Reeling Backward: "Battle Cry" (1955)

First of all, they should've called it "Training Cry." Because the bulk of this 1955 so-called war drama takes place during training for a group of World War II Marines. The film's first -- and only -- battle doesn't arrive until the two hour and 10-minute mark. And it's absolutely horrible stuff, some of the worst battle scenes in a Hollywood movie, ever.

Or maybe "Love Cry," since most of the story is about the various romances the soldiers fall in and out of. I'm all for a little female presence in war movies, if for no other reason than to add some context about what the men are fighting for back home.

But "Battle Cry" is so laden wish mushy kisses and jealousy and tortured romance, it plays out like a soap opera with bayonets. Watching it, I kept feeling like the kid from "The Princess Bride," who expects his grandfather to read him tales of adventure and death, and keeps complaining, "They're kissing again."

Mostly, the title of this terrible picture should have just been "Cry" -- because that's what I felt like doing while watching it.

It's based on a novel by Leon Uris, who also wrote the screenplay, who used his own experiences as a Marine as the basis for the story. All I can say is, military life in his depiction seems to consist mostly of frequent, lengthy leaves of absences. Though there are a few depictions of the drudgery of boot camp -- marching, etc. -- most of what happens takes place while the men are on leave.

Raoul Walsh is considered one of the great classic Hollywood directors, but I can't say I thought much of his work here. Although it's generally a nice-looking film -- helped by the vivid colors and CinemaScope photography of cinematographer Sidney Hickox -- the acting is almost uniformly hammy. And the brief war sequence is staged so ineptly, one suspects a film school junior could do better.

You may say that they're typical of that era, but when I think of great war films of the 1940s and '50s, like William A. Wellman's "Battleground," the fighting in "Battle Cry" seems very stagy and hokey. Everyone who dies clutches their chest or whatever dramatically, then slowly collapses to the ground like they're goddamned Hamlet or something.

Speaking of "Battleground," that (vastly superior) movie also starred James Whitmore. Here he plays a sergeant named Mac, who also acts as the narrator. Mac is gruff and tough, but genuinely regards his recruits as more than just soldiers, sticking his neck out to help them out of their romantic entanglements on several occasions. Notably, Mac is the only major character without a wife or girlfriend.

His boss is Major (later Lt. Colonel) Sam Huxley (Van Heflin), aka "High Pockets." He demands much of his Marines -- taking them on two back-to-back 60-mile forced marches for no other reason than to break the local time record -- but also fights for them when he feels the 6th Marine Regiment isn't getting the choice assignments.

In that sense, "Battle Cry" can be given credit for depicting how decidedly unglamorous life could be during WWII. Huxley's Harlots, as they are called, are repeatedly given only mop-up duty in major Pacific battles like Guadalcanal and Tarawa. People forget that the vast majority of people enlisted in the military are in non-combatant roles, and even the fighting corps spend most of their time waiting for battle.

The soldiers are the usual, familiar (to use the kind term) mix of different ethnic and regional types. You've got your cowboy strumming a guitar, Southern loudmouth, tough street kid with a dicey past, upstanding All-American type, the quiet bookworm, the American Indian, the loudmouth Lothario, etc. Virtually every war movies does this, but it's still a pain to endure.

The story essentially plays out with one Marine's romance taking center stage at any given time, until they yield the floor to the next guy. I have to confess that by the time the last smoochy story rolls around, I had pretty much forgotten the first one -- which involved "Ski" Wronski, a penny-pinching guy saving his dough to bring his girl out to California, who gets a Dear John letter.

For me, the most interesting character was Marion Hotchkiss, dubbed "Sister Mary" by his fellows because of his spectacles and constantly having his nose in a book. Marion prefers to ride the ferry than go bar hopping while on leave, and talks openly of writing a book about his wartime experiences. He falls for a gal he meets on the ferry, only to have his heart crushed when's revealed as a floozy. I was disappointed with the way his death is handled; we learn through Mac's laconic narration that he bought it.

It's a testament to the weak storytelling throughout this movie that a minor character can be brought to the fore, his love story occupying center stage for a good chunk of the film, and then his passing is dismissed with a line of dialogue.

The longest romance tale involves Danny Forrester, a blond kid from Baltimore played by Tab Hunter. Danny has a sweet girl-next-door type back home, but falls hard for Elaine Yarborough, the older wife of Navy man who's never home. She's played by Dorothy Malone, who had an interesting career playing good girls and then suddenly morphed into a femme fatale type.

Malone wears tight sweaters with those prototypical torpedo bras of the 1950s that result in a very, um, horizontal profile. (That probably looked out of place in 1942.) Hunter and Malone's scenes are the only ones in the movie with any real heat. (Ironic, since Hunter was a gay actor forced by the studios to stay in the closet until late in life.)

The least interesting romance for me is the last one, involving the lumberjack Andy Hookens, a strapping guy who doesn't believe in getting tied down by just one girl, until... well, you know. His love interest is Pat Rogers (Nancy Olson), a New Zealander whose husband was killed in the fighting in Africa.

Andy is played by Aldo Ray, who definitely looks like a lumberjack. He's built like a linebacker, with a bull neck and wide shoulders, but has a curiously pinched face, with slightly buggy eyes. His raspy voice sounds like he screamed until his voice box shattered.

He's also blond, which is notable in that four of the main actors -- Heflin, Ray, Hunter and Lupton -- are fair-haired. As I've discussed before, yellow-haired performers had a better chance of making it in Hollywood a few decades ago than they do now.

1.5 stars out of four

Review: Safe House

"Safe House" has a lot going for it, and a few bad things that don't spoil the ride.

It's a slick, plot-driven thriller about the nasty underside of the spy game. It's got Denzel Washington doing his smooth-talking thing, playing the man of quiet confidence who doesn't feel a need to broadcast his exceptional skills to the world. His actions speak louder than.

The action scenes, especially the car chases and hand-to-hand fisticuffs, are crisp and well-staged. And the supporting cast is top-notch, including Vera Farmiga, Brenda Gleeson and Sam Shepard, not to mention Ryan Reynolds, who for once is not doing that smarmy cad with the heart of gold thing.

Some of the plot twists aren't twisty enough to prevent the audience from seeing them coming a ways off, and the movie's villain might as well be walking around with an 'X' on their head. But still, it's an undeniably engaging piece of entertainment, a bit of sweet cinematic candy with a little salt to it.

Reynolds plays Matt Weston, a junior CIA agent with the worst posting possible: babysitting a safe house in Capetown, South Africa. These are the sort of places the spooks bring bad guys when they want to do things while the international community isn't watching. But Capetown is a sleepy burg, and Matt yearns for bigger things.

He gets his chance when a present arrives on his doorstep: none other than Tobin Frost, a living legend in the international espionage community. Tobin was once a top CIA agent himself, until he went rogue a decade ago.

Now he's got something really valuable, a computer file with Very Important Secrets. It's a classic MacGuffin -- nobody really knows what it is, but everyone wants it. Soon the safe house has been breached by bad guys, and it's up to Matt to bring Tobin in all by himself.

Tobin is one cool cat. When the goon squad threatens to waterboard him, he calmly informs them they're using the wrong thread of cloth to cover his face, then brags that he can last longer than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who managed 20 seconds. (A bit of Hollywood hoopla; Mohammed was reportedly waterboarded 183 times.)

Gleeson, the wonderful Irish actor, falls down while attempting an American accent -- no black mark there, since every U.K. thespian from Anthony Hopkins to Kate Winslet has punted in that regard. (The only truly good one I've heard, by which I mean I couldn't even detect the effort, was Aaron Johnson in "Kick-Ass.") He plays Barlow, a senior agency man and Matt's mentor.

Farmiga is Linklater, an ambitious rival of Barlow's who views Matt as an untested liability. Ruben Blades turns up as an old associate of Tobin, and Robert Patrick has a weary, professional air as the chief of the goon squad, tasked with doing stuff that isn't very pretty.

Rookie screenwriter David Guggenheim falls into some clichés, but the story has good pacing and chirpy dialogue. Director Daniel Espinosa provides a sure hand, pinning Matt as the unimpeachable white knight surrounded by figures of dubious intention -- including Tobin and the CIA bosses who want his head on a platter.

The interplay between the wily old Tobin and the inexperienced Matt is rather predictable, but is often delicious. Robin lectures and berates Matt like Hannibal Lecter toying with Clarice Starling, offering sage advice one minute and trying to rip his throat out the next.

Talk about on-the-job training.

3 stars out of four

Reviews: Oscar-nominated short films -- Live Action

Pentecost
12 minutes

In 1977 Ireland, football-obsessed Damien (Scott Graham) is an unwilling altar boy at the local church, whose job is to carry the incense burner at Mass. Alas, after a (accidental?) catastrophe, he’s out of a job and forbidden by his strict father to watch the big upcoming match. But when the Archbishop comes to town, he’s the only censer-carrier available. This darkly comic bit is highlighted by a priest giving a hilarious motivational speech to his “team” before the big event, punctuated by the command to “Go out there and have the Mass of your lives!”

3 stars out of four

Raju
24 minutes

This harrowing drama looks at the issue of international adoption with a sobering perspective. Jan and Sarah, a loving young German couple, arrive in Calcutta to adopt Raju, an impossibly winsome 4-year-old Indian boy. Their lives seem destined for happiness, until the boy disappears in the street market on their second day together. During his excruciating search for the boy, Jan discovers a secret that threatens to tip all their lives in unexpected ways. This film is hard to watch at times, but deserves to be seen.

3 stars

The Shore
31 minutes

I adored this heartwarming dramedy about an Irishman named Jim (Ciarán Hinds) returning to the Emerald Isle after 25 years with his daughter (Kerry Condon) in tow. He’s there to see old friends and relatives, but there’s a ghost trailing him. He has unresolved relationships with his former best friend Paddy (Conleth Hill) and fiancée Mary (Maggie Cronin), who have since married each other. Paddy lost an arm in The Troubles, and spends his days digging mussels and crabs out of the kelp that washes up on the seashore, while collecting government unemployment assistance (“the dole”). A brave and joyful little film, with laughs and tears in that distinctly Irish way.

3.5 stars

Time Freak
11 minutes

A wonderfully inventive comedy about a young scientist, Stillman, who creates a time machine with the intention of visiting ancient Rome. Instead, he gets caught in a web of his own making, trying to re-do all his social interactions until he gets them just right. The result is a super-funny take-off on “Groundhog Day” courtesy of writer/director Andrew Bowler. Kind of a one-joke movie, but it’s a good joke.

3.5 stars

Tuba Atlantic
26 minutes

This daffy black comedy from Norway is about Oskar, an elderly fisherman who spends his time battling seagulls – including shooting them out of the sky with a machine gun, and stepping on their eggs. He learns he has six days to live, which are made even more aggravating by the enforced presence of Inger, the teenage “Death Angel” assigned to stay with him so the authorities will allow him to die at home instead of a hospital. Oskar becomes obsessed with the ide of communicating with Jon, the brother he hasn’t spoken to in 30 years. Since he doesn’t know where Jon lives, the answer may lie with the monstrous mechanical tuba they built decades ago, reputedly capable of transmitting sound waves thousands of miles. Kooky, wry and surprisingly touching.

3 stars

Reviews: Oscar-nominated short films -- Animated

Dimanche/Sunday
10 minutes

In Patrick Doyon’s elegiac little tone poem, a small boy in a tiny town must endure the various constructions of grown-ups designed (in his mind) to torment him: uncomfortable clothes, boring church, gross fish dinners and, most dominantly, the speeding trains that rush by the village constantly, shaking the walls and rattling nerves. He places a Canadian coin in the tracks to flatten it, resulting in a somewhat scary flight of fancy involving a bear. Doyon employs a minimalist animation style – I adored the people’s stretched noses, and the fat little crows who act as a sort of Greek chorus.

3 stars out of four

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
15 minutes

Oh, what a tidy treasure. This slick-looking but soulful piece of computer animation draws inspiration from “The Wizard of Oz,” Buster Keaton and a trove of literary references. A man watches as the wind blows away the letters in the book he is writing in, then turning into a hurricane that transports him into a magical land where books fly and communicate. He becomes their caretaker/librarian, and finds a new life that he understands very little, but which gives him meaning. I loved the various small touches, like a Humpty Dumpty book becoming his best friend, flipping its illustrated pages to show emotion, and the subtle transitions from color to black-and-white.

4 stars

La Luna
7 minutes

There’s no Pixar film represented in the animated feature category this year – a first – but the computer animation wizards still have an Oscar nominee among the short films. And it doesn’t disappoint, a whimsical portrayal of a young boy being indoctrinated into the family business. He rows out to the middle of the ocean with an old man and a younger man; are they fisherman? They give him a hat like just theirs, arguing – wordlessly, like the rest of the movie – about the proper way to wear it. Then they produce a ladder and climb up to an adventure. Short, sweet smart, poignant.

3.5 stars

A Morning Stroll
7 minutes

I loved this clever, slightly demented story, sort of a parable and sort of a rim shot joke. In 1959, a man -- depicted as an almost abstract stick figure -- walks down the street to a jazzy score. Suddenly, a chicken rounds the corner and strides purposefully toward a nearby door, where it pecks to be let in. Then things shift to the same scene 50 years later, now depicted with sleek computer animation … and then, forward another 50 years. Something delightfully different.

3.5 stars

Wild Life
13 minutes

In 1909 Alberta, a young upper-crust Englishman arrives in the Canadian prairie to make his fortune – if by that you mean a whole lot of musing and writing letters (narrated in a starched British accent) and not much working. It’s a beautiful-looking bit of hand-drawn animation, though the voice actors appear to have been coached to seek out and replicate every vocal cliché they could find. A meditative musing on transplanted cowboys and comets.

2.5 stars

Video review: "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 1"

It's now a common thing for film franchises based on popular books to split them into more than one movie. "The Lord of the Rings" did so successfully, then "Harry Potter" played copy-cat (as is his wont). Now the Twilight books, which exist several rungs down on the literary ladder, have done so, with much worse results.

I have no problem splitting up a book when there’s simply too much story to tell in a single two-hour (or even three-hour) movie, and trying to do so would inevitably leave audiences with a disappointing Cliffs Notes version of the book. As long as there’s narrative momentum and character development, make 17 movies if it pleases.

But with “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1,” there’s just not a whole lot of tale to tell. What there is feels stretched and pulled like cheap carnival taffy to make it resemble a complete whole, when it's really a whole lot of exposition about vampires brooding and werewolves gnashing their frustration.

The result is a draggy, drippy installment in the “Twilight” series, easily the most boring of the franchise.

Immortal vampire dream boy Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) finally gets to put a ring on it with human lady love Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). Alas, their sun-kissed honeymoon results in a hybrid baby growing in her belly, threatening to kill her in the process. Meanwhile, grumpy werewolf/spurned lover Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) must defend them against the rest of his wolf pack, who see the half-breed vampire as an abomination.

Those mutts got something right: movies, like vampires, shouldn't settle for half-measures. And foisting half a movie on audiences as a cynical ploy to generate twice as many tickets sales just plain sucks.

At least the film is arriving on video with a package of extra features that don't suck. Goodies appear to be the same for both Blu-ray and DVD editions.

There's an audio commentary track with director Bill Condon, and an extensive six-part making-of documentary. Also Edward and Bella's wedding video, and featurettes dubbed "Jacob's Destiny," "Edward Fast Forward" and "Jacob Fast Forward."

Movie: 1.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Reeling Backward: "The Mortal Storm" (1940)

"The Mortal Storm" contains often stilted acting, stiff dialogue that sounds written even as it's being delivered, topped off by a pseudo-religious opening monologue about god and men and fate that's supposed to sound portentous and important, but just comes off as ponderous and goofy.

And a shorthand description of the story -- Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan escape Nazis on skis -- sounds like a recipe for a really corny drama worthy of send-up a la "Mystery Science Theater 3000."

Despite some legitimate flaws, though, "The Mortal Storm" is actually a top-notch thriller that has the distinction of being one of the few Hollywood films that explicitly criticized Nazi Germany prior to America's entrance into World War II. Large sections of the country supported staying out of "the war in Europe," and even when movies did take on Adolf Hitler and company, it was generally obliquely.

Although the film rarely refers to Germany specifically and uses carefully veiled wording -- Jews are never mentioned by that name -- there's no mistaking the film as a full-frontal assault on Nazism. MGM actually thought their slight vagueness would allow them to distribute the film in Germany, but the Third Reich took one look at "The Mortal Storm" and banned it, along with all other movies from the studio.

Forget about the brief skiing segments, which are indeed quite hokey -- long shots of figures slicing down pristine white mountain banks, intercut with ridiculously smooth two-shots of Stewart and Sullavan coasting along while talking in a conversational tone, their heads not even bobbing a fraction of an inch.

What really impressed about this movie was the way it depicted the insidious nature of groupthink, where everyone decides that their way is the only reasonable way. Previously admired people are derided and cast out of civil society, once-lifelong friends are shunned, and tolerance for others' ideas dissipates into a churning river of "progress."

Take Professor Viktor Roth, played by Frank Morgan. An adored teacher of medicine at the local university, he has just celebrated his 60th birthday surrounded by awed students, supportive colleagues and a large, loving family.

But things turn around almost overnight when Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor in 1933. Soon his classrooms are filled with jack-booted thugs (Dan Dailey chillingly plays the sneering ringleader) who denounce his objective claims that non-Aryan blood is no different than Aryan. Before long he's sent to a concentration camp.

Stewart's character remains on the sidelines for awhile, comes to the fore, then disappears for most of the second act. He plays Martin Breitner, a local veterinarian-farmer and old friend of the Roth clan who secretly adores their daughter, Freya. The real star is Sullavan as Freya, a headstrong girl who has the courage to stand up to her own brothers when they morph into Nazi toadies.

A young Robert Stack has an impressive turn as Otto, the Roth's eldest child. While it's never specifically stated that Professor Roth is a Jew, the implication is pretty clear. It's one area where the script by Claudine West, Hans Rameau and George Froeschel rings false, since any child of one Jewish parent would be branded a Jew as well, and never allowed to join the Nazi party. The film is based on a book by Phyllis Bottome.

Director Frank Borzage had a long and busy career with more than 100 films behind the camera, one of the few filmmakers to successfully transition from silent to sound movies. He started out as a silent-era actor, with another 100-plus movies under his belt in front of the camera.

The cinematography by William H. Daniels is really rich and deep, lots of layers of visual landscape both indoors and out.

Stewart and Sullavan would make four films together, and "The Mortal Storm" was the final one. I didn't find their coupling particularly convincing -- Freya is intially engaged to another Roth family friend, Fritz Marberg, played by Robert Young. But he goes along with the Nazi crowd, they soon break up, and she's ready to fall into Martin's arms rather quickly.

But the terrible, almost claustrophobic feeling of being a champion of free thought in a herd of those intent on trampling those who stray is brought to vivid life.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "Big Miracle"

Yes, “Big Miracle” is a sappy story about some whales trapped in the ice, and the people who came together to save them. It’s a family-friendly tear-jerker, unabashedly trying to wring heartfelt emotions out of the audience, and impart a tasty feel-good message covered by a light sauce of environmentalism, with a side of can’t-we-get-along political optimism.

For one great big Warm Fuzzy, it’s an extremely watchable movie. The cast, led by John Krasinski and Drew Barrymore, are enjoyable to hang out with, and the story has a certain weight of authenticity, since it’s based on a true story that happened in 1988.

The movie uses lots of news clips with Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and others to show what a big story it was back in the day, though I confess I have no memory of it whatsoever.

Krasinski is known for his smart-aleck role on TV’s “The Office,” but he’s had a busy if largely unnoticed film career (16 credits over the past six years, including the little gem “Away We Go”). Here he plays Adam Carlson, a television reporter stuck in Barrow, Alaska, who stumbles across three California gray whales trapped beneath a thick layer of office.

No one quite knows why the mammoth mammals haven’t already migrated southward, though it may have something to do with the fact they’re a family: father, mother and baby. The locals quickly dub them Fred, Wilma and Bamm-Bamm.

Barrymore plays Rachel Kramer, head of the Alaskan Greenpeace chapter, who spends most of her time railing against the big oil companies drilling in the neighboring oceans. When the whales become a national story, she’s soon to arrive on the scene, complicating matters since she and Adam recently ended a romance.

I was pleased that the film does not make their relationship the centerpiece of the story. Most Hollywood movies would have played up the love angle to the maudlin hilt, so credit to screenwriters Jack Amiel and Michael Begler (working from a book by Thomas Rose) for sticking with the whales. An aura of sexual tension colors Rachel and Adam’s interchanges, but it doesn’t suck all the air out of the room, narratively speaking.

I also enjoyed the way director Ken Kwapis juggled a large cast and competing story elements.

There’s stuff about the tension between the local Eskimos, who hunt whales for food, and the environmentalists; Ted Danson as the chief of Alaska Northern Oil, who volunteers to help as a way to get the pesky Rachel off his back; a National Guard helicopter commander (Dermot Mulroney) unhappy about being handed a PR assignment; a White House official (Vinessa Shaw) who sees a chance to burnish then-outgoing President Reagan’s (weak) environmental record; and Adam’s ambition to get a job in the Lower 48 by sucking up to a star reporter (Kristen Bell) from Los Angeles.

Particularly nice is the interplay between Adam and Malik, the local Eskimo chieftain, and his grandson Nathan (Ahmaogak Sweeney). The Eskimos see harvesting the whales as the most humane thing to do, but Adam warns Malik how it will play out in the media. Malik is played by first-time actor John Pingayak, who exudes a warm mix of nurturing and command – I was not surprised to learn he is a teacher in real life.

I won’t bother discussing how “Big Miracle” turns out, since even if you don’t remember it’s not hard to guess (or to Google).

All I’ll say is, if one has to have your emotions manipulated, it’s at least a comfort to have them jerked around expertly, with style and wit.

3 stars out of four