Dr. No

Dr. No
So this is where it all began, one of the longest-running franchises in Hollywood history, the introduction to one of cinema's greatest heroes and the progenitor of the modern action film.

Our first James Bond adventure takes us to the Caribbean.  A British agent John Strangways disappears in Jamaica and James Bond (Sean Connery) is sent to investigate.  Almost immediately, he is targeted for assassination.  The attempts on his life grow more frequent as he closes in on Strangways' killers, signaling that the murdered agent was on to something really big and potentially explosive.  But what does all of this have to do with the mysterious scientist with metal hands named Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman).

I will be honest, it can be a bit difficult to review Dr. No objectively.  After all, this is where the formula originated: the smug and charming know-it-all agent, the women, the fanciful villains...it's a classic!

But is it really?

Well, it must be.  Everyone says so.  But again, is it really?

Look, make no mistake.  Dr. No is a fine film.  I really enjoyed it.  And it is a fascinating piece of cinematic history, but it is hardly a classic piece of filmmaking.  Let's start with director Terence Young, who deserves a lot of credit for making the franchise what it is and for helping mold Connery into what the character could be, but this is hardly visionary directing.  His pacing seems sluggish at times, the fights are rather silly, the dubbing is poorly done, the climax is anti-climactic, and the camera remains detached, contributing nothing to the escalating tension we are supposed to be feeling.  I actually never actually felt Bond was in any danger throughout the entire film except for his encounter with the spider and when he meets Dr. No himself, and that has more to do with the fact that I don't like spiders and because Joseph Wiseman's performance is so deliciously malevolent.

At first, I just figured that it was a different time, with a different standard of filmmaking and I should cut the film some slack.  But then I realized that this reasoning was a bit ridiculous.  Dr. No is lacking even when you compare it to other films made in the 1950s and 1960s.  Look no further than North by Northwest (1959) or To Catch a Thief (1955), both inspirations for the Bond series and both infinitely better.

I was also admittedly uncomfortable with the way Bond treats his black colleague Quarrel, a character whose introduction is badass but who then quickly devolves into a Caribbean stereotype. Bond just bosses him around with colonialist superiority that I could not help but feel a bit offended.

But what I can say is there must have been a learning curve - for the director, the writers, the producers, the composers...really, for the whole darn production team.  And they learned quickly because they came together and made one of the very best films of the series when they produced the sequel From Russia With Love. But they are fumbling a bit in this first film.

Okay, I know this all sounds bad, so now it is time to backpedal a bit.  Remember I said I liked the film?  I actually really do.  I like the fact that it is mostly an investigation, with Bond interviewing Stangways' friends and doing actual spy stuff, instead of bursting into rooms with guns a'blazing.  I love how ruthless and cutthroat the character was in the early 1960s.  They softened him a bit as the franchise continued, but this movie features Bond murdering unarmed men and also having a female enemy spy arrested only after he sleeps with her.  These are reminders that Bond is not a role model. And he's not supposed to be.  But these actions do make him an infinitely more interesting character.

I feel like this review would not be complete unless I mentioned the Bond girl and the villain!  For the Bond girl, you have Honey Ryder, played by the volcanic Ursula Andress.  Most people consider her one of the best, probably because of the iconic moment when she steps out of the ocean in her bikini with a knife strapped to her waist (no better way to capture the franchise's obsession with sex and violence in the same image!).  Andress is fine in the role, but after that first scene she doesn't really have much to do.  So I wonder if the reputation is based less on the character and more on that entrance and the fact that Andress is so explosively attractive.

For the villain, I gotta say I am a fan of Wiseman's Dr. No.  He is cruel and calculating and so unemotional, it is downright eerie.  He also begins the two Bond traditions of having a strange physical attribute (metal hands) and monologuing about what his master plan is.  Though I give credit to Dr. No for actually giving the villain a good reason to monologue - he is trying to recruit Bond to join the ranks of his organization, SPECTRE.  While the final fight between No and Bond is a let-down, it is still a memorable performance and a very cool villain.

So there you go.  I know I spent a lot of this review complaining about Dr. No, but I want to make it clear - this is a solid movie.  I enjoyed it and it is intriguing to watch how everything got started.  And it is very clear from the beginning that there is something cinematically magical about Bond - and especially about Connery playing Bond.  It is no wonder the film was a success.  But let's be careful about calling it a classic.  Because it most definitely is not.

RANKINGS:

So I will be ranking all the Bond films as I watch them. Obviously, there is only one film so far, so we might as well let Dr. No enjoy its brief time in the sun before From Russia With Love comes a'calling.

MVP:
"Bond.  James Bond."

And with that short phrase, two stars were born - James Bond and the legendary actor who played him, Sean Connery.  Connery just owns this role.  Even if he had only made one film, he still would have an easy claim to being the best Bond ever.  Other Bonds generally excelled at one or two of the character traits that are essential to character.  Roger Moore handled the one liners quite well.  He was charming, suave with the ladies, and adept at handling Bond's ambivalence (or pretended ambivalence) to danger.  But I never really believed him in a fight.  Timothy Dalton brought danger to the role, but was completely unbelievable when flirting, Brosnan could handle himself equally in an action set piece and in the bedroom, but the over-the-top antics they put him through kept him from ever being truly believable, George Lazenby...well, let's just skip George Lazenby, and Daniel Craig, who is my second favorite Bond behind Connery, has completely inhabited the role of a brawler who has turned himself into a sophisticated man of the world, but he has yet to show me the nonchalance and the charm that is so essential to the character.  It all goes back to Connery.  He did it all.  He inhabited it all.  Without Connery, Dr. No would have been well received by audiences, it may have even warranted a sequel, but it would be remembered now by only spy film enthusiasts and Ian Fleming fans.  Connery made Bond a legend.  He's the MVP!


BEST LINE:

This is a tie between one of my favorite Bond pickup lines and when Bond ruthlessly kills one of his enemies.  First, the pickup line, spoken just after Honey Ryder comes to shore from the beach.

Honey Ryder: Are you looking for shells?

Bond (clearly ogling her): No, I'm just looking.

And then the great line when Bond kills an enemy whose gun has run out of bullets:

Bond: That's a Smith and Wesson, and you've had your six. (boom)

TRIVIA:
The hunt for Bond was an arduous one.  Connery came late in the search. As fans of North by Northwest, Broccoli and Saltzman first asked Cary Grant, who would only agree to one picture and who also expressed a concern that he was a bit too old for the part (he was in his mid-50s at that point in his career).  Broccoli and Saltzman then asked North by Northwest's villain, James Mason, who also would not agree to a multi-picture deal.  Several actors were thrown into the discussions, such Steve Reeves (Hercules), Roger Moore (who would go on to play Bond in later films), and Stanley Baker (Zulu).  But they liked Connery.  He was manly, a former body builder, but still moved gracefully "like a cat."  Ironically, Fleming did not like the casting at first, but was so taken with Connery's performance that he began to write with him in mind in the later stories.

BOND...JAMES BOND

Bond is my franchise.  Let me just get that out there.  It was something I realized around the time of Casino Royale (2006).  As a child of the 1980s, I grew up in a time when franchises were really beginning to explode, and I was raised on a healthy diet of Star Wars, Star Trek, Indiana Jones and James Bond.  Since then, I have seen all of these franchises hit some dark days.  In fact, in some ways, I'm not sure I want those franchises to survive.  I think many of us would agree that the Star Wars prequels and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull almost killed Star Wars and Indiana Jones, respectively (even if they did make a lot of money).  We'll see what Disney has in store for these series moving forward, but my expectations are not that high.  And Star Trek, while I like the cast and found the first reboot to be genuinely entertaining, was not really Star Trek to me.  It felt more like J.J. Abrams' demo reel to get the Star Wars gig.

So why do I prefer Bond to those others?  Longevity and consistency.  Look, there is not a single James Bond film that is as good the original Star Wars Trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  No Bond film even comes close to hitting the triumphant peaks that those films reached.  And yet, the character and the formula of Bond endures.  And unlike other franchises, there doesn't seem to be a lot of second guessing.  If Eon Productions makes a bad Bond film, they shrug their shoulders, fix what isn't working, and then move on to the next one.  There is comfort in that consistency.

There is also the matter of Bond himself.  I hear Disney is rebooting Indiana Jones with a new actor in the lead.  That's not gonna work.  Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford.  Bond is bigger than any of the actors who played him.  He has entered the territory of Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, and other icons who are far more important than the actors who are playing them.  I think that is an important point that needs to be made.

As far as I'm concerned, the Indiana Jones series ended with The Last Crusade.  Star Wars only had three films that ended in 1983, and Star Trek was ruined by the Next Generation's cast moving to the big screen (three out of those four films were garbage, and even the good one, First Contact, was only okay).

Nope.  It's official. Bond is my franchise.

One of the longest continuing film series in history, James Bond was the literary creation of Ian Fleming, a British author who had spent time as a naval intelligence officer in World War 2.  While his war service was nowhere near as adventurous as Bond's career, it did give the books a bit of authenticity.  I always felt that Bond was the spy Fleming wished he could have been, but that might just be me reading into it too much!   Either way, the books were hits, and it didn't take long for Hollywood to come calling.

The first Bond adaptation was the Casino Royale episode of the Climax TV show.  It featured Barry Nelson as American (not British) spy James Bond and weaselly Peter Lorre as the villainous Le Chiffre.  I think most people just consider Casino Royale as an interesting side note and mark the true beginning of Bond's cinematic career when producers Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli teamed up in 1962 to make Dr. No.  And that is where I will begin my reviews.

I plan on watching all these films and reviewing them in order, and ranking them as I go.  It will be fascinating to watch the series change as the decades pass, always riding a wild roller coaster from fairly serious and realistic to over-the-top special effects bonanzas, and then back again, always staying current by cashing in on current trends (including even Blaxploitation, Kung Fu and the Star Wars films) and continually riding on the timeless coattails of one of the most entertaining characters in movie history.  This is going to be fun.

So let's get going!

The Right Stuff

The Right Stuff

Sometimes a classic needs some time before it truly connects with the audience.  Take It's a Wonderful Life, for example.  We know it as one of the greatest Christmas films ever (actually the second best Christmas film ever, according to my review!).  But when the film came out, audiences did not want to see it, despite the presence of Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart.  It was not until decades later, when the film began to make rounds on television, that it became the beloved classic it is now.  In 1983, The Right Stuff was released to glowing reviews, but sort of fizzled at the box office. While critics still adore the film - and even rate it consistently among the best of the decade - it has yet to find that wide audience.  If you are film buff, or a NASA or Air Force fan, you most likely have seen it.  But I am surprised how many people haven't...and how many have not even heard of it. So I hope this review is me doing my part in changing that injustice.  The Right Stuff really is that good and should be seen by everyone.

Based on the classic novel by Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff is the story of the beginnings of America's space program, beginning with Chuck Yaeger's breaking of the sound barrier, then following the recruitment and eventual missions of the original seven Mercury astronauts.  The storytelling in the film is a bit odd, to be honest, without a main character or straightforward narrative arc, or even a true climax.  Instead the film just kind of bounces around, juxtaposing Yaeger's story with that of the Mercury astronauts (while also keeping tabs on the Russians' space program). This lack of a traditional narrative, which you would think would be a flaw, is actually a true strength here, adding to the film's authenticity.  It's a remarkable bit of screenwriting and directing.

It also helps when you have this cast - Sam Shepard, Barbara Hershey, Dennis Quaid, Ed Harris, Donald Moffat, Fred Ward, Kim Stanley, Harry Shearer, Jeff Goldblum, Lance Henrickson, Scott Glenn, Veronica Cartwright - this is one helluva cast and they are all perfect in their roles.  I would give special props to Ed Harris, who plays the patriotic boy scout of the bunch (and future Senator) John Glenn, Scott Glenn as the first American in space Alan Shepard, and especially Sam Shepard as the stoic daredevil Yaeger.

The main reason I personally like The Right Stuff is that it is a three-hour long class in filmmaking. Directed by Philip Kaufman (Henry and June), this movie teaches me something new every time I see it. The first time you watch The Right Stuff, you should just sit back and enjoy it.  But the second time, you should try to distance yourself from the movie and watch how it is made.  It's remarkable.  Observe how the shots are constructed and how that subtly reinforces character and story points (especially true in the scenes with the astronauts and their wives).   Look at the how the various narrative arcs are strung together, seemingly disjointed but still completely dependent on each other. Look at the acting, the set direction, the costumes...I could go on.

There are a few things I don't like about The Right Stuff, admittedly.  In places, Bill Conti's Oscar-winning score is magnificent, but in other spots it sounds like the worst of 1980s synth.  It's just not my cup of tea.  I also find Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer's characters to be a bit too cartoonish. Playing goofy NASA recruiters, they truly are funny, but their slapstick routine seems out of place at times and more appropriate for a Three Stooges film (which I suppose is the point, in some ways).

SPOILERS HERE: I do have mixed feelings about the NASA accident involving Gus Grissom (Fred Ward).  The scene is incredibly well done, but I feel it implies that Grissom panicked and was responsible for the accident, but in real life, he had been cleared of any wrong doing long before the book and film were released.  So while that sequence in of itself is excellent, I feel weird about it.  Also, I really do not like the very, very ending at all.  There is a bit of folksy narration just before the end credits, as Gordo Cooper is launching into space for his mission.  The narration tells us the fate of one of the other characters, and ONLY one of them - which is already a bit lame - and explains that he died a horrible, horrible death, and then switches gears and tries to end on a funny note:"but that day Gordo Cooper became the greatest pilot anyone had seen."  First of all, why only tell us the fate of only one of the characters?  And then why depress us, and then throw a cheeky curveball about Cooper that is supposed to make us laugh.  As many times as I've seen the movie, it still doesn't sit well with me.  SPOILERS END.

But these are all minor points, in no way impacting the coolness of this movie as a whole.  The Right Stuff is a brilliant movie, and worthy of its accolades, but still searching for the wide audience that will keep it in the public consciousness generation after generation - an achievement it absolutely deserves.

BEST LINE:
This is my personal favorite line in what is also my favorite scene of the movie.

John Glenn: Annie, listen to me.  If you don't want the Vice President or the TV networks or anybody else to come into the house, then that's it, as far as I'm concerned.  They are not coming in, and I will back you all the way, 100 percent on this.  And you tell them that, ok?  I don't want Johnson or any of the rest of them to set as much as one toe inside our house.  You tell them astronaut John Glenn told you to say that.

MVP:
Apparently Tom Wolfe was displeased with the movie because it made Yaeger more of a hero than the other astronauts.  I disagree with that. Yes, the movie implies that Yaeger has "the right stuff" because he is the one who continues to push the barriers without the benefit of NASA scientists.  But as Yaeger himself points out in the movie, the astronauts are the ones who are brave enough to ignore their natural piloting instincts and strap themselves at the head of a rocket that very likely could explode and kill them.  They are at the mercy of scientists who aren't sure if any of this was going to work.  So what is "the Right Stuff" anyway?  What does that mean exactly and who has it?  It's an intriguing question and one that is much debated about the movie.

But someone who definitely has the Right Stuff is Sam Shepard, playing Chuck Yaeger.  He is such an unassuming character - quiet, humble, completely unflappable, and incredibly badass.  He doesn't need to act tough or talk trash about breaking flying records.  If you break his record, he'll just shrug a little and then go break the record again.  Shepard's presence is felt throughout the entire film. Sure, the narrative is slanted to favor Yaeger, but at the same time, without the complete confidence of Shepard's performance, I doubt it would have been anywhere near as effective.  Shepard earned an Oscar nomination for the role, and I think he should have won.  He wins my MVP, though.

TRIVIA:
The original composer hired for the film was John Barry (Oscar-winner for Dances with Wolves), but he left the project due to creative differences with director Philip Kaufman.  More accurately, he wasn't quite sure what Kaufman wanted.  According to Barry, when asked to describe his perfect score, Kaufman said he wanted music that sounded like "you're walking in the desert and you see a cactus, and you put your foot on it, but it just starts growing up through your foot."  Huh?  This also might explain why the music in the film is so hit-or-miss.

Ben Hur (1925)

Ben Hur (1925)
Many people always say remakes are bad.  Or at best they might say that even if a remake is watchable, it pales in comparison to the original.  I don't necessarily agree with that.  The superb 1959's Ben Hur is technically a remake.  While I had never seen the 1925 version, I would have been shocked if it was a superior movie.  But truth be told, I didn't know.  The 1925 version is very well-regarded, and maybe it was a better movie, a masterpiece that I had been missing out on all these years.  Since I just re-watched and reviewed the 1959 classic, I figured now was a good time to visit the silent film and find out for sure.

I will admit that maybe I am not the best person to make the comparison.  Other than Buster Keaton, silent films generally don't do much for me  The overacting in most silent films just seems silly to me and I am not a fan of reading cue cards instead of listening to dialogue. In Ben Hur, this card problem is exasperated by how long the text is onscreen.  I think audiences in 1925 must have been the slowest readers on the planet because something short like "What did you have for breakfast?" is on screen for what feels like 10 minutes.  I think this 151-minute long film would have been closer to 20-minutes long if the text cards had been removed (okay, maybe that is an exaggeration). 

While it was difficult to engage with the story on an emotional level, I could certainly view it as a piece of filmmaking.  And Ben Hur must have been hugely impressive in 1925.  There are parts of this film that are even in color, which is fascinating to watch.  Thematically, they wanted all the moments that had to do with Jesus (and one parade in Rome) to be in color, while the rest of the film would be in black and white or tinted purple.  I believe the film reels were literally painted by hand, frame by frame, and the result is beautiful. Also, I have to say that this film is definitely EPIC, with thousands of extras and monstrous sets that still inspire awe today.  To be honest, I think most of the sets are even more impressive here than in the 1959 version - particularly the gates of Jerusalem, which have always looked way too fake for me in the remake.   On the contrary, Jerusalem's walls in the silent film resemble ancient stone behemoths that would impress any and all travelers.  I was staggered by their awesomeness.  I also think that the sea battle in the silent film is better than in the remake.  With the exception of the intense moment on the flagship's deck where Charlton Heston lights that stunt man's face on fire (super cool!), I've always been unimpressed with the battle in the 1959 version.  The boats looked like models floating around in a giant bathtub.  I believe in the 1925 version they actually built more ships and let them actually go at each other.  And there are moments of intense violence that I would expect in a film today, not in 1925 (how about that pirate charging into battle with a severed Roman head impaled on his sword?  Whoa.).  I also think the chariot race is still a thrill, even if it doesn't quite equal the remake.  And at the end of the day, the storyline of Ben Hur is just downright compelling.  It is hard not to be interested in Ben Hur's quest for revenge.

I do want to take a moment to talk about the story and different filmmaking approaches of the two films, so be warned that I am heading into SPOILER territory here.  For example, I am not a fan of how Jesus is handled in the 1925 version.  Both movies take a similar approach in that they will not show his face.  But at least in 1959, we see him walking around, preaching, and acting as a character in a film.  In 1925, he is represented by a seemingly disembodied arm and hand that appears from off camera, magically unseen by all the other characters.  Maybe they are taking this approach to be more pious, but it doesn't work.  It's just silly.  Just compare the way the two films handle the moment by the well, when Jesus gives Ben Hur water and saves his life.  In 1959, this is a moment of cinematic poetry.  In 1925, I laughed at the random arm that pops on screen and plops water all over Ramon Novarro's face.  Not good.

I know that the silent film is more faithful to the book, but for the most part the changes in the remake were vast improvements. In the book and the silent film, Ben Hur raises an army and prepares to start a revolt.  He gathers the army just outside Jerusalem so that they can save Jesus when he is captured and they wait for the right time to strike...how Ben Hur hides 10,000 men from the Roman legions posted in Jerusalem I'm not sure, but let's leave that to suspension of disbelief.  That aside, this army then proceeds to...do nothing.  Ben Hur follows Christ as he marches to his fate and the army still does nothing.  And then once Ben Hur witnesses the crucifixion and is converted, he sends a message to the army saying, "hey, violence isn't the answer.  Everyone go home." And all 10,000 soldiers just say okay and leave.  Huh?  Maybe if the army or the generals had witnessed the crucifixion, this might make some sense.  But they didn't.  So they just leave, a random plot device built up to be something important that really served no purpose and was wisely cut out in 1959.

There is also the issue of Marsala, played by Francis X. Bushman in the silent film and Stephen Boyd in the remake.  Bushman is having fun with the role, but the character is a cartoon bad guy with no depth.  Marsala and Ben Hur were best friends as kids, and yet from the moment they see each other, Marsala is embarrassed by Ben Hur and looks down on him for being a Jew.  There is no way these two were ever friends.  And this makes Marsala's betrayal of the Hur family kind of...well, meaningless and inevitable.  It only really happens for the sake of the plot.

One of my favorite moments in the 1959 film is when he first meet Marsala.  He is told by a soldier that a Jew has come to see him.  When the soldier uses a disparaging tone of voice, Marsala scolds him for his disrespect.  "Remember, this was their land before it was ours."  For me, that line is the key to Marsala.  Marsala is not a bad person.  But he has been corrupted by the 'glory' of Rome and that sets him on a collision course with his oldest friend.  When he betrays the Hur Family, it actually hurts.  It hurts the audience and it hurts Marsala, too.  He's not happy about the decision, but believes it is what he must do.  And remember - despite the fact that Marsala betrayed Ben Hur, he is adamant that it is the other way around, and that Ben Hur is the traitor for refusing to help him when he needed it.  That's some juicy stuff.  That makes for a good villain.  That is an example of the depth that is all over the 1959 Ben Hur and almost completely absent from the 1925 version.

There is one story point that I liked in the original more.  The Hur Family has a slave named Simonides who is also their steward and accountant.  In the 1959 film, they sugarcoat the slavery thing by showing how Ben Hur is such a nice master who treats his slave like family.  And when Ben Hur returns from his exile, Simonides is excited to have his old master back in his life.  Bleah.  The 1925 version takes a slightly different approach.  When Ben Hur returns, Simonides at first claims not to recognize him.   Even if the Hurs were good masters, they were still masters, and Simonides has no desire to go back into slavery.  That's an interesting idea that I wish had been developed more in the original and maybe expanded on in the 1959 version.  Alas, I can't have everything.

Anyways, this is getting to be a long one, so I feel I should wrap it up.  I could go on and on about the differences between the two films, but it would just be emphasizing the same idea: that while the 1925 version has its merits, it is clear that it does not hold a candle to the remake, which is simply one of the greatest epics ever made.


MVP:
For the 1959 version, I awarded the MVP to a sequence instead of a person (the chariot race).  I am doing the same thing now.  I am giving MVP to that truly exciting sea battle.  I was just really impressed with the scope of this sequence, and it looks like the extras are really fighting each other...which they may have been.  Political upheaval was engulfing Italy at the time (which is where they filmed this sequence), and many extras were pro Mussolini while others were staunch opponents of the fascist dictator.  The two sides' animosity is sort of obvious when you are watching this battle.  Plus, there is a lot of messed up stuff in this battle that I cannot believe made it past the censors of the day.  There were multiple moments where I actually said out loud, "wait, did that just happen?"  Much of the battle I had to watch twice.  That is more than enough for it to earn my MVP.


TRIVIA:
In some ways, Ben Hur might be the most star-studded film of all time. In addition to its leads, Ramon Novarro and Francis X. Bushman, who were big silent film stars, there were a number of future legends in the cast.  Granted, they were mostly extras standing in the crowds during the chariot scenes, but still...check out this lineup: John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Marion Davies, Myrna Loy, John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks, Harold Lloyd, Janet Gaynor, Fay Wray, Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish.  Wow.  That's impressive!

Ben Hur (1959)

Ben Hur (1959)

So everyone knows epics are my favorite genre.  The heyday of the epic was in the 1950s and early 1960s, when Hollywood went all in with these monster pictures in order to beat back competition from TV.  Though there are notable exceptions, I feel the 1950s were more about the biblical epics (Quo Vadis, The Robe, Demetrius and the Gladiators, Ten Commandments) while the 1960s abruptly shifted focus to the historical epic (Spartacus, Cleopatra, Lawrence of Arabia, El Cid).  The religious epic reached its zenith at the end of the decade, with 1959's Ben Hur. 

A major box office smash and the winner of 11 Academy Awards (a record until Titanic came along), Ben Hur has gone down as one of the great all-time classics.  It is clearly one of the best of the genre, and is certainly the best religious themed epic.  I actually think it is the best religious themed film ever.  Forget all the others.  Ben Hur is the real deal.

During the days of the Roman Empire, Ben Hur (Charlton Heston) is a wealthy Jewish merchant who also happens to be best friends with the newly appointed commander of the Roman garrison, Marsala (Stephen Boyd).  Marsala betrays Ben Hur, imprisoning his family and sentencing him to life as a galley slave.  Ben Hur swears vengeance, and slowly works his way back to Jerusalem for a final showdown with Marsala during an epic, epic, epic chariot race.  But along the way, Ben Hur's story interweaves with another story, that of a simple carpenter named Jesus who wanders the countryside, preaching peace and performing miracles.

Look, is Ben Hur perfect?  No.  It is dated in some places, and also tends to drag in a few areas, particularly in the beginning (that love scene does not age well at all), and following the chariot race.  I think 15 minutes of this movie could have been trimmed and it still would have been just as good.

But these are nitpicks, because Ben Hur really is superb on almost every level.  There are some people who poke fun at Heston's acting career, but when he was firing on all cylinders, he was really a very good actor.  And I don't think anyone quite pulled off the noble, larger-than-life roles as believably as Heston.  He certainly deserved his Oscar for Best Actor.  The rest of the acting is also great along the board, with a supporting cast including Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Hugh Griffith, Andre Morell, Sam Jaffe, and Stephen Boyd as Marsala.  Boyd is particularly good. He plays Marsala as a wounded man, someone who actually thinks he was betrayed by his old best friend, and not the other way around.  He was actually directed to act like a spurned lover, and watching his performance with that in mind opens up a whole new dimension to the character.  It's great work, and its a shame he wasn't nominated for Best Supporting Actor (the award went to Hugh Griffith, who was nominated for Ben Hur for playing Sheik Ilderim - a fun role and good performance, certainly, but hardly Oscar-worthy).

The direction by William Wyler is superb, the cinematography is evocative, the art direction, sets, and costumes are awe-inspiring, and the music by Miklos Rozsa is easily one of the best scores ever written for a motion picture.  This is just a superb film from top to bottom.  Compare it the other massive hit of the religious genre, Ten Commandments.   Ten Commandments is just a bundle of sheer entertainment. No director was quite as adept as DeMille at mixing the cocktail of scope and silliness into something so unabashedly fun.  But Ben Hur blows it out of the water, with a filmmaking prowess and thematic depth that most historical films of the time period could not hope to match. William Wyler took the genre as far as it could go.  It is no surprise that religious epics went out of style in the 1960s.  Sodom and Gomorrah, King of Kings, and The Greatest Story Ever Told were pale attempts to continue the genre, but none thrived at the box office.  It's almost as if audiences just knew - the religious epic should have died with Ben Hur.  It was the best they were ever going to get.  So why bother trying anything else?

MVP: 
Some small spoilers here.  At first, this seemed like a tough call.  Wyler, Heston, Boyd and Rozsa could all make a strong case.  There are also a few scenes that are so good I have to consider them.  Probably my favorite scene involving Jesus in any movie is in Ben Hur, when the beaten Ben Hur is being dragged through the desert into slavery.  The line of exhausted slaves end up marching into Nazareth, which is where Ben Hur has his first encounter with Jesus.  It's a famous scene, justifiably so, and it had more of an emotional and religious impact on me than any of the heavy-handed biblical quoting that often plague films like this.  It's a beautiful sequence, with great work from Rozsa and great acting from Heston and the Roman guard who tries to stop Ben Hur from getting water.

But it's not my MVP.

No, once you start thinking about it, it is obvious what the MVP is...and as it should be, it is the one thing that the movie is most remembered for.  It is the image that is on all the posters, DVD covers, and featured in most movie montages.  It's that damn chariot race, that final confrontation between Ben Hur and Marsala.  How could it be anything else?  That race is a show stopper and has not aged a day.  It is just as intense now as it was then.  Maybe even more so, since audiences are used to CGI action scenes whereas this scene used stunt men who really get run over by horses.  That is pretty amazing to see - and please know that the rumor that a stunt man died while filming this movie is just that - a rumor.  But watching the chariot race, you have to wonder how that is possible, because there is some crazy dangerous stuff going on!

All in all, I actually think the chariot race is the best action scene in movie history.  Ever.  And I'll stand by that.  It's not just my MVP for this movie.  It's my MVP for the entire genre!

BEST LINE:
Judah Ben Hur: "Almost at the moment he died, I heard him say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Esther: "Even then?"
Judah Ben Hur: "Even then."

It's not so much the first part of the exchange that I like, as I've heard it thousand times. It's the second part. "Even then." Those two words sum up the message of the film, the fruitlessness of revenge, the power of forgiveness.  There is a lot of power in those two words, and they've stuck with me ever since I first saw the film.

TRIVIA:
When Kirk Kerkorian liquidated MGM's assets in the 1970s, he sold one of the chariots for $4000 to a Sacramento restaurant owner.  A few years later, during the height of the 1970s energy crisis, this guy was arrested for driving the chariot on the highway.  I know there is probably better trivia out there about Ben Hur itself, but I thought this one was too strange not to post!

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Raiders of the Lost Ark

You may be wondering why I am reviewing Raiders of the Lost Ark now.  It's an established classic, most people have seen it, and if they don't like it, then they are most likely crazy.  So why review it now?  Well, I have two reasons.  First off, there is a whole generation of movie watchers growing up now that actually have NOT have seen it, as shocking as they may sound. My wife is a teacher, and when Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out, she asked her students what they thought.  "Meh," they replied, "it was just a ripoff of National Treasure with an old guy."

"A ripoff of National Treasure with an old guy."  

I was horrified.  Not so much that they didn't like Crystal Skull, because that film was downright awful, but because their response implied they had not seen the other Indiana Jones adventures.  Really?!  What kind of parents do these kids have?!?!  How can they not have introduced their kids to Indiana Jones?!  So this column is for those kids.  Maybe one of them will read the review, be inspired to go rent the film with their friends, and therefore be enlightened with the magic of a true adventure masterpiece, and hopefully someday show their own children.  That is the circle of life the way it was meant to be.

The second reason I am writing this review now is because I just received the BluRay as a gift.  A few days later, I was with a friend, and we were planning on watching a different film.  But first, he wanted to see the Raiders transfer so he could decide whether or not to buy it himself.  We plopped it into his projector, and about two minutes into the film, he turned to me and said, "Do you kinda just want to watch the rest of this?"  And I answered, "Yeah, I kinda do."  It doesn't matter how many times I've seen it.  If Raiders is on, I'm not going to move from the couch for two hours.  And I'll just say right now - the work done on the film is marvelous.  It looks and sounds truly stunning in HD, and is definitely a worthy upgrade from the DVD!

So here is a short synopsis.  On the eve of World War 2, word reaches U.S. army intelligence that the Nazis are searching for religious artifacts of great power that might give them the upper hand in the war everyone knows is about the erupt.  Their latest target is the the Ark of the Covenant, the golden box where the ancient Hebrews kept the pieces of the Ten Commandments.  U.S. agents ask Indiana Jones to go to Egypt and find the Ark before the Nazis do.  I kind of don't want to say anything else because for those who have not seen the movie - the less you know about this roller coaster, the better the ride is going to be!

Sometimes with older films, I worry if nostalgia is tinting my affection.  This is really not the case with Raiders.  This film is lightning in a bottle.  Watching the movie again, I really paid attention to it as a film.  And it really is almost a flawless piece of work.  The script is tight, without an ounce of fat or wasted time.  The cinematography by Douglas Slocombe is superb and gave me easily a dozen shots that have been branded into my brain for all time.  John Williams' score is among his best and of course includes a main theme every bit as iconic as his intro to Star Wars.  Harrison Ford found the role of a lifetime and he has never been better.  The rest of the cast, including Karen Allen (Star Man), Paul Freeman (The Long Good Friday), John Rhys-Davies (Lord of the Rings), and Denholm Elliot (Cuba), are truly excellent.  Director Steven Spielberg was at the top of his game as a filmmaker.  And alongside Spielberg, look at who else contributed to the story - George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan and Phillip Kaufman.  That's one helluva writing team there.

How good is Raiders of the Lost Ark?  It's so good that there are actually a number of glaring plot holes that you completely 100% forgive.  Minor spoilers here:  How did Indiana Jones stay on the Nazi submarine as it traveled to the Nazi base, especially once it submerged?  How did he know that the Ark would do that at the end of the film?  The movie never says, and we don't care.  Because our answer to these questions is always the same: "I don't know.  He's Indiana Jones!  He figured it out."  And I'm okay with that as the answer to any and all plot questions you might be able to think of.  He just figured it out.

Enough said.  Raiders of the Lost Ark is a true classic.  National Treasure may have been diverting enough, but it doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence.  Shame on you, high schoolers, get your damn priorities straight.  Your homework is to go see Raiders and now.

BEST LINE:
Which line should I choose?  So tough.  How about this. "It's not the years, honey.  It's the mileage."

MVP:
Another really tough call.  Do I reward Spielberg for his terrific direction, Lawrence Kasdan for giving my childhood some its most memorable lines, or John Williams for that infectious music?  I think in the end I have to go with Harrison Ford.  This is one of those rare roles where the actor and character so seamlessly blend, there is no way anyone else could have done it.  Tom Selleck was originally cast in the role, and I think he would have been fine, and the movie certainly entertaining enough.  But it wouldn't have been as perfect.  And I don't think Selleck could have done what Ford did (just like I think Ford would have been an inferior Magnum P.I.).  Ford has done a lot fine work in a lot of great films, but in those movies, he is Harrison Ford playing a character.  But even when I watch Raiders of the Lost Ark today, I am surprised how the line between character and performer just doesn't seem to exist.  He IS Indiana Jones.  And for that, Harrison Ford gets the MVP.

TRIVIA:
Lots of great trivia with this one!  But how about we go back to those plot holes I mentioned earlier.  What is weird about the plot holes is that in the first cut of the movie, they were not plot holes at all.  Indiana Jones knew about the Ark's power at the end of the film because the old wise man in Cairo warned him about it.  And when the submarine traveled to its secret base, Indiana Jones survived the trip by using his whip to tie himself to the periscope, which I actually remember seeing in the comic adaptation when I was a kid and wondering why it wasn't in the film.  I am not sure why these scenes were cut from the movie.  It's kind of strange because they do provide crucial information for the plot.  Other deleted scenes include a German officer almost executing Sallah, but that scene was deemed too long and too serious for such an adventure (though the acting was supposedly superb).  There was also a massive set piece fight scene between Indiana Jones and the swordsman in the Cairo market.  The rumor is Ford was feeling sick and couldn't finish filming the sequence.  So they ad libbed the scene where he just shoots the swordsman instead - easily one of the funniest moments of entire franchise!

OSCARS AND NOMINATIONS:

Nominated for:

Best Picture (lost to Chariots of Fire)
Best Director (lost to Warren Beatty, Reds)
Best Cinematography (lost to Vittorio Storaro, Reds)
Best Original Score (lost to Vangelis, Chariots of Fire)

Won:

Best Art Direction
Best Sound
Best Film Editing
Best Visual Effects
Special Achievement Award for Best Sound Effects Editing

Rest in Peace, Peter O'Toole

A shining light went out this weekend.  Peter O'Toole had been sick for some time, so I was not surprised when I heard the news.  Frankly, given the hard life he lived, I am shocked he made it this long!  He should have died numerous times decades ago and he knew it, and continued to live each day to the fullest. 

For me, O'Toole has been in my life for as long as I can remember.  Lawrence of Arabia has been my favorite movie since I was 12.  And a lot of that credit goes to the thrilling performance from O'Toole.  And my love of Lawrence led directly to my first big lesson on how the Oscars aren't fair.  I knew Lawrence had won 7 Oscars, including all the biggies, but when I looked on the list, I did not see O'Toole's name.  Despite my ardent protests, my dad assured me that it was not a typo and that O'Toole had indeed lost the Oscar. 

You see, in my child's mind, it was inconceivable that he could lose that Oscar.  That performance is riveting in every detail. it is sheer electricity on-screen and I had never seen anything like it (nor have I since).  How is it possible that he had lost?!  Because that is the Oscars, folks. 

In fact, O'Toole's career was a checklist of Oscar unluckiness.  He had the misfortune of almost always going up against someone who was guaranteed to win.  For those who are curious, here is the tally:

1. Lawrence of Arabia - lost to Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.  Look, that is a great performance in a great film, but O'Toole was better.  That said, there was no way Peck was losing that Oscar.

2. Becket - lost to Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady.  There is no way Rex Harrison was losing that Oscar .

3. The Lion in Winter - this the one he should have won.  Cliff Robertson won for Charly, which is was a fine film, but I'm not sure how Robertson won this.  He did embark on a great publicity campaign and there also may have been some voter fatigue from so many European actors winning Oscars in the 1960s.  Either way, this is the one that got away. 

4. Goodbye, Mr. Chips - lost to John Wayne in True Grit.  There was no way John Wayne was losing that Oscar - not after almost a half century in Hollywood without a win. 

5. Ruling Class - lost to Marlon Brando in The Godfather.  Brando is not losing that Oscar.

6. The Stunt Man - lost to Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull.  DeNiro is not losing that Oscar.

7. My Favorite Year - lost to Ben Kingsley in Gandhi.  You really think Kingsley was going to lose that Oscar? 

8. Venus - lost to Forrest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland.  Whitaker is not going to lose that Oscar.

What bad luck!  That is 8 nominations without a win, which is the record for acting.  He was awarded an Honorary Oscar in 2003, which he tried to reject because he said he was still in the game and "wanted to win the bugger outright."  But I think that was Hollywood's way of trying to undo their mistake and award him for a terrific body of work. 

But let's move on. Why dwell on disappointments when we should be applauding his work.  I wanted to make a quick list of the top five O'Toole performances for me.  His body of work includes a lot of class, but also a lot of junk (the late 1980s was not a good decade for him!), but if you could only see him acting in five movies, these are the five.  Please note that I don't think these are his best five films; just his top five performances.  I've also included the scene that I think showcases what he does best in these films.  Counting down!!!

5. Venus - What a great role to have at the end of one's career!  O'Toole plays a dirty old actor named Maurice reduced to playing aged aristocrats or corpses, and who becomes infatuated with a young woman named Jessie (Jodie Whitaker). While moments are hilarious, this really is not a heartwarming film.  But Maurice is a daring and bold role for any actor to take, and O'Toole brought 50 years of hellraising baggage to the part.  The killer scene is when he visits his ex-wife (Vanessa Redgrave) and admits to what a shallow and horrible husband he had been - but still with a touch of class and humor.  Only O'Toole could pull that off!

4. What's New Pussycat?  This is not a great film.  I'm not even sure if this is a good one, but boy, is it fun and absolutely insane!  This was one of those crazy sex farces from the 1960s, and featured a sterling cast that included Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress and Woody Allen in his film debut.  This movie is ridiculous, makes no sense, and I love every second of it.  If Lawrence is the movie that revealed O'Toole the actor to me, then this was the movie that showed me the Hellraiser.  I got a sense that in real life, he was very much like boozy womanizer Michael James.  And that guy would be a lot of fun to hang out with!  I would probably not survive the evening, but it would be a lot of fun!  For a standout O'Toole moment, either check out the drunken spin on Cyrano de Bergerac or his reaction to Paula Prentiss' poetry ("Who Killed Charlie Parker!  You did! You Rat!")

3. The Stunt Man.  Another film that is not everyone's cup of tea. Some people love it, some are appalled by its strangeness.  I am mixed myself.  There is a lot to love about this crazy movie, but there are too many problems for me to fully embrace it.  That said, O'Toole is insanely good as a maniacal film director Eli Cross, who may be trying to kill his new stunt man.  He hovers over the whole movie - literally, since his director's chair is mounted on a giant crane - like some sort of crazed movie god passing judgment on all the mere mortals beneath him.  He is both terrifying and charming.  The highlight scene is when the Assistant Director yells, "cut" on set before Eli Cross I ready to end the scene.  The fast-paced, clipped display of venom that spews out of O'Toole's mouth for the next 30 seconds is the type of performance that should be taught in film school.

2. The Lion in Winter.  As the embattled king Henry II, O'Toole is brilliant. The movie follows Henry as he tries to deal with his remarkably dysfunctional family while arguing politics with his rival, the new king of France.  Sounds a bit boring?  Try again.  Though technically a drama, this movie is actually very funny, with remarkably clever dialogue and memorable characters.  And O'Toole is terrific, stealing the movie from a great cast that also includes Katherine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton.  He not only went head-to-head with the steely titan Hepburn, he eclipsed her (though she did win a well-deserved Oscar).  The best scene in the movie is when Henry has finally had enough of his rebellious children and muses on how his epitaph will read when he eventually dies, "but Henry had no sons.  He had no sons."  The pain and the rage are palpable and raw.  It's a great moment in a great film.

1. Lawrence of Arabia.  Was there any doubt?  My favorite performance in my favorite film.  David Lean put O'Toole through the ringer in this movie.  It is nearly a four hour movie and O'Toole is in nearly every scene, and has to run an emotional range from idealistic young officer to a man utterly crushed by political backstabbing and his own demons.  The last time I saw Lawrence, I realized there was something remarkable that I had never seen before.  Usually characters with God Complexes are villains, and usually they keep their illusions of grandeur right until the moment the hero kills them.  But in Lawrence, our hero has the God Complex, and his illusions are shattered, he has to live with the fact that he was wrong.  How do you deal with that?  It's an interesting question to ask in the middle of a massive World War I epic.  There was a heroic ideal that Lawrence thought he embodied, and that everyone else still believes him to be, and deep down, he knows he just doesn't cut it.  And by the end of the film, you can see that building pressure just destroying him.  Lawrence is about a lot of things, but it is also about the destruction of a human being, and O'Toole just nails every beat.  I've never seen anything like it before or since.  And I don't know if I can pick a best scene.  In my younger days, I would have chosen the iconic encounter with Sharif Ali at the well.  Now, I lean more towards the film's more complex second half, and the massacre of the Turkish army, specifically.  When he stares down Sharif on the battlefield with that brutal tonic of barbaric insanity and shame in his eyes, it is truly terrifying.

So those are my top five.  There are a lot of moments that could have been in here - his Priam in Troy, his art critic in Ratatouille, his charming thief in How to Steal a Million (my parents first date!), his insane aristocrat in The Ruling Class - heck, even his scientist in the otherwise atrocious Phantoms.  There are a lot of fond memories of watching him on-screen. 

On second thought, I am going to take back that opening sentence on my blog.  A great light has not gone out.  This light will never go out.  Through his performances, O'Toole will always shine.