The Producers Guild of America, which is generally considered one of the most reliable of the Oscar precursors, announced it’s pick for the best film of the year earlier today. They had earlier nominated ten films and, out of those ten, they picked…
That’s right! The worst best picture nominee since Crash pulled off an upset victory and defeated both Spotlight and The Revenant. It now may even be the new front runner for best picture.
(Actually, if we’re going to be exact, The Big Short is just the 2nd worst best picture nominee since Crash. It’s easy to forget that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was actually nominated.)
As I made clear in my review, I didn’t think much of The Big Short but I do understand the film’s popularity. Appropriately enough for a film that’s been embraced by both Sasha Stone and Jeff Wells, it’s an angry and simplistic film and we live in an angry and simplistic time. Pretending to be complicated while actually saying nothing worked out well for Crash and it looks like it might pay off for The Big Short as well!
Congratulations to The Big Short on its undeserved victory!
And I have to admit that for the first hour or so, I wasn’t sure if I’d actually be able to get all the way through Skippy. Skippy is very much a film of the early 30s and you never known how much you appreciate jump cuts, tracking shots, and even the occasional hand-held camera shot until you watch a movie that features none of them. It’s definitely a different style of story telling and I sometimes found myself struggling to adjust to it.
Add to that, Skippy was a film about children and, while the film’s star, 9 year-old Jackie Cooper, was a natural before the camera, the other child actors often seemed forced. There was a lot of overacting that, if nothing else, made me appreciate even more Jacob Tremblay’s subtle performance in Room.
There were a few things that I did appreciate about Skippy. As I’ve stated on the site before, I love history and Skippy was definitely a time capsule. The film follows 6 year-old Skippy (Jackie Cooper) as he leaves the safety of his upper class home and explores the poor side of the town and the film does a good job of contrasting Skippy’s sheltered home with the nearby neighborhood of Shantyown. It’s while wandering around Shantytown that Skippy meets and befriend Sooky (Robert Coogan). Skippy and Sooky accidentally break a windshield that belongs to the evil dogcatcher, Mr. Nubbins (Jack Rube Clifford). Mr. Nubbins retaliates by taking away Sooky’s dog and demanding that the boys pay him 3 dollars for the dog’s freedom. Though it’s a mighty struggle that involves many comedic schemes, the boys manage to raise the 3 dollars. Mr. Nubbins takes the money, says that he’s going to use the money to buy a new windshield, and that he’s going to kill the dog anyway. So, Skippy and Sooky have to raise three dollars more just to discover that Mr. Nubbins has already shot their dog.
As Sooky sobs, Skippy fights back tears and asks if they can at least have the dog’s body so they can give it a proper burial.
“It’s already been disposed of,” Mr. Nubbins snarls.
And, at this point, I was just sitting there and thinking, “What the HELL!?” Seriously, I can only imagine what it must have been like to be a child in 1931, watching this film (which was based on a comic strip that all the kids probably read every day), laughing at jokes that were probably quite funny back then, and then suddenly being smacked in the face by Mr. Nubbins announcing that not only was the dog dead but his body had been cremated. I can only imagine that amount of tears that were shed in those 1931 theaters!
(Making things even worse is the discovery that the town’s rules for dealing with stray dogs were written by none other than Skippy’s father.)
And as I thought more about it, it occurred to me that this is one thing that would never happen in a movie today. You don’t kill the dog, unless you want Keanu Reeves to show up and kill you.
Sooky breaks into tears as soon as he hears that his dog has been killed. Skippy manages to hold back until he gets home and then he breaks into sobs. (According to Jackie Cooper, director Norman Taurog threatened to kill the dog in real life unless Cooper gave him authentic tears.) Fortunately, all is eventually resolved by both Skippy and Sooky getting new dogs and Skippy’s dad beating up Mr. Nubbins. Yay!
Anyway, for the most part, Skippy is one of those films that will mostly be interesting to Oscar completists for me. However, I will always be stunned by the fact that, in the film, Mr. Nubbins actually killed that dog.
I just finished watching the 1995 best picture nominee Sense and Sensibility on TCM and, despite the fact that I’ve watched it several times in the past, I’m glad that I took time to rewatch it. Sense and Sensibility is one of those very special films that you should rewatch every few months just to be reminded of how good it is. There’s no CGI in Sense and Sensibility. Instead, there’s just some very good writing, some excellent performances, and some lushly wonderful images of the English countryside, courtesy of director Ang Lee. It’s a deliberately paced film, one that proves the virtue of a subtle touch.
The film tells the story of the Dashwoods. As Mr. Dashwood (Tom Wilkinson) dies, he tells his son by his first wife, John (James Fleet), to take care of his second wife (Gemma Jones) and their three daughters, Elinor (Emma Thompson), Marianne (Kate Winslet), and Margaret (Emilie Francois). Naturally enough, John does the exact opposite and soon the Dashwood sisters are forced to leave their large estate and fend for themselves.
The film centers on the practical Elinor and the passionate Marianne. Elinor meets and falls in love with Edward (a surprisingly restrained Hugh Grant), an aspiring clergyman who is also John’s brother-in-law. Edward comes from a wealthy family but will be disinherited if he marries someone who has neither money nor social prominence. Marianne, meanwhile, has fallen in love with John Willoughby (Greg Wise), who is handsome, dashing, rich, and a bit of a cad. (Cad is such a cool word. People should start using it more.) Marianne is so in love with the unworthy Willoughby that she misses the fact that the kindly Col. Brandon (Alan Rickman) has also fallen in love with her.
Sense and Sensibility is based on a Jane Austen novel and, in its very British way, it’s a wonderfully romantic film. Tonight, when viewed in the shadow of the recent passing of Alan Rickman, the scenes featuring Col. Brandon were even more poignant than usual. His love for Marianne is perhaps the most pure and selfless love to be found in the entire film. There’s a scene where Col. Brandon is speaking to Elinor and Marianne, inviting them to his estate. Marianne ignores him until Brandon mentions that Willoughby is also inspected. Suddenly, Marianne looks up and smiles and Alan Rickman allows just a hint of pain to enter his voice. It’s a masterful performance.
But really, the reason why I love this film is because it’s about sisters. I am the youngest of four sisters and, whenever I see this film, it’s hard for me not to see the Bowman sisters in the Dashwood sisters. There is so much about Marianne that I relate to, from her passionate pursuit of “true love” to her artistic sensibility to her somewhat dangerous habit of wandering around in the middle of thunderstorm. You never doubt for a second that Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet could be related and this film always makes me appreciate my own sisters.
Sense and Sensibility was nominated for Best Picture of 1995 but it lost to a film that is its total opposite, Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.
After watching 911 Nightmare, I continued to clean out the DVR by watching I Have Your Children. I Have Your Children originally aired on Lifetime on January 1st. That’s right — this is the first Lifetime film of the year!
Anyway, I Have Your Children is a film about hostage negotiation and, after reading that, are you still awake? For whatever reasons, there have been hundreds of movies and TV shows about hostage negotiators and they’re usually pretty boring and predictable. Some crazy person takes a group of people hostage. The SWAT team surrounds him. A hostage negotiator who is haunted by a past failure shows up and does the whole, “Just talk to me” routine. The SWAT team just wants to shoot the guy and the negotiator does the whole, “You are putting the hostages in danger!” routine. Usually, it turns out that the guy holding the hostages is doing so because he was screwed over by a bank or health insurance company or maybe he lost all of his money due to a smarmy stockbroker. There’s usually a scene where the negotiator delivers food to the hostages.
Seriously, a hostage negotiator film just writes itself. Maybe that’s why there’s so many of them.
Anyway, at first glance, I Have Your Children seems like pretty much your standard hostage negotiator film. A guy named Calum stops taking his mediation and hijacks a school bus. It turns out that Calum’s mother is dying but she can’t get the treatment she needs because of the big horrible health insurance company! Calum is demanding a huge ransom, enough money to be able to pay for his mother’s treatment. One of the kidnapped kids is the daughter of a claims adjuster at the insurance company!
The SWAT Team just wants to rush in with guns blazing and if that means that all the hostages die, so be it. Fortunately, Amber Cross (Alaina Huffman) is there to negotiate with Calum. Amber, of course, has issues of her own. A hostage died during one of her previous negotiations. Her ex-husband is planning on marrying a younger woman. (It’s a Lifetime film, after all.) Her son is being bullied at school. Fortunately, Amber’s father-in-law happens to be the chief of police and he’s going to keep Amber employed, even if a snarky reporter and the fascistic SWAT Team leader continue to insist that she’s thoroughly incompetent…
However, towards the end of the film, there’s a big twist and it kind of makes up for how predictable the film has been up to that point. Obviously, I can’t really reveal the twist without spoiling the film but I will say that it was clever and fairly unexpected and it pretty much saved the entire film from being totally forgettable. So, if you happen to watch I Have Your Children, the best advice I can give is to stick with the movie and have some faith that it will eventually pay off!
Seriously, there’s nothing wrong with having a little faith.
It’s amazing how quickly a DVR can fill up. Just a few weeks ago, as December came to a close, I went through my DVR, watched a lot of Christmas movies, and cleared up about 30 hours of space. At the time, I was pretty proud of myself but now, a month later, I find myself once again in the same situation. I am running out of space.
In other words, it’s time to clean out the DVR yet again.
I got things started by watching 911 Nightmare, which premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network on January 10th. And let’s give credit where credit is due. That is a brilliant title, especially for a Lifetime film. It not only promises a nightmare (perhaps even a sexy nightmare) but it also promises so much danger that someone is going to have to call 911. A sexy nightmare and danger? How can I say no to that!?
(According to the imdb, this film was originally called Dispatch. 911 Nightmare is a clear improvement.)
Anyway, as for the rest of the film, it tells the story of Christine McCullers (Fiona Gubelmann). When we first meet Christine, she’s a cop and she’s carrying on a family tradition of law enforcement. However, when she gets cornered by a perp (that’s right, I said “perp” because I love to use that official police talk) in an alley, her partner gets a bullet in the head and Christine gets a bullet in the leg.
Now wearing a big ugly brace and moving with a pronounced limp. Christine is working as a 911 operator. One night, a call comes in. Christine answers.
“911,” she says.
“The boogeyman is here!” a little kid says.
Christine tells the kid to get some sleep and to stop playing pranks and she threatens to tell his parents what a bad son they have. She hangs up on the kid and, as a result, the kid’s best friend is murdered…
And I have to admit that this is where I kind of lost interest in 911 Nightmare. The rest of the film deals with Christine trying to solve the murder and we’re clearly supposed to feel sorry for her because everyone is blaming her for what happened but you know what? She deserves to be blamed because she messed up! The film goes out of its way to convince us that Christine made an understandable (if unfortunate) mistake but it never quite convinces us.
Perhaps it would have worked better if the kid had been attacked while he was on the phone with Christine and killed before the police arrived. And maybe then the police could try to blame Christine for their own failure (and certainly, they would point to her previous wounding in the line of duty as proof of her incompetence). Then you would really root for Christine.
But no. Christine is terrible at her job and it’s difficult to really root for a character who screws up that badly. There’s a scene where Christine views all of the mean comments that have been posted about her online and it was probably a bad sign, as far as the film’s effectiveness was concerned, that I agreed with almost every single comment.
Anyway, Christine does go on to investigate the murder and, since this is a Lifetime movie, she also gets a boyfriend during the course of her investigation. Good for her. Unfortunately, however, the film fell apart as soon as she told that kid to go back to sleep.
Oh my God, I can’t wait to see Keanu! Not only does it star the hilarious Key and Peele, it also features one of the cutest kittens ever to show up in a red band movie trailer. Run, Keanu, run!
After I watched The Pride of the Yankees, it was time to watch For Whom The Bell Tolls on TCM. Based on the classic novel by Ernest Hemingway, the film version of For Whom The Bell Tolls was released in 1943 and, when I first started watching it, I was a little bit worried.
For, you see, For Whom The Bell Tolls is an extremely long film. It’s a film that takes its time. It’s also a very talky film and I have to admit that one reason I was worried was because the movie started at 11:30 and it was scheduled to last until 2:15 a.m. Oh my God, I wondered, as the film started to slowly play out before me, am I going to end up dozing off before this is finished?
Well, I need not have worried. Yes, For Whom The Bell Tolls does take a while to get started but it all pays off in the end. By the time the film concludes, you realize why it had to take its time and why we had to spend so much time listening to these characters talk about what they did in the past, why they’re doing what they’re doing in the present, and what they’re hoping for in the future.
Not that all of the characters have a future. At the start of the film, Robert Jordan (Gary Cooper) gets his palm read by Pilar (Katina Paxinou). Pilar refuses to tell him what she saw in his future but it’s not difficult to guess. Robert is on a suicide mission and everyone knows it. Even when he falls in love with the beautiful Maria (Ingrid Bergman), he does so with the knowledge that he’ll be dead in just a few days.
Robert is an idealistic American who, as the film opens, is in Spain. It’s the 1930s and Spain is embroiled in a civil war between fascists and guerrillas … well, if you’ve read Hemingway’s novel, you know that the guerrillas are communists. But this is a Hollywood film so, for the most part, we don’t hear much about ideology. But, then again, audiences in 1943 undoubtedly remembered the Spanish Civil War and understood that the guerrillas were fighting the forces of Gen. Francisco Franco. And, for audiences today, all that matters it that the guerrillas are trying to overthrow a government. Seriously, who doesn’t want to see the government overthrown?
(Full disclosure: My grandmother on my mother’s side came to this country from Spain and frequently insisted that Franco had not been that bad. At the time, not knowing one way or the other, I usually just smiled and nodded.)
Robert is fighting on the side of the guerrillas. In four days, a major offensive is going to be launched against the fascists and, in order to keep fascist forces from pursuing the guerrillas, Robert has been assigned to blow up a mountain bridge. Robert knows that he won’t survive this mission and, as he waits to die, he camps out with a small guerrilla band that is led by Pablo (Akim Tamiroff). At first, Pablo refuses to take part in a mission that he considers to be futile but he is overruled by his strong-willed wife, Pilar (Katina Paxinou).
Among Pablo’s group is the beautiful Maria (Ingrid Bergman), a young woman whose family was killed by the fascist forces. Robert and Maria fall in love, even as Robert prepares for his eventual death.
And then, finally, after two hours of screen time, Robert and the guerrillas head for that bridge and suddenly, we understand why the film took its time to reach this point. By the time Robert reaches the bridge, we’ve come to know and care about both him and the other guerrillas. And, as a result, we care about whether or not they survive. When the fascists launch their own counter attack, every death counts. We feel the loss of every casualty and we understand what they’re dying for. After two hours of talk, For Whom The Bell Tolls ends with a genuinely exciting and even moving action sequence. It all leads up to a final shot that will blow you away in more ways than one.
From Whom The Bell Tolls is a film that will reward those with the patience to stick with it and I’m glad that I turned out to be one of those people. It was nominated for Best Picture of 1943 but lost to another film about an anti-fascist who fought in Spain, Casablanca.
“People all say that I’ve had a bad break. But today … today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”
— Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper) at the end of The Pride of the Yankees (1943)
After airing Foreign Correspondent earlier tonight, TCM followed up by showing the 1943 best picture nominee, The Pride of the Yankees. Knowing that Pride of the Yankees was going to be a baseball film and that I know next to nothing about baseball, I recruited my sister, the Dazzling Erin, to watch the movie with me. Erin loves baseball and I knew that she would be able to explain anything that went over my head.
Well, I absolutely loved watching this movie with my sister but it turns out that The Pride of the Yankees isn’t really much of a baseball movie. True, it’s about a real life baseball player. Several actual players appeared as themselves. About 85% of the film’s dialogue deals with baseball and probably about 70% of the film features characters playing some form of the game. But the film never goes into any great detail about baseball or how it’s played. There’s no talk of strategy or rules or deeper meaning or anything else. Going into the film, I knew that baseball was a game that involved throwing, swinging bats, and running. And it turns out that was all that I needed to know.
The Pride of the Yankees is less about baseball and more about celebrity. It’s a biopic of Lou Gehrig, who today is best known for his battle with ALS, a disease that is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Lou Gehrig died on June 2, 1941 and The Pride of the Yankees was released just a year later. Watching the film, it’s obvious that Gehrig was a beloved figure, the type of celebrity who, if he were alive today, would probably be the center of stories like, “Lou Gehrig Did Something This Weekend And It Was Perfect.” Watching the film, it easy to imagine how traumatic it must have been for the nation when a beloved athlete like Lou Gehrig died at the age of 37.
As a result, The Pride of the Yankees is less a biopic and more a case for canonization. From the minute that the film’s Lou Gehrig appears on-screen, he is presented as being the type of saintly athlete who, by promising to hit two home runs in one game, inspires a crippled child to walk. Lou is modest, kind, unpretentious, and never gets angry. Over the course of the film, he takes care of his mother, displays a worthy work ethic, and marries Eleanor. He and Eleanor have a perfect marriage without a single argument or a hint of trouble, except for the fact that Lou sometimes gets so busy playing baseball with the local children that he’s late coming home. There’s not a hint of sadness in their life, until Lou suddenly gets sick.
And really, it should not work. If ever there’s ever been a film that should be painfully out-of-place in our more cynical times, it would be The Pride of the Yankees. However, the film still works because Lou is played by Gary Cooper and Eleanor is played by Teresa Wright. These two excellent performers bring their considerable talents to making overly sentimental scenes feel credible. Gary Cooper was 40 years old when he made The Pride of the Yankees and there’s a few scenes — especially the ones where Lou is supposed to be a student at Columbia University — where Cooper is clearly too old for the role. But, for the most part, Gary Cooper did a great job as Lou Gehrig. Cooper is especially memorable when Lou first starts to show signs of being ill. Watching Lou struggle to swing a bat, I was reminded of a horse struggling to stand on an injured leg. It was almost painfully poignant.
The Pride of the Yankees was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including best picture. However, it lost to another sentimental film that featured Teresa Wright, Mrs. Miniver.
Before watching a film like 1940’s Foreign Correspondent, it helps to know a little something about history.
Nowadays, when we think about World War II, there’s a tendency to assume that, from the minute that Hitler came to power in Germany and started to invade the rest of Europe, the entire world united against the Nazis. The truth is actually far more complex. The world was still recovering from World War I and throughout the 1930s, even as the Axis powers were growing more and more aggressive, respected intellectual leaders and politicians continued to argue that peace must be maintained at all costs. Pacifism was such a popular concept that otherwise intelligent people were perfectly willing to make excuses for Hitler and Mussolini. For five years, the UK followed a policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany. Even after war broke out between Britain and Germany, the U.S. remained officially neutral. In the 1940 presidential election, President Franklin D. Roosevelt — running on a platform of neutrality — was overwhelmingly reelected over internationalist Wendell Willkie.
Foreign Correspondent, an American film made by a British director, opens before the start of World War II. An American newspaper editor, Mr. Powers (Harry Davenport), is frustrated because none of his foreign correspondents seem to be able to understand the truth of the situation in Europe. They all claim that there is going to be no war in Europe but Mr. Powers feels differently. He also feels that the newspaper’s most celebrated and respected foreign correspondents are just a bunch of out-of-touch elitists. Instead of sending another upper class academic, Mr. Powers decides to send a hard-boiled crime reporter to cover the situation in Europe. Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea) has never been to Europe and that’s exactly why Mr. Powers decides to send him. In one of the film’s more clever moments, he does, however, insist that Johnny write under the more distinguished sounding name of “Huntley Haverstock.”
(Foreign Correspondent‘s pointed criticism of out-of-touch elitists repeating the establishment line remains just as relevant today as it was in 1940.)
From the minute the brash and tough Johnny arrives in Europe, he finds himself caught up in a huge conspiracy. He’s been assigned to report on a group known as the Universal Peace Party and, since this film was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, we automatically know that any organization with the word “Peace” in its name has to be up to something shady. The Universal Peace Party has been founded by Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall), who appears to sincere in his desire to avoid war. Johnny meets and falls in love with Fisher’s daughter, Carol (Laraine Day).
From the minute that Johnny witnesses the assassination of distinguished Dutch diplomat Von Meer (Albert Bassermann), he suspects that things are not how they seem. Working with Carol and a British journalist named Scott ffolliot* (delightfully played by the great George Sanders), Johnny discovers that Von Meer was not killed at all. Instead, a double was assassinated and Von Meer was kidnapped by a group of spies.
But who are the spies? After nearly getting killed by one of Fisher’s bodyguards, Johnny starts to suspect that Stephen Fisher might not be as into world peace as was originally assumed. Complicating matters, however, is the fact that Johnny is now engaged to marry Carol…
Foreign Correspondent is a wonderfully witty thriller, one that has a very serious message. While the film is distinguished by Hitchcock’s typically droll sense of humor (eccentric characters abound and the scene where Edmund Gwenn keeps getting interrupted before he can attempt to push Joel McCrea off of a tower is both funny and suspenseful), the film’s message was that America could not afford to stay neutral as war broke out across Europe. As the all-American Johnny Jones says at the end of the film:
“All that noise you hear isn’t static – it’s death, coming to London. Yes, they’re coming here now. You can hear the bombs falling on the streets and the homes. Don’t tune me out, hang on a while – this is a big story, and you’re part of it. It’s too late to do anything here now except stand in the dark and let them come… as if the lights were all out everywhere, except in America. Keep those lights burning, cover them with steel, ring them with guns, build a canopy of battleships and bombing planes around them. Hello, America, hang on to your lights: they’re the only lights left in the world!”
Foreign Correspondent was nominated for best picture of 1940 but it lost to another far different Hitchcock-directed film, Rebecca.
——
* Yes, that is how he spells his last name. As he explains, his family dropped the capital name in his surname after an ancestor was executed by Henry II. Since it was George Sanders doing the explaining, it somehow made perfect sense.
It’s the 1940s and World War II is raging. The U.S. Navy is model of military discipline and efficiency. Well, except for the U.S.S. Caine, that is. The Caine is something of a disorganized mess, where no one takes his job seriously and sailors have names like Meatball (Lee Marvin) and Horrible (Claude Akins). The men love Lt. Commander DeVriess (Tom Tully), largely because he has given up on trying to enforce any sort of discipline. However, DeVriess has recently been relieved of his command. As he leaves, Meatball gives him a new watch, a gift from all the men. DeVriess admonishes them, snapping that the gift is violation of Naval regulations. He then puts the watch on his wrist and leaves the ship.
DeVriess’s replacement is Captain Francis Queeg and, at first, we have reason to be hopeful because Captain Queeg is being played by Humphrey Bogart. Surely, if anyone can get this ship into shape, it’ll be Humphrey Bogart! From the moment he arrives, Queeg announces that he’s going to enforce discipline on the Caine and if that means spending hours yelling at a man for not having his shirt tucked in, that’s exactly what Queeg is prepared to do. However, it also quickly becomes apparent that the awkward Queeg has no idea how to talk to people. He is also overly sensitive and quick to take offense. Whenever Queeg makes a mistake (and he does make a few), he’s quick to blame everyone else.
Realizing that the men are turning against him, Queeg even begs his officers for their help. He asks them if they have any suggestions. They all sit silently, their heads bowed as Queeg somewhat poignantly rambles on about how his wife and his dog both like him but the crew of the Caine does not.
Queeg’s officers are a diverse bunch, none of whom are quite sure what to make of Queeg or the state of the Caine. Ensign Willie Keith (Robert Francis) is a wealthy graduate of Princeton University who, at first, likes Queeg but quickly comes to doubt his abilities. On the other hand, Lt. Steve Marsyk (Van Johnson) has doubts about Queeg from the start but, as a career Navy man, his natural instinct is to respect the chain of command above all else.
And then there’s Lt. Tom Keefer (Fred MacMurray). Keefer is a self-styled intellectual, a novelist who is always quick with a snarky comment and a cynical observation. (If The Caine Mutiny were remade as a B-horror film, Lt. Keefer’s name would probably be Lt. Sardonicus.) From the minute the viewers meet Lt. Keefer, our inclination is to like him. After all, he seems to be the only person in the film who has a sense of humor. If we had to pick someone to have dinner with, most of us would definitely pick the erudite Tom Keefer over the humorless and socially awkward Francis Queeg. As such, when Keefer starts to suggest that Queeg might be mentally unstable, our natural impulse is to agree with him.
It’s Tom Keefer who first suggests that it may be necessary to take the command away from Queeg. And yet, when it comes time to take action, it’s Keith and Marsyk who do so while Keefer stands to the side and quietly watches. And, once the Caine arrives back in the U.S., it Keith and Marsyk who are court martialed. Will they be found guilty of treason or will their lawyer, Lt. Barney Greenwald (Jose Ferrer), prove that Queeg was unfit for command?
Made in 1954 and based on a novel by Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny is one of those big and glossy 1950s productions that holds up a lot better than you might expect. The film has its flaws. In the role of Keith, Robert Francis is a bit on the dull side and a subplot in which he courts May Wynn feels unneccessary and only serves to distract from the main story. But, for the most part, it’s an intelligent and well-directed film. Humphrey Bogart turns Queeg into a pathetic and lonely figure and you can’t help but feel sorry for him when he talks about how his dog loves him. Van Johnson also does well as Marsyk, effectively portraying a well-meaning character who is in over his head. Jose Ferrer gets a great drunk scene at the end of the film and, of course, you can’t go wrong with Lee Marvin as a smirking sailor, even if Marvin only appears for a handful of minutes.
But for me, my favorite character (and performance) was Fred MacMurray’s Tom Keefer. Technically, Keefer is not meant to be a likable character. He’s totally passive aggressive. He’s pretentious. He’s smug. At times, he’s rather cowardly. And yet, Tom Keefer remains the most memorable and interesting character in the entire film. He gets all of the good one-lines and MacMurray delivers them with just the right amount of barely concealed venom. (“If only the strawberries were poisoned…” he says as he considers dinner aboard the Caine.) It’s a great role and Fred MacMurray gives a great performance. And you know what? I don’t care how bad a character he may have been. I still want to read Tom Keefer’s book!
The Caine Mutiny was nominated for best picture of 1954. However, it lost to On The Waterfront.
