I’m going to skip watching It Happened One Night for this exercise because truth be known I have already seen it twice in the past few months. I originally rented it because I had always wanted to see the first film that took home Academy Awards for all five major categories — Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay and Best Director. It did not disappoint and a few months later I watched it again when I ran across it on cable.
Its films like this that remind me that just because a film is old does not mean it’s not contemporary. It Happened One Night came out in 1935 but the writing is witty and modern — it must have been something special in 1935! I love this film, especially the work by Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Gable won his only Oscar for his role as newspaper reporter Peter Warne, who stumbles upon a great story and ends up finding love. Colbert is the sharp-witted heiress who he finds running away from her father. The on-screen chemistry between the pair is magnificent and the dialogue is ahead of its time.
You could easily argue that It Happened One Night is the forefather of the modern-day romantic comedy. It has everything you like in a RomCom including the sexual tension, something that must have been unique in the 1930s. It’s a great film and I recommend it to anyone who likes romantic comedies (I admit it, I’m a sucker for a good one!)
A Streetcar Named Desire is one of those films I’ve always heard about but never saw. And of course, the famous scene with Marlon Brando screaming for his wife Stella has become a meme and a staple of any Hollywood montage sequence. I also must admit I have never read any Tennessee Williams plays nor have I seen any other films based on Tennessee Williams writing, so I’m not expert on the guy or his genre. My guess is that the play was better than the film and the written work was better than the play. I say this because the screenplay is clearly the highlight of the film and as if you need any proof the acting ensemble all took home Oscars or Oscar nominations — good writing!
Let’s get this out of the way first — I really didn’t like the film. In fact, I fell asleep for a few minutes in the middle of the damn thing. But I did like the acting and the screenplay. Vivian Leigh was amazing as Blanche DuBois and it seemed as if the part was written for her. For anyone who thought her turn as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind was a clinic on overacting, she certainly redeemed herself 12 years later as DuBois. She won the Oscar for both, but without question her portrayal of DuBois was a tour de force. It’s never easy to play someone who is mentally ill without going over the top, but in this role she slowly starts to come apart from the beginning of the film until she completely loses it by the end. Brilliant work. Karl Malden was also very good as poor Mitch who falls for Blanche and watches as she comes undone. It’s funny how we think of an actor like Karl Malden for one particular role (for me Karl will always be Detective Mike Stone from The Streets of San Francisco) but he has quite a film career prior to his television success. Malden won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this film and was nominated again a few years later for On The Waterfront. Kim Hunter was also nominated for an Oscar, for her role as Stella. I had no idea who she was until I looked her up on IMDB and found out she made a name for herself as Zira in The Planet of the Apes series!
And then there was Marlon Brando. What can we say about Mr. Brando? The man was nominated eight times for an Academy Award and won twice (for On The Waterfront and The Godfather). He was nominated for his role in this film as the brutish Stanley Kowalski and frankly I could barely understand a fucking word he said. What is it with this guy? Why is a guy who mumbles like this considered such a great actor? I don’t get it. He’s the film equivalent of Bob Dylan (the greatest mumbler of all time). I get that he’s a method actor who gets into the head of his characters, but why the hell can’t he annunciate? Whatever.
Maybe I’m just not a Tennessee Williams fan. We’ll see as he gets another shot later in the AFI list.
The second Alfred Hitchcock film so far on the AFI Top 100, Rear Window stars Jimmy Stewart as a professional photographer who is laid up with a broken leg with nothing to do but spy on his neighbors out his window. When he thinks his a neighbor has killed his wife he tries to put together the story along with his girlfriend, his nurse and a detective friend. The result is really less of a suspense film and more of a commentary on society.
In terms of suspense the film is a little slow and not nearly as action packed as other Hitchcock films like Psycho, North By Northwest or The Birds. But I enjoyed it for its statement about human nature. Stewart’s character Jeff watches over his neighborhood and judges each neighbor. There is “Miss Lonelyhearts” who dines with imaginary friends, and the songwriter who struggles with his art but throws parties with lots of people. There are the newlyweds and of course “Miss Torso” who dances around in her underwear and appears to have many men chasing after her. But of course Jeff becomes obsessed with the salesman, Mr. Thorwald, who slaves over his ill wife until one strange night she seems to have disappeared. Jeff watches Thorwald’s strange behavior and rushes to the judgement that he has killed his wife.
Frankly I’m not sure why Rear Window is considered a great film by so many, including the AFI. Aside from the interesting characters in the apartment complex it’s a pretty silly film, especially the end in which Thorwald goes a little crazy. The whole premise that Thorwald would kill his wife with the shades open and then continue to prance about his apartment packing up her belongings is far-fetched. So too is his reaction when Jeff lets him know that he is on to his scheme. Thorwald’s behavior is so unbelievable that it borders on ridiculous.
On the other hand, Jimmy Stewart does a nice job as Jeff. His character has the best lines (along with the sharp-witted nurse). On top of that, any film with the gorgeous Grace Kelly is worth watching. Still, Jeff doesn’t seem to want to marry Grace so he’s really not that bright after all.
I’ll be perfectly honest, I wasn’t too hip on watching a three hour silent movie from 1916. I gave Intolerance 20 minutes or so and figured…well…I tried. But this is my journey through the AFI Top 100 and I get to make the rules. I got the gist.
Intolerance is D.W. Griffith’s response to criticism that his 1915 landmark film The Birth of a Nation was racist. I actually saw The Birth of a Nation in a college film class — it’s part of any decent history of film class — and it was definitely racist! Hell, it had the KKK in it. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t important. Still, Intolerance seems like an obvious answer to critics: let’s make a film that shows the downside of intolerance.
I’ll give the film this much — it was an epic undertaking. I can’t imagine it was easy to film with all those locations and extras. The costume budget alone must have been overwhelming. Still, life is too short to watch three hours of it.
I’m going to be critical of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings being on the AFI Top 100 list, so if you’re a big fan forgive me. I’d like to begin by saying I enjoyed this film, both this time and the first time I watched it when it debuted in 2001. I read the Tolkien books as a kid and I love the story. I also think this film and the other two films in the trilogy are wonderful and ambitious adaptations of the stories. Peter Jackson does a tremendous job bringing Middle Earth to life and the CGI and cinematography are great. I think it’s a good film, but it definitely does not belong on the list of the Top 100 films ever made. Here’s why…
The Fellowship of the Rings is not a complete film. It’s only one-third of a film, and while that’s not Jackson’s fault it does, in my mind, eliminate it from contention for this list because it really can’t stand on its own. I know, you’re thinking The Godfather is also a trilogy and surely I won’t argue against both parts one and two being on this list — and you’d be right. But The Fellowship of the Rings does not stand on its own as a story — it ends with a cliffhanger and that means the story is not complete. Sorry if you think I’m being ticky tacky, but it’s just not a complete film.
The fact is you can’t have a real discussion about the film without discussing the full trilogy. The characters are not fully developed and several important characters aren’t even introduced until the second film. I guess I wouldn’t have argued if AFI put the three films together and called it one of the Top 100. But they didn’t do that. Hell, the Oscar committee screwed it up as well. Fellowship got a best picture nomination and it shouldn’t have. Two Towers got the same treatment. Then the Academy went ballistic and threw the whole kit and caboodle at Return of the King and gave it 11 Oscars including best picture. If Return of the King was so good, why didn’t AFI give it the recognition? Bottom line for me is that Fellowship doesn’t deserve to be on this list. That being said, I enjoyed it and it’s a great fantasy film (er, piece of a film).
In 1978 the Vietnam War was still very much on the minds of Americans and this played out artistically with intense films over the years meant to stir the emotions and remind us that war is hell. This particular war gave us some very memorable and important films like Platoon, Hamburger Hill, Full Metal Jacket, Casualties of War, Coming Home, In Country, Gardens of Stone, and The Killing Fields. The best of these films at portraying what it might have been like in Vietnam was Apocalypse Now, and for my money the best at portraying what it was like for those who served was The Deer Hunter.
The 1979 Best Picture winner starring Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, John Savage and John Cazale is the most emotional depiction of the war’s toll on small town America. Most of the film isn’t even set in Vietnam, but rather in the small Pennsylvania steel town where first-generation Americans born of Russian immigrants volunteered to go to Southeast Asia in support of the country that did so much for their families. The three “heroes” played by Walken, Savage and De Niro leave their hard scrabble life where they enjoy the little things like drinking with friends and deer hunting in the nearby mountains only to encounter horrors of war that none of them could have imagined. The result turns their lives upside down and also affects the lives of their friends and loved ones left behind. The film came out just a few years after the end of the war, and so it made quite an impression on the American audience.
The film won five Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Walken. De Niro and Streep were also nominated but did not win. Walken’s performance was memorable and indicative of his great work to come over the years. His portrayal of Nick was haunting and intense and leaves you breathless during the climactic scene when De Niro returns to Vietnam to try to bring him home from his new life playing Russian Roulette for money. The scenes in Vietnam when the guys are captured by North Vietnamese soldiers and forced to play Russian Roulette are as dramatic as any scene ever filmed and leave a lasting impression; in fact, the film is often remembered specifically for that scene. But the scenes before the war and after the war back in Pennsylvania are equally emotional and powerful.
It’s hard to imagine another film that leaves you with such a bad taste in your mouth about war and the human condition related to war. Surely The Deer Hunter is as strong an indictment of war as any film ever made and it is undoubtedly one of the best American films ever made. I have always counted it among my all-time favorites and it’s a little surprising to me that it wasn’t higher on the AFI list. Apocalypse Now comes in at #30 and I think The Deer Hunter is superior in most ways (I’m sure many of you will disagree but this is my blog!).
Next up is the second straight De Niro flick: Taxi Driver
In my lifetime there have only been a few situation comedies that rank among the greats — Seinfeld, Cheers, Taxi and one of the best ever, M*A*S*H. The characters were unforgettable and the writing superb. Hawkeye, Trapper, Radar, Colonel Blake, Frank Burns and of course Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan. The television show was a fixture for me growing up and to this day I can’t move on when I stumble across an old episode on cable. Which is why it’s so hard for me to love the film version from which the TV show spawned. I like the film, but I don’t love it like I do the TV version. Disagree if you like, but this is my blog!
That being said, the film version of M*A*S*H has a lot going for it. To begin with, the writing is brilliant. Ring Lardner Jr. won an Academy Award for the screenplay, which by the way was based on the book by Richard Hooker. Lardner delivered some memorable words, most of which were uttered by the sardonic Hawkeye and the lead troll Trapper. It’s a non-stop delight of wit and humor, and that in and of itself makes the film worthy of its place on the AFI list. But of course the lines had to be uttered by great actors and Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould were wonderful as Hawkeye and Trapper. I definitely like Alda’s Hawkeye better, but Gould’s Trapper kills Wayne Rogers’ version. Gould steals the film for my money and he was never better than in M*A*S*H.
The other thing that was cool about the film version versus the TV show was that the film was made in 1970 and since it was rated R it got away with a lot more vulgarity than the television version. Could you imagine an African American character being named “Spearchucker Jones” on TV? Or this exchange between Hawkeye and Frank:
Hawkeye Pierce: Morning, Frank. Heard from your wife? A bunch of the boys asked me to, uh, ask you, Frank, what Hot Lips was like in the sack. You know, was she… Frank Burns: Mind your own business. Hawkeye Pierce: No Frank, you know, is she better than self-abuse? Does that…does that big ass of hers move around a lot, Frank or does it sort of lie there flaccid? What would you say about that?
Classic. Hawkeye and Trapper are two of the great characters ever written and both the TV show and the film prove this point.
I do have one complaint about the film, though. Why can’t Robert Altman allow one actor to speak at a time? He drives me crazy with his “stream of consciousness” dialogue treatment. It may be realistic, but it’s hard to follow. I felt the same way about Altman’s Nashville which I reviewed earlier in this countdown. Damn Altman is overrated (except for The Player).
Next on the AFI list are back-to-back De Niro favorites: Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter.
Few would argue that Alfred Hitchcock is the best director never to win an Academy Award. Why he never received the Oscar is beyond me, perhaps it was because he was British, or because he dealt almost exclusively in the much maligned suspense genre, or maybe it was because he had so much success in television. Regardless, one can’t argue with his importance to the motion picture business and if he was ever going to win an Oscar in my opinion it should have been for North by Northwest.
North by Northwest has it all — suspense, intrigue, great characters, witty and smart dialogue and that wonderful Hitchcock style. I may of course be biased since Cary Grant is one of my favorite actors, but he is superb in this film as an advertising man who is mistaken for a spy and ends up on the adventure of a lifetime. The Shakespearian plot even ends with a marriage as it were between the leading man and the leading lady, an absolutely stunning Eva Maria Saint.
Hitchcock has given us so many iconic moments and there are two in this film — the scene in which Grant is being chased down by a crop duster and of course the climactic chase scene on the face of Mount Rushmore. Grant is ever so smooth even as a “bumbling” ad man who stumbles into danger. And of course he gets the girl, even though he’s 20 years her senior at the time of the shooting. Only in the movies would a 55 year old man marry a 35 year old woman (who oh by the way was playing a 20-something woman in the film). But I suppose he is quite debonair and it was the late 50s after all. Grant made four films with Hitchcock, including my favorite Hitchock film To Catch a Thief. All told Hitchcock made close to 60 films including some of the greats like Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window, The Birds, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder and so many more. Four of his films made the AFI Top 100 list including two in the top 15 in Vertigo and Psycho. He was nominated for a Best Director Oscar six times but he never won, although Rebecca won Best Picture in 1940 (yet didn’t make the AFI Top 100).
It’s pretty hard to take Jaws seriously after seeing “Bruce the Shark” at Universal Studios so many times, and nearly 40 years later Bruce does seem rather ridiculous in the film. I mean, the shark essentially hunts down the Orca and crew as if it has a personal vendetta against them, and the scenes in which the shark attempts to crash through the walls of the boat to get Chief Brody are so unrealistic it’s flat out laughable. Captain Quint is a caricature of a salty sailor and all the blood bubbling up to the ocean surface after an attack is ludicrous. The fact that the town elders wouldn’t shut the beach even after three attacks is unbelievable. The shark blowing up at the end is silly. Frankly it’s a dumb film. But I love it!
Jaws may not hold up as a horror flick after all these years, but it is fun as hell to watch. Plus there’s the golden line that turned into what the kids today call a meme — we’re gonna need a bigger boat! When the film came out in 1975 I was 9 years old and since it’s rated PG and it was such a summer smash of course my parents took me to see it. I’m 45 years old now and I still fear the ocean (thanks Spielberg). Seriously, whenever I’m in the ocean I think about sharks, even for just a brief moment. You gotta give the film credit for at least that. Plus, the music is as memorable as any score.
Jaws came out during the heyday of the big disaster film including The Towering Inferno and Earthquake, but while those films were over the top Jaws at least had some character development. In fact, what does hold up about Jaws is the great acting by Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and especially Richard Dreyfuss. All you need for proof that Dreyfuss’s Matt Hooper was a compelling character is to know that it was spoofed by Saturday Night Live (the ultimate compliment). Dreyfuss was never better than during the mid-70s. He stole American Graffiti and then followed that with the very underrated The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, then hit with Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Goodbye Girl for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.Quite a run by any measure.
Unfortunately, the follow ups to Jaws were lousy attempts at cashing in on the first film. Jaws 2, Jaws 3D and Jaws: The Revenge all flamed out. I mean how many killer sharks can there be? I do question whether or not Jaws should be included in the AFI Top 100. It may not have been good film making, but it certainly had a profound effect on society in terms of striking fear in anyone who went swimming in the ocean for years to come. If you believe “impact” has a place in the “best of” ratings than I suppose Jaws belongs.
I was 10 years old when Rocky came out in 1976 and it had a huge impact on me. It’s hard to believe that it was more than 35 years ago, but what is really cool is that the film still has cultural relevance. For one, it’s a quintessential underdog story that is referenced still when someone defeats huge odds to succeed whether in sports, politics or just in life. The story also speaks to the American dream of someday rising above your station in life to make it big, something politicians still allude to today when trying to sell their vision for America. And of course, watching it during the NCAA tournament makes you root even harder for the 15 seeds of the world.
Rocky doesn’t always get a lot of credit for being a great film though…and I think that’s a shame. Yes, it won the 1977 Academy Award for Best Picture, and of course it made this list, but people think of it as a sports movie and it’s really not. In fact, watching it again (for the umpteenth time) I was struck by how few boxing scenes the film includes. The entire bout between Rocky and Apollo Creed took up less than 15 minutes of the film’s 120 minutes. The rest of the film is about Rocky’s struggle prior to getting his shot at the title and his awkward but endearing pursuit of Adrian. This is an everyman who is just trying to get by in life, looking for a way to make a few bucks (legal and otherwise) and looking for a person to share it with. This is really evident in the scene just prior to the fight when he tells Adrian that he doesn’t think he can beat Apollo, but that it’s ok because all he wants to do is go the distance and that in and of itself will prove to him that he has some worth. It was never about winning for Rocky — it was about his own strength and fortitude to survive. A lot of fans didn’t like the fact that Rocky doesn’t win the fight against Apollo, but it was never about winning. I think that’s a mistake a lot of people make when thinking about this film, or other underdog situations (nobody really thinks Lehigh is going to win the NCAA basketball championship, and that’s okay, because simply by doing their best they got through the first round and that’s a huge win on its own).
Rocky is also about great performances, none better than Sylvester Stallone’s. Sure, his legacy will be that of an action hero with little talent, but he’ll always have Rocky as proof that he can not only act, but he can write a hell of a screenplay. He was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Rocky, and he was nominated for writing the screenplay as well (a feat only Charlie Chaplin for The Great Dictator and Orson Welles for Citizen Kane accomplished before him). Talia Shire was also wonderful in her Oscar nominated role as the shy Adrian, and Burgess Meredith and Burt Young were also nominated for their roles. It’s rare for a film to have such a recognized ensemble cast at Oscar time and that’s a tribute to great writing and directing.
Of course, Rocky is also memorable for its score (which ironically was not nominated). There are few films in American history that are as connected to music as is Rocky. Anytime you hear that music you think back to the film, and every time you think of an underdog you can almost hear the score in your head. Bill Conti made a name for himself in Hollywood with the score, but it also earned him a hit on the Billboard music chart when Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky) reached #1 in July of 1977. Turn it up loud and enjoy:
Back to that 10-year-old kid in 1976 — I watched the Academy Awards from our apartment in San Diego that night rooting for Rocky to take home the prize, an underdog not only in theme but for the Oscar going up against the likes of All The President’s Men, Taxi Driver, Network and Bound for Glory and just like in the film the underdog surprised everyone. I think I became a huge movie fan that very night…and I know I played the hell out of the soundtrack (which of course we owned on 8-track) that whole year!
I’m going to skip watching It Happened One Night for this exercise because truth be known I have already seen it twice in the past few months. I originally rented it because I had always wanted to see the first film that took home Academy Awards for all five major categories — Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay and Best Director. It did not disappoint and a few months later I watched it again when I ran across it on cable.
