I haven’t done one of these posts in a while, and since my DVR is heading towards max capacity, I’m way overdue! Everyone out there in classic film fan land knows about TCM’s annual “Summer Under the Stars”, right? Well, consider this my Winter version, containing a half-dozen capsule reviews of some Hollywood star-filled films of the past!
PLAYMATES (RKO 1941; D: David Butler ) – That great thespian John Barrymore’s press agent (Patsy Kelly) schemes with swing band leader Kay Kyser’s press agent (Peter Lind Hayes) to team the two in a Shakespearean festival! Most critics bemoan the fact that this was Barrymore’s final film, satirizing himself and hamming it up mercilessly, but The Great Profile, though bloated from years of alcohol abuse and hard living, seems to be enjoying himself in this fairly funny but minor screwball comedy with music. Lupe Velez livens things up as Barrymore’s spitfire…
First released in 2002, Murder by Numbers is one of those films that seems to be pop up on Cinemax every couple of months. It’s not really that good, though it has its fans because if features Sandra Bullock being all self-destructive and one of the film’s villains is played by a young Ryan Gosling.
Ryan Gosling is Richard Haywood, child of privilege. He’s handsome. He’s funny. He’s popular. He’s spoiled. He’s often high. And he’s totally psychotic. Richard wants to commit the perfect crime and, fortunately, so does his classmate, Justin (Michael Pitt). Justin is a fiercely intelligent introvert who spends most of his time reading and writing and playing with his computer. He’s got a crush on Richard’s ex, Lisa (Agnes Buckner). From the minute that Lisa showed up and started talking to Justin, I was concerned. I was like, “Is this another movie that’s going to feature someone named Lisa being murdered? CHERISH ALL OF THE LISAS IN YOUR LIFE, PEOPLE!”
Anyway, Richard and Justin do end up killing a woman, though not Lisa. They go through a lot of effort to frame the school’s pervy janitor, Ray (Chris Penn), for the crime. And they nearly succeed, though Detective Cassie Mayweather (Sandra Bullock) is way too smart to fall for their tricks. Unfortunately, no one believes anything that Cassie says because she has a shady past and a drinking problem. Even her sympathetic new partner, Sam Kennedy (Ben Chaplin), thinks that it was probably Ray.
Literally everyone on the police force tells Sam that Cassie is unstable and not to be trusted, which leads to an interesting question. If everyone’s convinced that everything Cassie says is wrong, why does she still have a job? Why do they still assign her to cases? It’s like, “We’ve got a murder that we have to solve! Let’s give it to that detective who we think never gets anything right!”
Sandra Bullock does her best to bring the self-destructive Cassie to life but she kind of runs into the huge problem that she’s Sandra Bullock and she has such a firmly entrenched screen presence that it’s difficult to take her seriously as someone who spend her free time sitting on a houseboat, getting drunk, and obsessing on the past. You really want her to give a good performance because it’s impossible not to root for Sandra Bulllock but she’s just too miscast. You keep expecting Matthew McConaughey to show up, playing a bongo drum and trying to cheer her up.
Far more convincing is Ryan Gosling, who plays Richard as the type of guy that we all knew in high school. You know he’s a jerk. You know you should stay away from him. But he’s just so much fun and he has so much money! Unfortunately, Gosling is so charismatic that Richard quickly becomes the only compelling character in the film. I mean, if you have the choice between watching Michael Pitt, Ben Chaplin, or Ryan Gosling, who are you going to go with? You’re supposed to hate Richard and hope that justice catches up with him but instead, you find yourself hoping that he’ll sneak out of the country and spend the rest of his hiding out in South America or something.
So, as a result, the film really doesn’t work. (It also doesn’t help matters that it’s directed in a rather detached fashion by the king of ennui, Barbet Schroeder.) But it’s interesting to watch, just for a chance to see a future star in the making. Gosling steps into a rather underwritten role and basically takes over the entire damn movie.
It’s also worth seeing for the scene in which Sandra Bullock gets attacked by a baboon. It’s a weird moment and Schroeder screws things up by mixing in a flashback to Cassie’s past but still, it’s a baboon attacking Sandra Bullock. That’s not something you see every day.
First off, I am a huge history nerd. History fascinates me the way that some people are fascinated by football or video games. I’m always interested in learning about the way the world used to be and I think one of the biggest problems that we, as a society, have right now is that too few people actually know much about anything that happened before they were born. For that reason, I absolutely love documentaries.
Secondly, my two favorite 20th century decades are the 20s and the 70s. If you think about it, both decades have a lot in common. In both the 20s and the 70s, American reacted to a national trauma by essentially saying, “Fuck this. I’m going to have a good time.” After the trauma of World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic, Americans in the 1920s reacted by retreating to speakeasies and idolizing gangsters and tycoons. In the 1970s, American dealt with the aftereffects of Vietnam and Watergate by retreating to discotheques and drugs. It’s all a part of the cycle of history. When confronted by a combination of trauma and humorless scolds (whether they’re preaching prohibition or governmental reform), many Americans will decide to seek pleasure instead.
(Interestingly enough, the wild parties of the 20s and the 70s were both ended by a combination of a financial crisis and a new presidential administration.)
The 20s and the 70s are especially relevant today because I think we’re on the verge of entering another decade in which people are going to pursue pleasure above all else. Right now, America is dealing with several traumas and while the humorless scolds may currently be getting the majority of the media attention, there’s a definite backlash brewing. People are getting tired of being told they have to do this or that they can’t say that. If the world’s going to end anyway, the thinking will go, we might as well enjoy our final days.
With all that in mind, it’s no surprise that I ended up watching the 2018 documentary, Studio 54, on Netflix last night.
From 1977 to 1979, Studio 54 was the Manhattan discotheque, a nightclub that was populated by the rich, the famous, and the coked up. Depending on which side of the cultural divide you called home, Studio 54 represented either everything that was good about New York in the 70s or everything that was bad. It was place where people could be themselves but only if they were famous enough or interesting enough to convince the people working the door to let them in. In Spike Lee’s ode to New York in the 70s, 1999’s Summer of Sam, John Leguizamo and Mira Sorvino may have been the most glamorous couple in the Bronx but not even that was enough to get them through Studio 54’s front doors.
Through the use of archival footage and interviews with some the people who were actually at Studio 54 during its heyday, Studio 54 shows how two young men, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, opened a nightclub in the sleaziest part of Manhattan and quickly became the undisputed kings of New York nightlife. Perhaps the only thing quicker than their rise was their fall. A combination of drugs, hubris, and the IRS led to not only Schrager and Rubell losing Studio 54 but also spending a year in prison. After they two were released from prison, they found success opening up another nightclub and several hotels. Rubell died in 1989, his official cause of death listed as being hepatitis and septic shock complicated by AIDS. Schrager has gone on to become one of the world’s top hoteliers and received a presidential pardon in 2017.
Though the film is largely built around interviews with Ian Schrager, it’s the deceased Rubell who dominates the majority of the story. As Schrager himself puts it, Schrager was an introvert who thrived behind-the-scenes while Rubell was an extrovert who loved hanging out with and being seen in the company of the rich and famous. One of the most interesting themes of the documentary is that, even though he made a fortune by embracing the LGBT community and its culture with Studio 54, Steve Rubell himself remained closeted. Rubell, the film suggests, created 54 so he could finally have a place where he could be himself in a way that he couldn’t be in the outside world. When we see archival footage of Rubell being interviewed during 54’s heyday, we see evidence of both his charisma and his decline. There’s quite a contrast between the fresh-faced, enthusiastic Rubell who we see at 54’s opening and the exhausted-looking Rubell that we see a year later, slurring his words and looking at the world with dark-circled, bloodshot eyes.
Schrager, unfortunately, never comes across as being as compelling a figure as Rubell. In his interviews, Schrager is open about some things but there are other times when he seems to shut down. Schrager tells us about all the work that went into getting Studio 54 ready for its grand opening but, when it comes time to discuss his own arrest for cocaine possession, he becomes evasive. I guess that’s understandable because, really, who wants to relive being arrested? But since Shrager’s arrest set off the chain of events that eventually led to 54’s downfall, it’s hard not to regret the feeling that we’re not getting the full story.
The same could be said about this documentary as a whole. It’s frequently fascinating and I loved seeing all of the old pictures of people like Andy Warhol and Liz Taylor hanging out at Studio 54. If you’re interested in the McCathy era, you might want to watch this documentary just for the chance to see Roy Cohn show up at Rubell and Schrager’s attorney. And yet, you watch the film and you regret that it didn’t dig even deeper into both what Studio 54 was and what it represented to people in both the 70s and today. Studio 54 is a good place to start but, by the end of documentary, you still feel like there’s more to the story than you’ve been told.
Since the Oscars are going to be awarded on Sunday night, now seems like a good time to remember the 1966 film, The Oscar. My friends and I have a running joke. Whenever I invite anyone to watch a bad movie with me, I never actually say, “Let’s watch this terrible movie.” Instead, I always say, “This is a cult classic.” Let’s just say that The Oscar is a classic among cult classics.
Directed by Russell Rouse, The Oscar tells the story of Frankie Fane (Stephen Boyd) and his friend, Hymie Kelly (Tony Bennett ….. yes, the singer). Frankie uses everyone in the world to become a film star and abandons them all once he becomes famous. Frankie is determined to cement his stardom by winning an Oscar and he’s totally willing to go to all sorts of unethical lengths to win that golden statuette. He even hires a private investigator (Ernest Borgnine, naturally) to leak private information about Frankie and his friends, in the mistaken belief that it will cause the Academy to sympathize with him.
However, Hollywood is not a place for heels! Or, at least, that’s the case in this film. In the scenes below, Frankie first gets told off by his old friend Hymie and then he gets the ultimate comeuppance at the Oscar ceremony itself. Apparently, Frankie failed to consider that he wasn’t the only Frank nominated that year!
So, I finally sat down and watched the 2017 film, The Post.
The Post is something of an odd film. Imagine if someone made a film about the production of a movie. And imagine if, instead of focusing on the actors or the members of the crew or even the director, the film was instead about the studio executives sitting back in Hollywood and debating whether or not they should agree to give the director another million dollars to complete the film. Imagine dramatic scenes of the execs meeting with their accountants to determine whether they can spare an extra million dollars. Imagine triumphant music swelling in the background as one of the execs announces that they’ll raise the budget but only in return for getting to pick the title of the director’s next film. The Post is kind of like that. It’s a film about journalism that’s more concerned with publishers and editors than with actual journalists.
To be honest, The Post‘s deification of the bosses shouldn’t really be that much of a shock. This is a Steven Spielberg film and a part of Spielberg’s legend has always been that, of all the young, maverick directors who emerged in the 70s, he was always the one who was the most comfortable dealing with the studio execs. As opposed to directors like Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, and Francis Ford Coppola, Spielberg got along with the bosses and they loved him. While his contemporaries were talking about burning Hollywood down and transforming the culture, Spielberg was happily joining the establishment and reshaping American cinema. No one can deny that Spielberg is a talented filmmaker. It’s just that, if anyone was going to make a movie celebrating management, you just know it would be Steven Spielberg.
Taking place in the early 70s, The Post deals with the decision to publish The Pentagon Papers, which were thirty years worth of classified documents dealing with America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Since the Pentagon Papers revealed that the government spent several decades lying to the American people about the situation in Vietnam, there’s naturally a lot of pushback from the government. It all leads to one of those monumental supreme court decisions, the type that usually ends a movie like this. And while the film does acknowledge that there were journalists involved in breaking the story, it devotes most of its attention to editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) and publisher Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep).
Gasp as Ben and Katharine debate whether to publish the story!
Shudder as Katharine tries to figure out how to keep the Post from going bankrupt.
Watch as Ben Bradlee talks to the legal department!
Thrill as Katharine Graham learns that her family friends, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, weren’t always honest with her!
And listen, I get it. The Post isn’t as much about Nixon and the Vietnam War as it’s about Trump and the modern-day war on the media. And yes, we get plenty of scenes of Tom Hanks explaining why freedom of the press is important and the movie ends in typical Spielberg fashion, with triumphant music and all the rest. But watching The Post, it’s hard not to think about other films that celebrated journalism, films like All The President’s Menand Spotlight. Both of those films featured scenes of editors supporting their reporters. In fact, All The President’s Men featured Jason Robards playing the same editor that Tom Hanks plays in The Post. But Spotlight and All The President’s Men focused on the journalists and the hard work that goes into breaking an important story. Robards and Spotlight‘s Michael Keaton played editors who were willing to stand up and defend their reporters but, at the same time, those films emphasized that it was the underpaid and underappreciated reporters who were often putting their careers (and sometimes, their lives) on the line to break a story. Whereas Spotlight and All The President’s Men showed us why journalism is important, The Post is content to merely tell us.
The Post was a famously rushed production. Shooting started in May of 2017 and was completed in November, all so it could be released in December and receive Oscar consideration. Production was rushed because Spielberg, Streep, and Hanks all felt that it was important to make a statement about Trump’s treatment of the press. While I can see their point and I don’t deny that they had noble intentions, a rushed production is still going to lead to a rushed film. The Post is a sloppy film, full of way too much on-the-nose dialogue and scenes that just seem to be missing Spielberg’s usual visual spark. It feels less like a feature film and more like a well-made HBO production. Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep give performances that are all surface. Streep’s performance is all mannered technique while Hanks occasionally puts his feet up on his desk and furrows his brow.
It gets frustrating because, watching the film, you get the feeling that there’s a great movie to be made about the Pentagon Papers and the struggle to publish them. I’d love to know what the actual reporters went through to get their hands on the papers. But The Post is more interested in management than the workers.
All through 2017, The Post was touted as being a sure Oscar front-runner. When it was released, it received respectful but hardly enthusiastic reviews. In the end, it only received two nominations — one for best picture and one for Streep. In a year dominated by Lady Bird, Shape of Water, Get Out, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,The Post turned to be a nonfactor. For all the hype and expectations, it’s the film that you usually forget whenever you’re trying to remember everything that was nominated last year.
The 2014 film, The Imitation Game, takes place in three very different time periods.
The majority of the film takes place during World War II. While the Germans are ruthlessly rolling across and conquering huge swaths of Europe, the British are desperately trying to, at the very least, slow them down. A key to that is decrypting the secret codes that the German forces use to communicate with each other. Since the Germans change the code every day, the British not only have to break the code but also predict what the next day’s code will be.
Working out of a 19th century mansion called Bletchley Park, a small group of mathematicians, chess players, and spies work to design a machine that will be able to decode the German messages. Heading up this group is a man named Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch). Alan is a remote and, at times, rather abrasive figure, a man who appears to be more comfortable dealing with equations than with other human beings. The people working under him occasionally chafe at Alan’s lack of social skills. Commander Denniston (Charles Dance) suspects that Alan’s a Russian spy and would just as soon close down the entire operation. At first, the only person who seems to have any faith in Alan’s abilities appears to be Winston Churchill himself.
It’s only when Joan Clarke (Kiera Knightley) joins Alan’s team that they start to make progress. Joan brings Alan out of his shell and teaches him how to deal with other human beings. When Joan’s parents object to her being away from home, Alan even offers to marry her. Of course, Alan also explains that it would just be a marriage of convenience, one that will last until they get Christopher up and working.
Christopher is the name that Alan has given to his encryption machine. Why Christopher? Throughout the film, we get flashbacks to Alan’s time in boarding school and his close friendship to another student, a boy named Christopher.
And finally, serving as a framing device to both the World War II intrigue and Alan’s relationship with Christopher, is a scene that’s set in 1951. Alan’s home has been broken into and, as the police investigate the matter, they come to realize that Alan is hiding something about both his past and his present. Their initial assumption is that Alan must be a communist spy. The truth, however, is that Alan is gay. And, in 1951 Britain, that is a criminal offense….
The Imitation Game is based on a true story. During World War II, Alan Turing actually was a codebreaker and he did play a pivotal role in creating the machine that broke the German code. After World War II, Turing was arrested and charged with “gross indecency.” Given a choice between imprisonment or probation and chemical castration. Turing selected the latter and committed suicide in 1954. Alan Turing’s work as a cryptographer is estimated to have saved 14 million lives during World War II but he died a lonely and obscure figure, a victim of legally sanctioned prejudice.
Admittedly, The Imitation Game does take some liberties with history. For one thing, most of the people who worked with Turing described him as being eccentric but not anti-social. Though the film pretty much portrays the decoding machine as solely being Turing’s creation, it was actually a group effort. Perhaps the biggest liberty that the film takes is that the machine was never called Christopher. Instead, it was called Victory.
That said, The Imitation Game is still a strong and effective film. Anchored by a brilliant lead performance from Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game is a film that manages to be both inspiring and infuriating at the same time. It’s impossible not to get caught up in the team’s joy as they realize that they actually can beat the Germans at their own encryption game and, after spending 90 minutes listening to everyone doubt Alan’s abilities, you’re more than ready to see him and his unorthodox methods vindicated. And yet, because of the film’s framing device, you already know that Alan is not going to get the credit that he deserves for his hard work. Instead, he’s going to be destroyed by the laws of the very country that he worked so hard to save. Success and tragedy walk hand-in-hand throughout The Imitation Game and the end result is a very powerful and very sad movie.
I have to admit that it was a bit jarring when the opening credits appeared onscreen and the first words that I read were “The Weinstein Company Presents.” It’s only been a year and a half since Harvey Weinstein was finally exposed and forced out of power but it’s still easy to forget just how much the Wienstein Company used to dominate every Oscar season. In many ways, with its historical setting and its cast of up-and-coming Brits, The Imitation Game feels like a typical Weinstein Company Oscar contender. In this case, The Imitation Game was nominated for a total of 8 Oscars, including Best Actor for Benedict Cumberbatch, Best Supporting Actress for Keira Knightley, Best Director for Morten Tyldum, Best Adapted Screenplay for Graham Moore, and Best Picture. In the end, only Moore won his category. In a decision that continues to confound me, the Academy named Birdman the best film of the year.
Listen, there’s a lot of things that can be said about the 1952 Best Picture winner, The Greatest Show on Earth. Not only was it one of three Cecil B, DeMille films to be nominated for best picture (along with 1934’s Cleopatra and 1956’s The Ten Commandments) but it was also the only one to win. It brought Cecil B. DeMille his first and only nomination for best director. (DeMille lost that directing Oscar to John Ford but he still took home an award, as the producer of The Greatest Show On Earth.) The Greatest Show on Earth not only featured Charlton Heston in his first starring role but, with a finale that featured everyone involved in the same spectacular train crash, it also set the standard for the countless disaster movies that would follow.
But, with all of that in mind, the main thing that you’ll remember about this movie is that Jimmy Stewart was Buttons the Clown.
Buttons is a beloved member of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Circus. He travels with the circus across the country, entertaining children and generally helping out wherever he can. Everyone loves Buttons, despite the fact that no one has ever seen him without his makeup. (That said, you only have to hear him speak to immediately recognize him as being played by Jimmy Stewart.) Not even the circus’s no-nonsense manager, Brad Braden (Charlton Heston, naturally), knows what Buttons actually looks like. Everyone assumes that Buttons is just a dedicated performer, a method clown.
However, it turns out that Buttons has a secret. Of course, nearly everyone at the circus has a secret but Buttons’s secret is a little bit more serious than just a love triangle or a case of professional jealousy. There’s a reason why Buttons is surprisingly good at providing first aid to the members of the circus. Before he was a clown, Buttons was a doctor. And, while he was a doctor, he killed his wife.
NO! NOT JIMMY STEWART!
In Buttons’s defense, it was a mercy killing and he feels really bad about it. That, of course, doesn’t matter to the FBI agent (Henry WIlcoxon) who suspects that the doctor may be hiding among the circus performers. At first, Buttons views that train crash as the perfect opportunity to escape but then he finds out that many of his fellow performers have been seriously injured. A doctor is needed. Perhaps even a doctor in clown makeup….
Even under all that makeup, Jimmy Stewart does a great job of bringing Buttons to life. Sometimes, we associate Stewart so much with his famous way of speaking that we overlook just what a good actor Jimmy Stewart actually was. Even before you discover why Buttons is running from the cops, Stewart does a good job of capturing the sadness and the regret that lies at the heart of Button. He’s truly a tragic clown.
Buttons’s status as a fugitive is just one of the many subplots to be found in The Greatest Show On Earth. There’s a lot of drama (not to mention parades and performances) to get through before that train crashes. Brad, for instance, is struggling to keep the circus from going bankrupt. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, Holly (Betty Hutton), is torn between him and the arrogant but charming Great Sebastian (Cornel Wilde). In fact, every woman in the circus — including Gloria Grahame and Dorothy Lamour — is in love with the Great Sebastian. Sebastian is a bit self-centered but he’s famous enough to ensure that the circus won’t have to be closed. Or, at least, he is until he’s injured in a trapeze accident. Will Sebastian ever perform again? Meanwhile, there’s a jealous elephant trainer named Klaus (Lyle Bettinger) and a crooked concessionaire named Harry (John Kellog). A local gangster, Mr. Henderson (Lawrence Tierney), is trying to muscle his way into the circus’s business. Is it any surprise that Brad always seems to be in something of a bad mood? He’s got a lot to deal with!
And yes, it’s all a bit overblown and a bit silly. And yes, the film really does feel like it was meant to be a commercial for Ringling Bros. And yet, in its way, the film definitely works. There’s a sincerity at the heart of the film, one that’s epitomized by Cecil B. DeMille’s opening narration. “”A fierce, primitive fighting force that smashes relentlessly forward against impossible odds: That is the circus — and this is the story of the biggest of the Big Tops — and of the men and women who fight to make it — The Greatest Show On Earth!” DeMille was 71 years old when he made The Greatest Show On Earth and he was coming to the end of a legendary filmmaking career. DeMille was one of the founders of the American film industry and you can argue that, if not for some of his silent spectacles, Hollywood would have always remained just a neglected suburb of Los Angeles. If anyone understood that importance of that old saying, “The show must go on!,” it was Cecil B. DeMille. And really, that’s what The Greatest Show On Earth is all about. It’s a tribute to the performers who refuse to give up. Love triangles? Fugitive clowns? Injured acrobats? Lawrence Tierney? No matter what, the show must go on!
The Greatest Show On Earth is often described as being one of the worst films to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. That has more to do with the quality of the films that it beat — High Noon, The Quiet Man, Moulin Rouge, and Ivanhoe — than the film itself. The Greatest Show On Earth is old-fashioned and a bit silly but it’s still entertaining. Should it have beaten High Noon? That would be a definite no. But it’s still better than Crash.
What’s this?? A “Northern” Western set in 1900 Alaska Gold Rush territory starring my two favorite cowboys, John Wayne and Randolph Scott ? With the ever-enticing Marlene Dietrich thrown in as a sexy saloon owner? Count me in! THE SPOILERS is a big, brawling, boisterous film loaded with romance, action, and, most importantly, a sense of humor. It’s the kind of Hollywood entertainment epic that, as they say, “just don’t make ’em like that anymore”. I’ve never been quite sure who “they” are, but in regards to THE SPOILERS, they’re right – and more’s the pity!
Rex Beach’s popular 1906 novel had been filmed three times before (1914, 1923, 1930), and would be one more time after (in 1955), but with The Duke, Rugged Randy, and La Dietrich on board, this has got to be the best of the bunch. Even though audiences were more than familiar with the story…
The 1942 Best Picture nominee, The Pied Piper, opens in Eastern France, shortly after the outbreak of World War II.
John Sidney Howard (played by Monty Woolley) is an Englishman on holiday. He says that he just wants to enjoy some fishing before the entire continent of Europe descends into chaos. He knows that France is going to be invaded at some point and he even suspects that the country will probably fall to the Nazis. In his 70s and still mourning the death of his son (who was killed during an air battle over occupied Poland), Mr. Howard just wants to enjoy France one last time. Despite the fact that the bearded Howard bears a resemblance to a thin Santa Claus, he’s quick to declare his dislike of both children and humanity in general. He’s a misanthrope, albeit a rather friendly one.
Howard’s plans change when the Nazis invade France sooner than he expected. With his vacation canceled, Howard just wants to get back to England. Complicating matters is that a diplomat named Cavanaugh (Lester Matthews) has asks Howard to take his children, Ronnie (Roddy McDowall) and Sheila (Peggy Ann Garner), back to England with him. Despite his self-declared dislike of children, Howard agrees. However, it turns out that getting out of France won’t be as easy as Howard assumed. After their train gets diverted by the Nazis, Howard, Ronnie ,and Sheila are forced to take a bus. After almost everyone else on the bus is killed in a surprise Nazi attack, Howard and the children are forced to continue on foot and rely on the kindness of a young French woman, Nicole Rougeron (Anne Baxer).
Throughout the journey, Howard keeps collecting more and more children. Everyone wants to get their children to a safe place and Howard soon has a small entourage following him. Unfortunately, he also has Gestapo Major Diessen (an excellent Otto Preminger) watching him. How far is Howard willing to go to ensure the safety of the children?
The Pied Piper is an interesting film, in that it starts out as something of a comedy but it then gets progressively darker as events unfold. At the beginning of the film, it appears that the whole thing is just going to be Howard getting annoyed with the precocious Ronnie and Sheila. But then that bus is attacked and Howard find himself accompanied by a young boy who has been left in a state of shock by the attack. When the group is joined by a young Jewish child named Pierre, it’s a reminder that, though the film itself may have been shot on an American soundstage, the stakes and the dangers in occupied Europe were all too real.
The Pied Piper was nominated for Best Picture of the year. Viewed today, it may seem like an unlikely nominee. It’s a well-made movie and Monty Woolley gives a good performance as John Sidney Howard. It’s the type of film that, due to the sincerity of its anti-Nazi message, should bring tears to the eyes of the most hardened cynic but, at the same time, there’s nothing particularly ground-breaking or aesthetically unique about it. Still, from a historical point of view, it’s not a surprise that this competent but conventional film was nominated. With America having just entered the war, The Pied Piper was a film that captured the national spirit. Other World War II films nominated in 1942 included 49th Parallel, Wake Island, and the eventual winner, Mrs. Miniver.
In fact, one could argue that The Pied Piper is almost a cousin to Mrs. Miniver. Both films are not only anti-German but also unapologetically pro-British. Just as Greer Garson did in Mrs. Miniver, Monty Woolley is meant to be less of an individual and more of a stand-in for Britain itself. When both Mrs. Miniver and Mr. Howard refused to surrender in the face of German aggression, these movies were proudly proclaiming that the British would never lose hope or surrender either.
If you like history as much as old movies, Oscar-winning New Zealander Peter Jackson has a treat for you – THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD, a World War I documentary utilizing 100+ year old footage from the Imperial War Museum (most of it never viewed outside there) to tell the story of the British Empire’s infantry during The Great War. Jackson was given access to hundreds of hours of actual film and audio and commissioned to create something “unique and original”, and with the aid of modern technology he certainly succeeded in his mission.
Jackson’s narrative is told through the eyes of the young men and boys (some as young as 15) as they go through enlistment and boot camp, training to kill the enemy, then follows them to the Western Front, where they encountered not only battles in the trenches, but dysentery, rats gnawing at their fallen comrades, lice…
Through the Shattered Lens 