthed schoolboys, but in the end Hobson seems to have the upper hand over the crew.

In one musical number, he leaves the pub so drunk he becomes fascinated with the lunar reflection in the puddles of the cobblestone street. Literally moony, he falls down a basement loading shaft and, while unhurt, facing legal and financial obligations to the proprietor. His younger daughters' suitors use this occasion to blackmail Hobson, with Maggie's assistance, into allowing them to marry, too.

I enjoyed "Hobson's Choice" and its sly take on the gender wars. It's not likely to be enshrined as a feminist totem anytime soon, since Maggie uses her new freedom in order to enter a new form of servitude with a different man. Still, her man and her station are both completely of her own choosing, and that's saying something.

Reeling Backward: "King Rat" (1965)

"King Rat" is very different from your typical prisoner of war movie. It's not about grand escape attempts or antagonism with their captors -- indeed, the Japanese do not even show up until more than 30 minutes in, and only appear briefly a few more times.

Although its main character is a flimflam man who unofficially rules the camp through his scheming and black market deals -- much like William Holden in "Stalag 17" 12 years earlier -- it's not really about that, either. Rather, it's a deep and probing look at the relationship between two very different men, and how the travails of imprisonment push them to form inseparable bonds ... or not.

Corporal King (George Segal) is the ruler of the roost, despite having one of the lowest ranks in the POW camp. He has a senior sergeant (Patrick O'Neal) as his personal lackey, and gives impertinent answers to any query by an officer into his doings. Peter Marlowe (James Fox) is a terminally stiff-upper-lip British lieutenant who speaks the local dialect, and is recruited by King as his interpreter and right-hand man.

At first Marlowe is mortally insulted at King's offers to pay him for his services, insisting that's not how an English gentleman conducts himself. He helps King, but only out of a sense of friendship -- though he does accept food, favors and later a little cash for his efforts. It's a delicious exploration of the differences between American and British culture, with the latter considering it humiliating to be seen striving too much.

King, meanwhile, is an enterprising soul. Indeed, capitalism seems to be the only thing residing in his nature. Everything to him is a contest, a game of one-upmanship, a quest for profit.

The sale of a Rolex watch from an older British officer to one of the prison guards is instructive. The officer wants at least $1,200, knowing the watch is worth 3,500. King, acting as the middleman with Marlowe translating, talks the guard up from 400 to 2,200. But he tells the officer he only got 900, leaving him with 810 after King's 10% commission.

He then gives Marlowe his cut of $108, who doesn't want to take it, seeing it as a form of theft. But King fills him in. The guard will quickly resell the watch at a handsome profit, so he's happy. The watch was actually a fake, so the officer thought he was fooling both King and the guard, so he's happy. King duped them both and, being the smartest, took the lion's share of the stake. Reluctantly, Marlowe claims his share.

In this sense, "King Rat" is less about a con man than how that man relates to others in horrible circumstances.

The thing that really stood out for me about "King Rat" was how well writer/director Bryan Forbes, adapting the book by James Clavell, depicted the plight of the prisoners of the Changi prison camp near Singapore -- mostly Brits and Aussies but a few Yanks, too. Either they exclusively hired actors and extras who were extraordinarily skinny, or the cast members were deprived of food to get just the right look.

Remember when Christian Bale famous starved himself for "The Machinist?" That's what most of the men we see are like -- hollowed-out chests, sunken cheeks, toothpick arms and legs, stark rib cages. They're filthy, wear scraps of rags that used to be their uniforms, and have open sores or wounds.

Food is the number one concern of their daily existence. Each man exists on a quarter-pound of rice per day, and dysentery and other disease are rampant.

Forbes makes the audience really feel their hunger. The only other movie I can think of that even comes close to projecting the same level of desperation is "Empire of the Sun."  I think of the way all the animation goes out of the men's faces when a tasty morsel is shown in their presence. They practically turn into slavering dogs.

Speaking of dog: perhaps the most pivotal scene in the movie is when King cooks a stew of dog meat for his closest chums, i.e., the people who work for him as various henchmen in his nefarious activities. The dog was the pet of one of their fellow prisoners, who was ordered to put it down when it killed one of the camp's valuable egg-laying hens. King "acquired" the carcass, but makes a point of not telling his guests it's dog until he's dishing out plates and they're literally slobbering at the smell.

This sets off a brief but not terribly enthusiastic debate about the ethics of eating a friend's beloved pet. The men are just looking for King to give them an excuse to indulge. They want him to convince them it's silly to waste the flesh when people (but not them) are starving: "Meat's meat," he says, with characteristic bluntness. They happily give in to his urging, and we get the sense the entire endeavor was about King testing their loyalty.

King's other significant protein enterprise is with rat, giving the book and film its name. They get their hands on a male and female rat and begin breeding them -- with the unwitting help of a British officer and zoologist, whom they bribe to tell them all about the gestational periods and eating habits of vermin. Once their rat operation is big enough, they start selling off the meat, passing it off as mouse deer, a local delicacy enjoyed by the natives.

Two notable things about the rat meat business: they only sell to high-ranking officers, "majors and above." Even King has his principles, and feeding rat to his fellow enlisted men and junior officers just seems wrong (and risky). Also, they only cut off the hind legs at first, so the animals can continue living ... and making more little rats.

King differs from the other prisoners in keeping an appearance virtually unchanged from what you'd see of soldiers on their home base: crisp clean uniform, neatly trimmed and combed hair, fresh shave and manicure. Though Segal is slim as an adolescent boy, he seems well-fed by the standards of the prison.

He struts around the camp like a peacock, drawing the stares and resentment of the half-dead, bedraggled creatures around him. He also provokes the ire of Grey (Tom Courtenay), the provost-marshal, aka chief law enforcement officer in the camp. A snide protector of the old world order, Grey is incensed at seeing an upstart American running roughshod over the rules -- and enlisting British officers into his criminal web.

Justice is harsh and quick at Changi prison, and stealing food is seen as the worst possible crime. Early on, when one of the bags of rice comes up a couple of pounds short, the suspected (though never proven) culprit winds up face-first in a borehole. The prisoners use these to collect cockroaches and other bugs for protein -- and also as a way to execute offenders in a dark and cruel manner.

The film concludes on a note that is simultaneously joyous and depressing. Marlowe's arm is injured and turns gangrenous, precipitating the need for an amputation. King sticks his neck way out to obtain the medicine necessary to save his life and the arm. Marlowe returns the gift with his unwavering loyalty.

But one day out of the blue, the Japanese commander announces that his country has surrendered, and the war is over. Soon after a lone British soldier (Richard Dawson!) walks up and disarms the guards, officially ending the prisoners' captivity.

After a period of shock, the POWs go into a wild jubilation at the end of the war, but King retreats away from his criminal activities and his friendship with Marlowe. He knows the real world is about to reassert itself, and he'll go back to being a lowly corporal on the make. He abruptly snubs his British mate, calling him "sir" like it's a vile insult.

As he rides away from the camp with the other American soldiers, I think King really did feel a sense of affection for Marlowe. But he's also a hardcore pragmatist, and he knows that clinging to a false sense of equivalency will only lead to disappointment.

This is a strange and beautiful film -- it earned Oscar nominations for black-and-white cinematography and art direction/set decoration -- and a coldly compelling one. Its harsh and authentic depiction of POW life, and its total lack of sentimentality in its main character, are unique among other World War II movies.

"King Rat" hasn't maintained much of a reputation as the years have raced on. But I deem it a forgotten minor masterpiece.