Reeling Backward: "Aces High (1976)

As regular readers of this space may know, I have a long fascination with World War I aviation. I've continually sought out movies about pilots of that era to watch -- and mostly continue to be disappointed in what I've found. I'm afraid "Aces High," a 1976 film starring Malcolm McDowell that had stirred in me a great deal of anticipation, will be added to the list of less-than-sterling WWI dogfighting flicks.

The source of my interest started in an unlikely venue: video games. I was thrilled with the 1990 game "Red Baron," which offered a historically accurate portrayal of air combat from 1914 to 1918. From there, visits to the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum and reading several books on the subject only increased my ardor for the derring-do of these 20th century knights jousting in the skies, often with an antiquated notion of chivalry.

A big part of my fascination also likely explains why so many of these films leave me wanting more. I loved researching the airplanes, guns and hardware of WWI air combat. Remember, barely a decade after the Wright brothers first flew, men were using the rickety contraptions in warfare. Technological innovation soars during times of war, as various sides try to gain the strategic upper hand -- in this case, by gaining tactical advantages in the air.

The introduction of a new model of plane could tip the tide of the battle in the skies, as pilots with now-inferior aircraft attempted to take on adversaries with faster or more maneuverable planes.

I liked the fact that in "Aces High" the pilots actually discuss the various airplanes, their capabilities and advantages. Most of the squadron uses R.A.F. S.E.5s, a mainstay of the British flying corp, while one of the older pilot favors the French Nieuport 17.

The combat sequences in the film are generally quite good -- showing the air duels from the perspective of the pilot's cockpit. I also appreciated the fact that director Jack Gold often shot two or more planes together instead of just using special effects. So we can see exactly how close the combatants in a dogfight really were. (Allegedly the film re-used some air combat footage from "The Blue Max" and a Roger Corman movie.)

McDowell plays Maj. John Gresham, commander of a British squadron headquartered in a dilapidated air field 10 miles from the front lines. Gresham is an excellent pilot and stern commander, relying on small core of veterans to see their missions a success. There is a constant stream of inexperienced recruits coming through who quickly die -- 14 days is the current average -- and the stress has driven Gresham to drinking heavily.

His right-hand man is Capt. Sinclair, whom everyone calls "Uncle," due to his being older and less brash than the cocky younger fellows. Sinclair is played by Christopher Plummer, in a subtle turn.

Things change when young Stephen Croft (Peter Firth) is assigned to the squadron. He was Gresham's protege when they were at school together, and his sister is engaged to the commander. Over the course of a week of increasingly dangerous missions, Croft goes from being completely inept in the cockpit to more confident, has his heart broken and sees his admiration of Gresham angrily rejected.

"Aces High" just never really comes together as a human story. Though the air fights are well done and engaging, the on-the-ground action relies on familiar tropes about young men at war. As a glimpse at the early history of aviation combat, it scores well, but as a complete story it's shooting blanks.

I've got a few more WWI aviation flicks in my Netflix queue -- maybe I'll get lucky someday.

2.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "The Lost Weekend" (1945)

For 1945, "The Lost Weekend" was an exceptionally brave film. It was an uncompromising look at alcoholism, at a time when addiction was considered a personal failing to be swept under the rug of polite society. It certainly wasn't the sort of subject matter a country just coming out of the horrors of World War II seemed eager for. In fact, most people in Hollywood thought it was box office poison.

So much for underestimating audiences. It went on to be a big commercial hit, and won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay. It cemented the career of director Billy Wilder, proving that the previous year's "Double Indemnity" was no fluke. And it made a star out of Ray Milland, who hesitated taking the role after Cary Grant and Jose Ferrer turned it down.

It chronicles the four-day weekend of a struggling writer who reaches the absolute bottom of his drinking nightmare. It's based on an autobiographical account by author Charles R. Jackson, whose novel was adapted for the screen by Charles Brackett and Wilder. Wilder supposedly became interested in the subject of a brilliant writer haunted by booze after working with Raymond Chandler on "Double Indemnity."

The question people always ask is how somebody as smart and talented as Don Birnam (Milland) could allow himself to become a slave to whiskey. The film adroitly shows how even a brilliant mind can become soured by bending its entire power toward finding the next drink. "The Lost Weekend" doesn't pull any punches or engage in any Hollywood puffery -- Don's soul-wrenching misery is displayed with harsh candor.

Perhaps the most cringe-inducing scene is when Don finds himself in a stupor in a busy nightclub and realizes he doesn't have enough money to cover his tab. He swipes the clutch bag of the woman sitting next to him and ducks into the men's room, intending to remove the money and return the purse unnoticed. But a crowd has gathered to find the culprit, and he's humiliated and thrown out onto the street.

Less convincing is a bit where Don is hallucinating in his apartment and imagines a bat flying around the room. I realize it was 1945, but special effects were still more advanced than a bad-looking puppet on a string. But it's only a brief interruption of the dark mood Wilder and company create.

What's really impressive is that Milland isn't afraid to show off the character's terrible self-loathing. He puts on the veneer of the charming writer/drunkard, evoking Shakespeare and Hemingway as he describes the world around him in the dulcet tones of barroom poetry. Later, though, we glimpse the scared little man who's so obsessed with his own failure that he can't even appreciate the love of Helen St. James (Jane Wyman), the woman who's spent the last three years dealing with his binges.

In an era of John Wayne Westerns and heroic war pictures, depicting a man so cowardly was downright radical.

There's a couple of strong supporting performances I really enjoyed. Howard Da Silva plays Nat, the owner/proprietor of Don's favorite watering hole. Nat is his blue-collar confessor, dispensing cheap rye whiskey and grim advice. Nat -- who pronounces Don's last name "Boin-um" -- cheerfully warns Don that if he keeps drinking, he'll end up jumping off a building or throwing himself in front of a subway. Nat cares about his best customer, but knows to keep him at arm's length.

Doris Dowling is quite a presence as Gloria, a prostitute who works out of Nat's and has been carrying on a low-level flirtation with Don. I love how she strokes the nape of his neck with her finger whenever she walks by him -- safe from the Production Code, but highly sensual. With her slightly asymmetrical face and cool screen presence, she would go on from "The Lost Weekend," her first credited role, to a long career in film and television.

3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Dial M for Murder"

It's usually not too hard to discern a film that was adapted from a stage play. There's an economy of cast and settings that indicates a necessity for limiting each. Alfred Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder" has both: There are only five significant roles, and almost the entirety of the action takes place inside a single apartment, and nearly all of that in one room.

Hitchcock did a few stage-to-screen jobs ("Rope," "I Confess!"), often sandwiched in between bigger projects with multiple locations. In the same year, 1954, he also directed "Rear Window," which is similar to "Dial M" in the way the same setting can be exploited in different ways. By the mid- to -late 1950s, Hitchcock's films tended to be veritable travel pictures like "North by Northwest" and "Vertigo."

Ray Milland is the star, though it's remembered today for being one of Grace Kelly's first major film roles. (Most people have forgotten she got her start primarily as a television actress.) The period of 1954-55 was a fertile period for Hitchcock and Kelly, as she would also be featured in "Rear Window" and "To Catch A Thief." By 1956 she was done with the movies, trading her status as Hollywood princess to become a real-life one.

Milland plays Tony Wendice, a recently retired tennis pro who relies on his wife Margot (Kelly) for money. A clever, erudite fellow who enjoys his creature comforts, Tony wouldn't mind so much except that Margot has been cheating on him with Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings), an American mystery novelist. After a year away, Mark has returned to England to claim Margot permanently, and Tony is out to do away with her and get his inheritance while he can.

The plot is a labyrinthine twist of clues and plots and intrigue. The short version is that Tony blackmails a wayward old school chum, Charles Swann (Anthony Dawson) into strangling Margot while he and Mark are at a stag party. Thus his rival for his wife's affection will provide his alibi.

As Mark cautions about constructing the perfect crime in real life versus fiction, things go horribly awry. Margot fights off Swann and kills him with her knitting shears.

The second half of the movie concerns Tony having to adjust his plot on the fly, managing to plant evidence to make it seem as if Margot intentionally killed Swann because he was blackmailing her with evidence of her affair with Mark.

It has a lot to do with missing love letters and the presence or absence of latch keys. I suppose it works well enough for a stage potboiler, but for the more verite demands of cinema, it seems like a whole lot of flimsy evidence upon which to indict a murderer.

John Williams has a nice role as Chief Inspector Hubbard, the crafty detective who subtly stalks Tony's web of lies and manipulations. I loved the moment where he begs for more credit to be given to veteran policemen like himself to overcome the work of "a gifted amateur" like Tony.

It's a typical Hitchcockian thriller, as he slowly stirs the pot of brewing suspense. I do have to say the biggest weakness of the film is the character of Mark Halliday, who spends 9/10ths of the movie as a naive patsy, and suddenly manages to come up with enough brilliant deductions in the final sequence to put Sherlock Holmes to shame.

3 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Beau Geste"

Nineteen thirty-nine is the year that keeps on giving -- when it comes to great classic films, that is.

"Beau Geste" is one of those movies that has been somewhat shunted aside in film history. People speak well of it, but not in the same breath as the masterpieces of that era.

Directed by William A. Wellman -- who also helmed "A Star is Born" and "Battleground," both recently featured on Reeling Backward -- "Beau Geste" is an old-fashioned adventure tale about men seeking their fortune in distant lands, with strange enemies and even stranger so-called allies. In setting and tone it reminded me very much of "Gunga Din," made the same year.

I liked it well enough -- the story has Gary Cooper, Robert Preston and Ray Milland as adopted brothers who join the French Foreign Legion, with the mystery of a stolen sapphire hanging over them.

There's some wonderfully harrowing battle scenes, and the opening sequence is haunting and mesmerizing: A column of legionnaires roll up on a remote desert fortress. It seems to be well-defended, but as they get closer they can see that all the men manning the battlements are dead. There's no enemy in sight. How could all those men die standing up, with their hats still on their heads and their rifles clutched in their lifeless hands?

But I suppose what really put this movie over the top for me was the villain, who has instantly catapulted to my list of all-time great cinematic nemeses. Sgt. Markoff, played by Brian Donlevy, is a tough-talking, sadistic SOB who believes in whipping men into line, and shooting them if they don't. He has no trouble sacrificing his men if it means winning himself a medal and a promotion.

And yet, as one of the brothers acknowledges, he's probably the best soldier any of them will ever meet.

At one point, Markoff puts down a mutiny and is prepared to execute dozens of men, but when a tribe of Arab begins attacking the fortress, he rallies the men -- even the disloyal ones -- to fight like lions. It's also his idea to prop up the dead soldiers on the battlements, so it appears to the enemy that their numbers have not diminished.

The three brothers were adopted by Lady Pat and raised in comfort. (A young Donald O'Connor, before he made 'em laugh in "Singin' in the Rain," plays 12-year-old Beau.) But Lady Pat's husband, who is absent nearly all the time, has spent the family into ruin. Her only recourse is to sell the Blue Water, the biggest sapphire in the world, which is the family's greatest heirloom.

But the sapphire is stolen before the sale. Beau (Cooper), the oldest, writes a letter confessing to the crime, but younger brothers Digby (Preston) and John (Milland) suspect he did so in order to direct any blame away from the guilty party. They decide the only honorable thing to do is follow his example, so they too confess to the crime and leave the estate.

They all end up in the Foreign Legion, which is a motley crew of thieves and murderers. Keeping them under his iron fist is Markoff, who learns of the sapphire and means to have it for himself. Donlevy gives a great, scene-chewing performance, and was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role. Markoff's signature line -- "I promise you!" -- is used as an ever-present threat to those who would defy him.

If you watch the movie, make sure to look at Donlevy's feet -- he's wearing some pretty obvious elevator shoes to make himself appear taller. I guess he didn't want Markoff to look like a shrimp next to Gary Cooper and Ray Milland, both of whom stood a few inches over 6 foot.

I also learned a bit of trvia: In filming the scene where John fatally stabs Markoff, Milland apparently missed Donlevy's protective padding and really did pierce him through the ribs, resulting in a fairly serious injury.

"Beau Geste" -- which means "beautiful gesture" in French -- was based on the novel by Percival Christopher Wren. The 1939 version was not the only screen adaptation. There was a 1926 version, and the story was remade in 1966 with Guy Stockwell, Leslie Nielsen and Telly Savalas. There was also a 1982 TV mini-series, and google-eyed comedian Marty Feldman directed and starred in a 1977 spoof titled, very tongue-in-cheek, "The Last Remake of Beau Geste."

3.5 stars

Reeling Backward: "Panic in Year Zero"

The early 1960s were the height of the Cold War, when the possibility of nuclear annihilation was a very real thing. We tend to look back on that era with a bashful nostalgia -- duck 'n' cover and all that. But to the people who lived in that time, the idea was pervasive that even if they survived a nuclear war, they'd have to struggle to survive in the chaotic aftermath.

"Panic in Year Zero" exists as a perfect document of those fears and mindset. It has a fairly mild message to it, personified by a typical middle-aged dad who finds himself doing all sorts of terrible and callous things in order to ensure his family's survival. "I went looking for the worst in others, and instead I found it in myself," he realizes near the end.

The father is portrayed by Ray Milland, who also directed the film. Nearing 60, paunchy and with a not very convincing hairpiece, Milland was in 1962 nobody's idea of a matinee idol. But he had a lengthy career, first as an able leading man -- he won the Best Actor Oscar for 1946's "The Lost Weekend" portraying a chronic alcoholic -- and then segueing into roles in cheap, schlocky films, and finally a third act on television. In all, he worked steadily for more than 55 years. Few could say as much.

I haven't been able to find any information on the budget for "Panic," but it's rather obvious that it was a cheapie. The entire cast probably doesn't number even a couple dozen, and most of it was shot outdoors as the family roughs it after the nuclear blast destroys their home in Los Angeles.

I have to admit to a certain affinity for stories like this, where people wander the wasteland after society's rules have broken down, and they must impose a new order of their own making. Stephen King's "The Stand" remains one of my favorite books, and "The Road Warrior" is a film I return to year after year, always finding something new.

The Baldwins were on their way to a weekend getaway when the mushroom cloud appears behind them. The father quickly surmises that they've got to find a safe place to hole up. After dodging insane traffic on the highways, the father takes increasingly desperate steps to protect his wife and teenage son and daughter.

First they buy a ton of groceries. When the hardware store owner won't let the father purchase handguns without a waiting period, he robs him. When a price-gouging gas station owner attempts to charge him $3 per gallon of gas -- how outrageous! -- he punches him out and takes off without paying. Later, he even lights the highway on fire so they can stop traffic and get across. At least one innocent motorist is consumed in the flames.

They finally find a cave, and set about building a stable camp life. Even when radio broadcasts announce that the military has set up refugee camps, Mr. Baldwin refuses to budge. It's more than about safety. The father has seen his world turned upside down, and his own vision of himself as a civilized man, too. At least out here I have some measure of control, he says, even though there are looters and rapists about.

"Panic in Year Zero" isn't a particularly good or bad movie, but the enjoyment in watching it today comes from the peek it gives us into Cold War mindsets of that era. The way people thought probably closely resembles how we all felt in the days after Sept. 11. It's been almost eight years without another large-scale attack on American soil, and it's amazing how fast complacency has crept up on us again. Somewhere in between paranoia and ignorance lies wisdom.

2.5 stars