Best Picture Review: “Gigi” (1958) April 1, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1958, academy awards, best picture, classic movies, gigi, movies, oscars
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Gigi (1958)
The results of yesterday’s poll shows that less than half of the blog viewers are uninterested in my Best Picture project. I think over the weekend I will spin off a new blog for the Best Picture reviews and leave this blog for everything else. I know there are some new fans out there reading only for the movie reviews and not for my personal day-to-day stories as well. Perhaps just one last review on this blog, though.
Tuesday night, after another stimulating workout, Lauren and I returned home to watch our DVR’d American Idol while eating stir fry. At 9pm, we felt we still had ample time left in the evening to watch the 1958 Best Picture winner, Gigi.
Here are some key plot words used to describe Gigi. French. Turn-of-the-century. Musical. Romance. Based on that, I went into Gigi very hesitant. Didn’t sound like my type of movie. We already had one lavish romantic French musical in the 1950s with An American in Paris, after all.
Gigi started out with a fairly bizarre musical number, quickly gaining my attention. It opens with an older man named Honorè singing a song about how he loves little girls, aged six to seven. “Thank heaven for little girls!” he cries. That probably wouldn’t have come off so pedophile-like in 1958, but in today’s movies a grown man dancing in a park singing that song may come off differently.
We soon meet Gigi, a young woman in her twenties, who is being taught how to be a proper lady by her aunt Alicia. Gigi doesn’t seem terribly interested in learning proper etiquette and just wants to spend time with her grandmother’s much younger friend Gaston, the richest chap in all the land.
A musical number here and there and, you get the idea, Gaston falls for Gigi. Gaston initially only wants Gigi to be his mistress, to take her to parties and give her lavish gifts. But he soon discovers Gigi deserves better and asks for her hand in marriage.
The movie then ends with Honorè singing in the park once more, this time about how he loves watching little girls grow up into women. Oh, okay, that seems less creepy.
In comparison to the other musicals of this time (An American in Paris, Going My Way), I thought the songs were catchier and more memorable and the acting was comparable, but the story was a little weaker. The woman who played the role of Gigi, Leslie Caron, was excellent—very attractive and likable.
I think overall I liked Gigi more than expected, but it still wasn’t great. Vincente Minelli was the master of these screen musicals. At the same time, it was rather predictable and a little drawn out. I originally thought it was an hour, 47 minutes long. But when I realized I was wrong and it was actually nine more minutes, I was very disappointed. I just wanted it to end so I could go to bed! I would describe this movie as “charming but boring.” Gigi is almost certainly in the bottom half of the list.
Next up, 1959’s Ben-Hur.
Best Picture Review: “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957) March 30, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1957, academy awards, best movies, best picture, best picture review, classic movies, ikea, oscars, ranking best picture winners, the bridge on the river kwai
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The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Sunday, Lauren and I went to Ikea and picked up a new stand for our new TV… one that actually is large enough to support it. I realized that we now have a bed frame, two dressers, coffee table, TV stand, four kitchen chairs, and a variety of dishes from Ikea in our apartment now. Mom would be proud! Anyway, we returned home and spent over an hour putting it together while watching the 1957 Best Picture winner, The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Kwai was a movie about a POW camp in WWII. British soliders are under the direction of Japanese ruler Saito. While being held in the jungle, they are instruced to build a bridge over the Kwai River which will connect the railroad between Rangoon and Bangkok. At first the British do a crappy job of it, but they are soon persuaded by their commander to do a great job so people who cross the bridge in the future remember the Brits for their solid work no matter what the circumstances.
As is the case with me quite often, I have a tough time following movies if I miss any little thing. I had to read along with the plot line on Wikipedia to keep up with what was happening on screen. I’m glad I did or I would have been really lost. The story takes a turn when one of the prisoners of war successfully escapes and is being held at a hospital in Ceylan (Sri Lanka). But this solider is blackmailed into going right back to the Kwai River as part of a British mission to blow up the new bridge.
I had a difficult time remembering what the characters’ names were, but these guys sneak into the area and wire the bridge with explosives. They stake out and plan to blow up the bridge when the first train passes the next day. All goes according to plan until literally minutes before the train is about to pass, when the proud British commander notices the cords in the river after the levels went way down overnight.
For the last ten minutes of the movie I was on the edge of my seat for one of the most intense scenes to this point in any of the Best Picture winners. Would they be able to stop the explosion of the bridge in time before the train crossed?
This movie was interesting in many ways. While it was a serious subject matter, there seemed to be a very slight underlying comedic tone throughout much of it, probably because of the happy tune the prisoners whistled while they worked. I would say of all the movies to this point, this had the most exciting ending, which really went a long way in ranking it fourth to this point.
Here are my updated, constantly-changing rankings, 1929-1957. The first 26 are likely to move around a little more as time passes, but I can promise you The Great Ziegfeld will stay in last place.
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
- Mrs. Miniver (1942)
- All About Eve (1950)
- The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
- Grand Hotel (1932)
- On the Waterfront (1954)
- Gone With the Wind (1939)
- Casablanca (1943)
- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
- Marty (1955)
- It Happened One Night (1934)
- From Here to Eternity (1953)
- All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
- Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
- You Can’t Take It with You (1938)
- Going My Way (1944)
- The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
- An American in Paris (1951)
- The Lost Weekend (1945)
- How Green Was My Valley (1941)
- The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
- All the King’s Men (1949)
- Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)
- Hamlet (1948)
- Cimmaron (1931)
- The Broadway Melody (1929)
- The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
Best Picture Review: “Around the World in 80 Days” (1956) March 28, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: academy awards, around the world in 80 days, best picture review, classic movies, michael todd, oscars, racial stereotypes, sioux
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Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
Saturday evening, I returned home after spending the day at the office finishing work on my first of two freelance websites. What should I find when I returned home but Lauren preparing a romantic dinner for two by candlelight! Dinner was tasty, as expected. Then we got the great idea to sit down and watch the 3-hour 1956 Best Picture winner, Around the World in 80 Days.
Based on the novel by Jules Verne, it has been said by a variety of experts that this movie is amongst the weakest Best Picture winners, but I didn’t agree. It was one of the very few comedies on the list to this point, possibly in a category alone with You Can’t Take It with You, and I found it both interesting and whimsical.
80 Days is just as you’d expect. It’s 1872, and a wealthy English industrialist named Phileas Fogg makes a wager with fellow members of the Gentlemen’s Club that he can make it around the world in eighty days, a most preposterous wager indeed! He takes with him his servant, Passepartout, and take off in a hot air balloon the very next day.
Along their journey, they run into trouble time and time again. Between bull fighting in Spain, rescuing an Indian woman from her death in India, narrowly escaping a collapsing bridge on a train, being hunted down by the native Sioux Indians, and managing to escape from detectives who believe Phileas is a robber, they certainly see their share of adventures. That, and Passepartout keeps getting wildly separated from Phileas but magically they manage to find each other rather quickly.
I think I liked the movie because it was so borderline over-the-top ridiculous and so unlike anything else we’ve seen to this point. I agree that it will never land in the same category of being a true classic like Casablanca and Gone With the Wind, but it certainly has its charm. Every scene was actually filmed on location, so there were no pitiful sets. The whole cast and crew actually went to Bombay, Hong Kong, San Francisco, etc. Also, this was the first movie to be filmed using a new kind of color process, devised by producer Michael Todd himself.
Some other interesting facts include the 128 miles of film shot. It was cut down to about 5 miles in the end, but still, wow. Michael Todd made just one film ever, this one, and he won Best Picture. Not a bad average. The racial/cultural stereotypes in this movie would never fly today, but back in the 50s apparently it was okay to make the Sioux out to be cannibals.
Overall, a fun, lively, entertaining movie with some memorable visual scenes, though three hours was overkill. I would rank it in the middle of the list somewhere. I’d have to think about it. Next time I might re-rank everything up to date.
Next up, 1957’s classic The Bridge on the River Kwai. I’ve heard very good things.
Best Picture Review: “Marty” (1955) March 24, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1955, academy awards, best picture, ernest borgnine, marty, oscars
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Marty (1955)
Yep, we’re really tearing through these Best Picture winners here in March! This was already the eleventh so far this month. Tuesday night after another grueling workout, which was somewhat nullified by ordering Vietnamese takeout immediately afterwards, we sat down to watch 1955’s Best Picture winner, Marty.
I’d heard excellent things about Marty. I believe Rotten Tomatoes listed it in their top ten countdown of the best Best Picture winners, and Jason LaPlant even gave it high marks.
Marty stars Ernest Borgnine as a single 34-year old butcher living at home with his widow mother in New York. All his younger brothers and sisters married before him (hmm… sounds familiar) and he has no prospects and has all but given up on ever finding a wife. Back in those days, you were ridiculed mercilessly for being a single 34-year old. All the old ladies at the butcher shop kept telling Marty “you should be ashamed of yourself!”
So, at Marty’s mother’s reccomendation, he goes out to the Stardust Ballroom one Saturday night to try picking up a young lass. A man approaches Marty and asks him to take his ugly blind date home. Marty refuses, but after seeing how lonely and sad she is, he approaches her and they wind up hitting it off… but will it last? I shan’t say.
Marty was one of two movies ever to win both Best Picture and Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It was nominated for eight Oscars and won four, including Borgnine for Best Actor. All around great reviews for Marty, though it was still a bit of a surprise when it won its awards.
I was pretty impressed as well. It’s a bit of a sad story as Marty and this new girl, Clara, are both made out to be such losers. It is repeated over and over about how fat and disgusting Marty is, and everyone keeps mentioning what a “dog” Clara is. Well, it turns out Marty’s arrogant friends are the real losers, trying to tear him away from Clara. The guy just brought a girl home for the first time in 34 years, I don’t think he should pass her up and try for better at this point!
I also think it’s funny how many movies in the 50s feature heavy smoking. It’s so common for every single character, aside from perhaps a priest, to have cigarettes on them at all times. Were the tobacco companies paying big money to have all these big name actors smoke? I’ll have to look into that.
As of this particular moment I’m unsure where on the list to rank Marty. I liked it quite a bit… it was a real charmer. I don’t think it can crack the top five. Maybe the top ten.
Next up, 1956’s Around the World in Eighty Days.
Best Picture Review: “On the Waterfront” (1954) March 24, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1954, academy awards, best picture, classic movies, eva marie saint, marlon brando, on the waterfront, oscars
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On the Waterfront (1954)
Monday night, after setting up our router, making dinner, and a quick workout, I sat down with Lauren to watch 1954’s Best Picture winner, On the Waterfront, which by many accounts is considered to be one of the best movies on the list.
On the Waterfront is an Elia Kazan production. Kazan was the director of another recent Best Picture winner, Gentleman’s Agreement, which I thought was one of the weaker movies on the list. But Kazan certainly outdid himself with this movie about the mob in Manhattan.
On the Waterfront stars Marlon Brando, who at the time was somewhat of a male sex symbol, and co-starred the attractive young Eva Marie Saint, a relative newcomer to the screen.
I’m not sure if I’ve seen anything Marlon Brando is in before. I knew he was in the Godfather movies, but we are still 20 years away from getting to those. So despite knowing the name so well, I think this may have been my first Brando experience. Also, on a side note, it’s nice to finally be at a point in the Best Picture countdown where some of the stars from these movies are actually still alive, like Saint, who still looks reasonably good at 85!
On the Waterfront is about crime on the docks of Manhattan, where Johnny Friendly (he’s not that friendly) is in charge. He’s obviously behind some murders, and anyone who knows anything is likewise put down. Terry Malloy (Brando) was tricked into assisting in a recent killing, and has to decide whether to play “deaf and dumb” or testify against Friendly, which of course will likely result in him being killed. The murder victim’s sister, Edie, who Terry soon falls in love with, and local priest, Father Barry, persuade Terry to testify. I won’t ruin the ending for those who haven’t seen it.
This is one of the best movies so far on the list. One aspect that I think shouldn’t be overlooked is the great music arrangements that really added to the suspense, composed by Leonard Bernstein. And although it is stupid to say, because it is the most modern of the movies we’ve seen so far, but it far-and-away felt like the most modern yet, well ahead of other movies from the 50s.
Great acting, great story, great composition, and all under two hours. Certainly hits the top five to this point. So, if I were to again attempt to reorganize the top five, I’d have to go something like this.
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1947)
- Mrs. Miniver (1942)
- All About Eve (1950)
- Grand Hotel (1932)
- On the Waterfront (1954)
Next up is one that I’ve been looking forward to for a while, Marty, starring Ernest Borgnine.
Best Picture Review: “From Here to Eternity” (1953) March 19, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1953, academy awards, best picture, classic movie, frank sinatra, from here to eternity, movies, oscars, pearl harbor
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From Here to Eternity (1953)
Lauren and I have really been plowing through the Best Picture winners lately. March has been our busiest month yet, and it’s only the 19th. This of course is mostly because we have nothing else to watch as we wait for Comcast to come install our cable. We also know our movie project is going to drop off considerably as soon as the baseball season starts and the Twins are playing.
So, as soon as we finished The Greatest Show on Earth Wednesday night, we immediately popped in 1953’s From Here to Eternity.
From Here to Eternity takes place in the days leading up to December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, and centers around Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift), who has just transferred to Pearl Harbor after being booted from first chair bugle at wherever he was before. He is renown for his boxing skills, but outright refuses to box for the dastardly Captain Dana Holmes. Thus, Holmes and his henchmen make life a living hell for Prewitt, whose only friend is Private Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra).
Throughout the movie we watch as Prewitt and Maggio endure hardships one after the other. Prewitt is severely punished for virtually any little thing he does wrong, and Maggio winds up being detained in solitary confinement after a drunken night on the town. Also in the spotlight is an affair between Capt. Holmes’ wife Karen and 1st Sergeant Milton Warden. You may remember this famous scene of the two getting down and dirty on the beach.
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr
Time for spoilers! Maggio escapes from the stockade and dies after being thrown from a truck in the process, but before he dies, he tells Prewitt of the bastard guard who repeatedly beats him. So Robert E. Lee Prewitt tracks down the guard named Fatso and kills him. Meanwhile, Prewitt has fallen in love with a woman named Lorraine. When the Japanese attack, Prewitt leaves Lorraine to rush back to camp to fight, but is gunned down by one of his own men before he even arrives.
I liked From Here to Eternity quite a bit. For some reason that I can’t pinpoint, it reminds me of the movie Pearl Harbor, only the attack scenes don’t even start until there’s ten minutes left. The attacks were a very small part of the movie. This was a movie with a lot of different characters and several different storylines, some of which intertwined, as the days before the attack numbered.
I thought the acting and script were strong. The fighting scenes were pretty realistic and the war scenes were as good as any up to this point. The love scenes were a little PG, but then again, it was 1952. And the characters loved to drink a lot… not like the guy from The Lost Weekend, but they got drunk as often as possible.
There weren’t many negatives, other than going back to black-and-white after two straight colored films. The ending was kinda abrupt, and it seemed like some loose ends were left hanging.
Here are my updated Top 10, which keep changing slightly.
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1947)
- Mrs. Miniver (1942)
- All About Eve (1950)
- Grand Hotel (1932)
- Gone With the Wind (1939)
- Casablanca (1943)
- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
- It Happened One Night (1934)
- From Here to Eternity (1953)
- All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Best Picture Review: “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) March 19, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1952, academy awards, best picture, charlton heston, circus, classic movie, clowns, oscars, the greatest show on earth
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The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
Wednesday night, Lauren and I sat down to conclude watching 1952’s Best Picture, The Greatest Show on Earth. We had started it Tuesday night but I quickly fell asleep and went to bed. Lauren tried watching a while longer, but shortly thereafter the volume on our brand new TV gave out and it turned to static! She did some testing and concluded it was the TV, not the DVD that was the problem. But after some tinkering the volume came back. She came to bed and told me the news. I was halfway asleep, and when I heard that our TV may be in trouble, I became very frightened, and this spawned a series of nightmares about the Ringling Bros. and circus animals from The Greatest Show on Earth haunting us. It was a long night. But I’m happy to report the TV hasn’t had any more issues since, so hopefully all is well.
So yeah, Wednesday night we concluded The Greatest Show. Going in, I hadn’t held out a lot of hope for this movie. It’s widely considered the worst movie to ever win highest honor of Best Picture. A lot of the movie is just circus footage, probably a good 50%. Another 20% is nothing more than documentary about how the circus operates. That left about 30% for to put a story together.
The story focuses on the traveling Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey circus of the 1950s, run by Brad Braden (Charlton Heston). The top draw for the circus are trapeze artists Holly (Betty Hutton) and The Great Sebastian (Cornel Wilde). Aside from the everyday thrills of running a circus, there’s a bizarre love triangle between Brad, Holly, and Sea-Bass. There’s also a friendly clown named Buttons (Jimmy Stewart) on the lam after murdering his wife. He never takes off his clown makeup so the police won’t find him.
Everything is very ho-hum for the first two hours, and I thought I was wasting my time. But then came a most unusual twist. (Spoiler!) There are two circus trains that run fairly close to each other. Some robbers stop the first train while it’s en route to Cedar City with a flare. While that train is stopped, the following train has no chance to stop, so they collide and all hell breaks loose. Lions, tigers, and jaguars go running free from their cages out into the country. Many circus folk are hurt, including Brad, who needs an emergency blood transfusion from his nemesis, Sebastian, performed Buttons the Clown, who used to be a doctor. Despite being broken down in the countryside and having lots of their equipment ruined, Holly the trapeze artist takes charge and sets up the circus anyway. All the townspeople show their support by marching out of town to see the show.
To my amazement, I didn’t hate The Greatest Show on Earth. In fact, I thought the acting was pretty decent and they actually made you care about the characters by the time the movie ended. It wasn’t a great movie, but given my low expectations I felt like it wasn’t a total waste of two hours, thirty-two minutes. It would probably rank closer to the bottom than top, but on my list it definitely isn’t the worst of the Best Picture winners so far.
Next up, 1953’s From Here to Eternity.
Best Picture Review: “An American in Paris” (1951) March 18, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1951, academy awards, an american in paris, best picture, classic movies, gene kelly, musical, oscar
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An American in Paris (1951)
Tuesday night was St. Patrick’s Day, and what better way to celebrate than a night at home watching 1951’s Best Picture winner, “An American in Paris” on our new 42″ HDTV! Okay, we did get a little Irish as we drank some Guiness (Lauren’s favorite) and Harp (my new favorite) during the movie.
I had read prior to watching the movie that An American in Paris was a lavish musical with lots of dance numbers, including an 18-minute grand finale dance that was among the most expensive ever produced for a movie. That right there gave me flashes of The Great Ziegfeld, which also incorporated mind-numbingly long dance numbers. Perhaps it was because I went in with such low expectations, but in the end, I was pleasantly surprised by An American in Paris.
The movie stars entertainment legend Gene Kelly as Jerry, the American living in Paris as an underachieving painter. My negativity was erased nearly immediately when the movie began with Kelly doing a fun little morning wakeup routine in his tiny apartment, kicking doors open and flipping tables over and raising his bed into his ceiling to make room for breakfast, all very nonchalantly. We are then introduced to Jerry’s friends and supporting characters: Henri, a singer, and Adam, a struggling concert pianist.
The story is pretty basic—Jerry is a struggling painter who finally catches his big break when a lovely single woman named Milo buys some of his artwork and goes so far as to sponsor him for an exhibition. She also is quite smitten with Jerry. On a date with Milo, Jerry spots another woman, Lise, who he instantly falls in love with. Only problem is Lise is engaged to his friend Henri, and the two are soon leaving for America. A variety of song-and-dance routines take place, and in the end (spoiler!) Jerry gets Lise and everyone is happy.
The movie had a few good things going for it. First of all, it was in color, the first we’d seen since Gone With the Wind in 1939. Actually I don’t think this movie could have worked in black and white with some of the odd scenes where drawings transformed to real-life, or at least life-size, sets. Secondly, Gene Kelly was very good at dancing, especially tap dancing. Reminiscent of Bing Crosby in 1944’s Going My Way, he had neighborhood kids following him around, amused by his entertaining dances, begging for American gum. Lastly, the movie succeeded because it was truly bizarre. Some of the sets, songs, dialogue, costumes, and storylines were absurdly off-the-wall. Enough so to keep my interest throughout.
An American in Paris was directed by Vincente Minnelli, the husband of Judy Garland, who directed one of my favorite old movies, Meet Me in St. Louis. I guess Minnelli had a knack for the musicals.
Overall I wound up liking the movie, and would likely rank it somewhere in the upper half of the list. I don’t think Lauren thought quite as highly of it. I need to get her overall rankings sometime!
Next up, 1952’s The Greatest Show on Earth. I’ve already seen the first half twice, but now I need to finish it!
Best Picture Review: “All About Eve” (1950) March 16, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1950, academy awards, all about eve, anne baxter, best picture, bette davis, celeste holm, oscars
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All About Eve (1950)
Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early and watched 1950’s All About Eve. Lauren had watched it the night before. I tried to watch it with her, but fell fast asleep and wound up sleeping not only through the movie, but a friend’s birthday party.
All About Eve is a really interesting movie with some outstanding acting. And for the first time in all of our Best Picture movies that I can remember, the viewer is deceived into believing one thing, but halfway through learns the truth, truly spinning the movie upside-down. In All About Eve, we’re led to believe that Eve is an innocent, poor young woman with nowhere to go. And actress Anne Baxter pulls this off beautifully.
Eve spends every waking minute at the theater, watching her idol, Margo Channing, an aging veteran of the stage who is past her prime and on the cusp of losing her grip on lead female roles. Margo’s friend Karen winds up taking Eve in off the streets to become Margo’s personal assistant, and when Margo’s understudy gets pregnant, Eve is promoted to understudy as well. After all, she knows Margo’s role so well from the play she sees twice a day.
(Spoilers ahead!) Eve has earned everyone’s trust, and one day gets a chance to fill in for Margo. She dazzles and becomes the next big thing on stage. Once she gets famous, the truth comes out that she’s not so poor or homeless, but she was really a conniving, tenacious young woman who was all along out to replace Margo Channing for her role in a big upcoming play. Everyone now hates Eve, but she’s achieved what she set out to do. And she’d better be careful, because the movie ends with another young girl about to do to her what she did to Margo.
Overall, I thought it was a great movie, one of the very best so far. Top three for sure. The acting of Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, and Celeste Holm as the three female leads was excellent. I found some of the behind-the-scenes stuff to be really interesting too, as the movie very closely mimicked the actresses’ real lives. All About Eve also was one of the first movies that then-unknown Marilyn Monroe appeared in. Her role wasn’t very prominent, but memorable.
My favorite part of this movie is how subtly Eve’s character changes throughout, from very likable and innocent, slowly towards hatable. And how at the same time, the complete opposite can be said of Margo’s character, who starts out bitter and unlikable and winds up being the good one.
The only actor to receive an Academy Award for this movie, however, was George Sanders for Best Supporting Actor. It was assumed Bette Davis would win Best Actress and Anne Baxter would win Best Supporting Actress, but Baxter complained and demanded to be included in the running for Best Actress. With the two stealing votes from each other, an underdog won instead.
Next up is 1951’s An American in Paris, followed by 1952’s The Greatest Show on Earth. Slowly we’re getting into some colored movies.
Best Picture Review: All the King’s Men (1949) March 8, 2009
Posted by glanzerr in Best Picture Winners.Tags: 1949, academy awards, all the king's men, best picture, classic movies, oscars
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All the King's Men (1949)
We did it! Lauren and I have made it through the 1940s. We’ll finally be getting into some color in the 50s it looks like. The 40s started out pretty good with Mrs. Miniver and Casablanca, but ended weakly with three straight snoozers, including 1949’s All the King’s Men (Lauren highly disagrees).
Who would have thought that I could actually start a movie after midnight and see the end of it? And now daylight savings time kicked in, so I just lost an hour. I haven’t seen 3am in a while. That afternoon nap did wonders, I guess.
Anyway… All the King’s Men is a movie based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Robert Penn Warren. The movie is based in Louisiana, focusing on the political career of Willie Stark, who begins a simple man running for a county seat and winds up governor.
The “narrator” of the whole story is Jack Burden, a newspaper reporter who takes an interest in Stark’s political career. He quits his job to become Stark’s right-hand man, following him across the state, standing by his side. Stark winds up winning the governor’s race because of his honesty and ability to relate to the “hicks”. He promises new hospitals, schools, and lots else, and actually delivers. But in the process, he becomes just as corrupt as some of the politicians before him, which leads to a weird love affair, his impeachment hearing, and ultimately (60-year spoiler alert!) murder.
I actually was pretty intrigued at the start of the movie, but as things went on I lost interest. Not having much interest in politics, I began daydreaming and may have even missed a minute or two here or there.
The movie won not only Best Picture, but the awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress. The lead man, Broderick Crawford, seemed an awful lot like Rodney Dangerfield, from the way he looked and the way he talked. The role of Willie Stark was initially offered to John Wayne, but he hastily rejected it and wound up losing to Crawford in the Best Actor category that year.
I thought the acting was pretty good throughout. Again, the story had its moments and started strong, but became too predictable as it wore on. Having just barely finished watching Hamlet minutes earlier, I thought this might seem a lot better by comparison, but in the end I think the two were equally uninteresting. I’d have to rank this just ahead of Hamlet on the list.
Here are my overall 1940s rankings, remembering that we had to skip 1940’s Rebecca due to it not being available on Netflix! I have a feeling my rankings are completely unique to anyone else who has seen these movies… I have some unusual tastes.
- Mrs. Miniver (1942)
- The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
- Casablanca (1943)
- Going My Way (1944)
- How Green Was My Valley (1941)
- The Lost Weekend (1946)
- All the King’s Men (1949)
- Hamlet (1948)
- Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)
Next up, 1950’s All About Eve. I’ve heard very good things!
