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Birdman of Alcatraz (John Frankenheimer, 1962)


Burt Lancaster gives one of his subtlest performances as the double murderer convict Robert Stroud in this awesome film directed by Frankenheimer the same year he made The Manchurian Candidate and adapted by Guy Trosper the year after he did the epic One-Eyed Jacks. Stroud soon begins to find an affinity for birds after he's confined to "solitary", but Telly Savalas matches him in the first half of the film as a con who's equally lonely and begins to fall in love with birds. (Kudos to prison guard Neville Brand who plays one of filmdom's most-human turnkeys). Stroud, who spent most of his time in Leavenworth Prison, eventually, through his own hard work and perserverance, becomes the world's foremost expert on bird diseases, and he eventually publishes a scientific book on the subject although he never made it past 3rd grade while growing up.

Eventually, Stroud loses everything and gets transferred to the new prison at Alcatraz where his nemesis (Karl Malden) is the warden. Stroud gets to prove, over and over again, why he's a model prisoner and worthy of parole, even to become one of the world's foremost self-taught scientists who could learn cures to human diseases, but the reality is that Stroud will never, ever be paroled, no matter how much an author (Edmond O'Brien) tries to promote his significance to the health and healing of mankind. Frankenheimer directs in the usual thoughtful, poetic manner he always did in the early-to-mid-'60s, producing not only a mainstream entertainment but advocating social awareness and conscience. Since Lancaster, the actor he used more than any other, believed in many of the same liberal causes, he is appropriately quietly-powerful throughout, as is the stunning ending.

The Bells of St. Mary's (Leo McCarey, 1945)



This sequel to the previous year's Going My Way seems to defy most films made nowadays and especially those made BACK in the day. Going My Way swept the Oscars and most films didn't get sequels at all, let alone sequels which came out immediately [or so I thought at the time I wrote this], but this film was quickly greenlighted and they brought on board the most popular female actress available, Ingrid Bergman. Bing Crosby reprises his Oscar-winning role as Father O'Malley, probably the most heartwarming and thought-provoking father any kid ever had to look up to. Here, he's matched by Ingrid Bergman as the Sister Superior of the school for students through the eighth grade. They sometimes quarrel; O'Malley tries to see the Big Picture, while the Sister literally follows the rules and tries to hold everyone responsible for their own actions, no matter what the reasons may be. Needless to say, it makes for some drama and misunderstandings as the plot plays out.

Crosby is really super reprising his Oscar-winning role, but Ingrid Bergman actually gets more chances to shine here in her role of a more-literal lover of God and the rules which gradually breaks down under Crosby's influence. This film is actually REALLY good, but it's a bit on the slow-motion side. All the stories are interesting and interpreted well, but they all do seem to be dragged out a bit more than they should. However, that shouldn't keep the audience from crying honest tears at the end.

The City of the Dead (John Moxey, 1960)


When my brother and I used to watch this minor horror classic on TV, it was called Horror Hotel. It was always a cool flick for us to watch because it had some stark, spooky photography for many of the indoor scenes, but then it would get all graphic with bodies bursting into flames while trying to commit a ritualistic female sacrifice in a graveyard on the Witch's Sabbath. The Dead mentioned in the original title are witches who were true worshippers of Satan in Whitewood, Massachusetts in 1692. While being burned at the stake, self-confessed witch Elizabeth Selwyn (Patricia Jessel) curses the townspeople, and as a result, all the "dead" witches are given eternal life by Satan as long as they worship him and perform two sacrifices a year.

The modern day plot involves college professor Christopher Lee recommending that his student Nan (Venetia Stevenson) spend her holidays researching witches in Whitewood, and even though her brother and boyfriend don't like the idea, she drives to the remote, fog-shrouded town. Upon arrival, she finds everything spooky and almost inexplicable, but she does meet one seeemingly-normal woman, Patricia (Betta St, John), who lends her an in-depth book on witches. The plot doesn't really hold any surprises, but there are still plenty of frissons on display. The hotel where Nan stays is menacing in the way that people and strange sounds seem to come and go instantaneously. Plus there are rarely any lights on, but the fireplace always casts dreaded shadows across the rooms. Then there are the actual buildups to the sacrifices presented in the film, and they deliver the goods. The film is just a bit short and repeats a few motifs (especially the fog and the guy who gives everybody directions to the Inn) to qualify as a full-blown classic. Lovers of black-and-white Mario Bava will want to check this out though, and anybody who enjoys "old-time" horror should probably raise my rating by a half-to-a-full popcorn box.

Come to the Stable (Henry Koster, 1949)


For those interested, I saw this film while sitting in on a lecture in my daughter's history of film class at USC. We watched a beautiful 35mm print. It's a heartwarming tale about two nuns who come from France after WWII to build a children's hospital. The opening scene almost makes it appear that the nuns have arrived to witness baby Jesus in his manger. This is because the nuns have come to New England to the home of a religious painter (Elsa Lanchester) who lives in the small village of Bethlehem. One (Loretta Young) of the nuns is a transplanted American and the other (Celeste Holm) is a French native who was once a highly-successful tennis pro. The property they wish to buy belongs to a gangster (Thomas Gomez) and abuts the property of a popular songwriter (Hugh Marlowe). Everything seems to be against the nuns ever having a chance of making their dream come true, but as the local bishop says, "An irresistable force has been let loose in New England!", and one of the weird coincidences seems to involve how many people shared something with the nuns in France during WWII. There are some nice laughs here and a few tears to be shed while watching this simple pleasure which may upset a few Scrooges but will make even the hardest of other hearts melt at least a little bit. Dooley Wilson (Casablanca) is also on hand to lend credible and welcome support.

Last Holiday (Henry Cass, 1950)


The year after Alec Guinness delivered a tour de force in Kind Hearts and Coronets, playing eight different characters in the same family who were all killed off by the "hero", he played someone resembling the meekest and friendliest of that family in a very simple, very excellent comedy-drama about a man named Bird who's told he has a rare disease and only months to live. Since he has no family or friends, Bird quits his job and takes all his money to go live at a posh resort where everyone finds him a man of mystery and wants him to invest in some big deals. Besides that, several women take an active interest in him, and soon Bird becomes the most-popular person at the resort, although no one knows anything about his circumstances. Last Holiday was remade a few years back as a Queen Latifah flick, but I've never bothered to watch it because this J. B. Priestley scripted-gem is one of my absolute fave films and the one which I always try to show people who are unfamiliar with Guinness's career in the '50s. As I said, it's amazingly simple and low-key, but at the same time, it becomes magical, and the violin theme is one of the most-hauntingly beautiful I've ever heard. Last Holiday is one of the few films I can think of which earns every single laugh and tear it gets, especially because the twist ending is played to perfection. It's the kind of film which makes it clear why it's both a blessing and a curse to actually be alive, and one of the few which can actually deliver a sting in its tail and still make you want to rewatch it over and over again.

Conrack (Martin Ritt, 1974) +


Pat Conroy wrote four novels of varying autobiographical details which were turned into films: Conrack, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline and The Prince of Tides. This is the first one he wrote and the first to be filmed. It's a solid entertainment about a long-term substitute teacher who goes to work on an impoverished and segregated South Carolina island during the Vietnam War where his class of 5th through 8th graders (basically 10-14 years old) are all poor, ignorant black children, many of whom cannot spell their name and do not know what country they live in. Conroy, or "ConracK" (which is easier for his kids to pronounce) uses unorthodox techniques to get through to the kids and try to show them that they are capable of learning no matter how much they seem to be part of an institution which goes out of its way to keep them unenlightened. The problem eventually becomes that Conrack succeeds all too well, so the residue of the Southern racist infrastructure tries to find ways to get rid of him for helping to make the "colored kids more equal". Ritt directed this after his critically-acclaimed Sounder, and Paul Winfield even shows up in a small role, but it's really Jon Voight's movie, and he, along with his students, are the ones which show that the buzz one can get from learning and education is hopefully at least as intoxicating as any other kind of buzz out there in this world.

Bugsy (Barry Levinson, 1991)


Wonderfully-quirky character study, laced with brilliant dialogue by James Toback (which Tarantino would kill for), tells the true-life story of Bennie Siegel (Warren Beatty) and how he romanced Virginia Hill (Annette Bening) and actually succeeded in creating his dream oasis in the desert of Las Vegas where he and his fellow gangsters could dare to call themselves "legitimate". The film tells the straightforward story of "Bugsy" who was actually happily married with two daughters but he could never keep his pants zipped, and one day while visiting his actor friend George Raft (Joe Mantegna) on the set of Manpower (1941), he meets and falls in love with extra Virginia Hill who also has mob connections and seems to have balls as big as his own. Director Levinson feels very comfortable filming the Hollywood milieu and this increases the entertainment value of the flick by at least twofold. The supporting cast is incredible, especially Harvey Keitel as Mickey Cohen, Ben Kingsley as Meyer Lansky, Elliott Gould as Harry Greenberg and director Richard C. Sarafian (Vanishing Point, Man in the Wilderness) as Jack Dragna. This flick is full of tension, sex, some big laughs, several awkward scenes where the lead characters threaten to be offed by each other or their best friends, and one of Ennio Morricone's most low-key, yet incredibly-haunting musical scores. I dig it.

Brewster McCloud (Robert Altman, 1970)


On the other hand, we have Robert Altman's follow-up to MASH which can also be considered quirky, but unlike Bugsy, it's also immature, maddening, and almost one-note. It's a bizarre mixture of a film involving man's attempt to retro-evolve towards becoming a bird, an almost fetishistic spoof of Steve McQueen and Bullitt (for God knows what reason), a serial killer mystery, and a collection of characters who seem to have no relationship to each other even when they're sharing what appears to be "deep thoughts" (Bud Cort and Sally Kellerman). Even the characters who seem to be the ones you might want to cheer on to their dubious deaths by bird dung [horrible national anthem singer Margaret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch herself) and phony long-hair, wheelchair-bound preacher Stacy Keach] come across as ad-libbed throwaways. Shelley Duvall is borderline-endearing in her film debut as a tour guide for the Houston Astrodome, but even the wonderful Bud Cort is given so little to do that his character is identified by how many half-assed pull-ups he can do along with his weird eyeglasses. Even the usually-reliable Rene Auberjonois comes across as a fool while explaining why birds and humans share such things as mating rituals and an apparent need to sound deathly-ill when acting beyond their normal realm of behavior. Hey, look here. I'll be the first to say that the flick's a mess, but eventually, it's got just enough charm to make it just about worth watching if you can handle all the crap which is also in this flick, which even ruins a nice chance to make it have some form of honest, human meaning at the end. Still, there are enough prima donnas here to make it worth more than a smile to see them offed with fatal doses of bird poop.

The Bishop's Wife (Henry Koster, 1947)


This is another one of those absolutely classic Christmas tales that in my mind gets overlooked. It's A Wonderful Life is a movie that just about everyone has seen but have you ever seen this one? No? You should. One very good reason to see this is Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young, just a sparkling cast to say the least. You may also recognize young George Bailey and little Zuzu if you're paying attention. Also Its every bit of an amazing story as It's A Wonderful Life, a simple story. One of love and faith in mankind and even faith in angels and God. What does a Bishop (David Niven) do when he's faced with an angel face to face? Talk about a test of faith! Angels are to be believed in not seen in the flesh.

This is a solid Christmas flick whether you believe in God or not. It's very well-made and Cary Grant is at his most-charming, plus Loretta Young actually won a Best Actress Oscar this same year, albeit for The Farmer's Daughter. The dramatic core of this film is how will Bishop David Niven get his cathedral built unless he kowtows to a rich matron (Gladys Cooper). The Bishop does pray to God for help, and almost immediately the angel Dudley (Grant) appears in his study, but the Bishop is unable to believe that he is who he says he is. Instead, Dudley begins to romance the Bishop's wife (Young) in an attempt to get the Bishop to act, but he begins to fall in love with her. This is a beautiful Christmas film, and Loretta and Cary have several very fun and lighthearted scenes together that I feel never cross the line that so many other films do today when it comes to infidelity and marriage. Later it was remade as The Preacher's Wife with Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston.

Taxi to the Dark Side (Alex Gibney, 2007)


This is a strikingly-powerful presentation of evidence concerning the treatment of "detainees" by the U.S. military at the behest of the Bush Administration during the last seven years. It begins by focusing on an Afghan taxi driver who died five days after entering Bagrab Air Base and branches off to cover both Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. There are interviews with the "interrogators" at these facilities, one released detainee, military officers who were in charge of the techniques involved, representatives of the Bush Administration, lawyers for the government and for the untried detainees and many other sources. The question is whether the Bush Administration, by denying Constitutional guarantees and those of the Geneva Convention, and utilizing techniques where heretofore have only been used by totalitarian governments and their torturers, are truly allowed to do what they have done in keeping these prisoners from ever receiving any formal charges or trials. I realize that most people believe they already know about most of what's presented in the film and use their political compass to judge what's wrong or right in this case, but this film is extremely efficient in laying all the evidentiary groundwork from many angles and then proceeding to tighten the screws on all the seemingly-guilty parties involved. The people of the world can actually watch this film and decide for themselves what is true. It's a sad testimony that very few people will ever learn what our government has learned from these "enemy combatants" because it's not in the interests of National Security for the American public to find out. Watching the film, you can't help but feel that all these denials and techniques have been used before by countless other regimes, including during the Nuremberg Trials. Just watch the film and tell me I'm jumping to conclusions

Mamma Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd, 2008)


This is a silly, yet intoxicating and gorgeous-looking musical, built around the songs of Swedish supergroup ABBA. Set in beautiful Greece, it tells the story of 20-year-old Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) who invites three older men to her wedding without telling her mother Donna (Meryl Streep). The reason is that any of the three, Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth) or Bob (Stellan Skarsgård), could be her father and most definitely, one of them is. Needless to say, when Donna finds out, she's not happy, but that doesn't stop everybody from singing and dancing all over the entire movie.

It doesn't really matter if you're an ABBA fanatic or can't tell the difference between them and AC/DC. The film is bright, cute, and just a lot of fun. I'll admit that the time frame of the film seems to defy logic, but who needs logic when you have this much fun on hand? The actors do their best at singing although it's obvious that a few are dubbed, but Meryl Streep and her two best buddies (played by Christine Baranski and Julie Walters - I was getting a Shirley Valentine flashback from the latter) really let it all hang out during their musical numbers. And PLEASE, quit acting like there is something wrong with musicals and people who enjoy musicals. Well, to be honest, I'm not specifically discussing anybody here, but it always seems like when you mention musicals that it turns off all the "macho guys"; you know, the ones who want to go kill things in their videogames or want to watch their video-game-based movies. Those are what real guys enjoy! Sorry about that. Just watch this movie and enjoy it if you can. Otherwise, watch what you enjoy. It's fine, and you don't need me to tell you so.

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)


I don't see how I can say anything which will help anybody get into a movie more than they're predisposed to do. Citizen Kane doesn't make my Top 100 and it doesn't even make my Top 5 of 1941, but these ratings and lists really have little to do with the merit of an individual film, and if I were told that I could teach a class in film, using just one film to study various forms of film communication, I'd probably have to pick Citizen Kane because it did basically reinvent films in the most dramatic ways possible since the changeover from silents to talkies.

On a technical level, the film is phenomenal, from Gregg Toland's deep focus, often expressionistic photography to the weird ways the film tells its story, starting out as a newsreel biography of the leading character after his death and then having the interviewer question Kane's friends and enemies, thus having multiple "narrators" tell the story of the biggest man in the history of the U.S. during the early 20th century. The acting is all very realistic and Welles, although he didn't pioneer the technique, used overlapping dialogue in new, powerful ways which certainly made him the envy of later directors such as Robert Altman. Bernard Herrmann's musical score is also powerful and poignant, and Welles used strange editing techniques (for example, editing to the cackle of a parrot) and special effects effortlessly, not to show off but to try to keep the film moving cinematically. I find the story of the little boy who lost the only love of his life and tried to replace it with money and things a touchingly human tale, so when someone calls what I find one of the strongest endings of all-time lame, I'm left to scratch my head. Yes, the combo of the fire, the sled "melting", the musical score, the smoke billowing from the chimney all showing Charlie Kane's life and dreams going up in smoke, it really makes me think that I'm seeing something special. (I certainly never had any trouble getting into it, right from the "No Trespassing" beginning with the awesome snow globe scene and weird photographic shot of the nurse through the broken glass.) Then, after the ending, Welles closes with unique end credits, even giving DP Toland the last credit.

Maybe some people give the movie extra points because Welles had to fight William Randolph Hearst just to get the film released. Hearst wanted to destroy the film, and even though he was unable to do it, he did just about break Welles and kept him from making films the way he wanted to for most of the rest of his life. I've also been to San Simeon (Hearst Castle) many times, so I can see how close the life of Kane resembles that of Hearst, so maybe the story has more meaning to me than some. Then again, I loved Citizen Kane before I ever went to Hearst Castle or took a film class in college.

As I said, I can't change anybody's mind about anything, but if you truly want to see if you missed something, I'd rewatch the movie sooner rather than later. However it turns out, keep watching movies and telling us what you think.

Mutiny on the Bounty (Lewis Milestone, 1962)



This version of the HMS Bounty mutiny has always had some major problems for me. First of all there was Marlon Brando'a almost prissy accent and interpretation of Fletcher Christian as some sort of fop. Then there was the fact that the film runs three hours long. Even though I still have those two reservations about this version, I'm warming up to it and have just given it my highest rating. There is an abundance of spectacle and gorgeous photography, as well as several good performances by the rest of the cast, especially Trevor Howard as the monstruous Captain Bligh. I suppose if you like Brando in this that you'll like it more than I do.

Some trivia about the different versions of this true-life, late-18th-century adventure follows. The first talkie version is a hard-to-find 1933 Australian documentary/dramatic In the Wake of the Bounty, which was also Tasmanian Errol Flynn's debut film in which he played Fletcher Christian. The 1935 film won Best Picture and had three actors (Charles Laughton, Clark Gable and Franchot Tone) nominated Best Actor! The strangest thing here is the actress Movita, who played Gable's Fletcher Christian's native love interest was actually married to Brando (remember, he played Christian) during the filming of the 1962 version. (You can't make this kinda stuff up.) The 1984 version, with Mel Gibson as Christian and Anthony Hopkins as Bligh, was released in 1984 with a PG rating and definitely has far more topless women than any film rated lower than R. Don't ask me why, but I thought that somebody around here might want to know that.

The Caine Mutiny (Edward Dmytryk, 1954)


This one is in my Top 100, and I suppose some younger viewers might find parts of it dated, but I certainly don't. This is basically a fictional, Americanized version of a WWII Mutiny on the Bounty. One of the things which makes this 63-year-old film feel modern is that it was mostly all filmed on the sea on a real ship, and the cinematography beautifully takes advantage of the realism on display to draw you in. I'll admit one of the hokey aspects of the film is the romance of the callow recent graduate from the Naval Academy, Keith (Robert Francis) and singer May Winn, but even that results in probably filmdom's most spectacularly-beautiful depiction of Yosemite Valley. What truly makes this film shine are the great characters, dialogue and the awesome performances. Bogart as Captain Queeg is tremendous as the new captain of the ship and always makes this cry baby erupt, but he's matched by the spectacular José Ferrer, Van Johnson in his best acting job, Fred MacMurray, Tom Tully (a laugh riot as the original captain of the Caine), E.G. Marshall, Lee Marvin, Claude Akins, Jerry Paris, Whit Bissell, Herbert Anderson, etc. The first three-quarters of the film is a great ocean-going war adventure (with loads of black comedy), but the court-martial scene which concludes the film is pure brilliance.

"Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled the Caine out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers."