Monday at the Movies - April 15, 2013

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.”  It’s Clarence Darrow’s 156th birthday this Thursday (April 18), so in tribute we’ve got a few films loosely based on his most famous cases.

Compulsion (1959) – One of my most frequent complaints about certain movies is that they’re confused about their own identities; when two plotlines, atmospheres, and/or themes collide, it’s usually bad news for a movie.  But when a film’s second half is as amazing as Compulsion’s, it makes up for – and even goes so far as to dwarf – a lackluster first hour.  Richard Fleischer’s adaptation of the Leopold and Loeb case stars Bradford Dillman and Dean Stockwell as the killers in what begins as a lurid sensationalist pulp about schoolmates who read Nietzsche and fancy themselves übermenschen.  I wasn’t thrilled with the acting, which seemed a bit overwrought and as homoerotic as the Hays Code would allow (meaning the plot never develops this subtext, alternatingly highlighting then suppressing the implications).  But if the first hour seems unimpressive, stay tuned; E. G. Marshall (the implacable Juror #4 in 12 Angry Men) appears as the district attorney, signaling that you’re in for a treat – when the defense attorney shows up, it’s none other than Orson Welles as Clarence Darrow (here, Jonathan Wilk).  With all his larger-than-life gusto, Welles steals the film with subdued world-weariness (“I am sorry that I have lived so long”).  The judicial battle between Welles and Marshall culminates in Welles delivering a riveting ten-minute closing argument pleading for the lives of his clients while admitting their guilt; if the first half of the film is dominated by the compulsion to kill, the second half is all about Welles’s conviction, delivered like a master’s class in monologue.  In short, Compulsion is a passable film with an astounding conclusion, made all the more amazing by the mesmerizing performance of Orson Welles.

Inherit the Wind (1960) – The marketing materials for this Stanley Kramer courtroom drama herald the film’s connection to the Scopes “monkey trial” of 1925, and the film is certainly of interest to those interested in how we remember our past on film.  But the real stand-out element of Inherit the Wind is the electrifying dynamic between leads Spencer Tracy and Frederic March as Henry Drummond (Clarence Darrow) and Matthew Harrison Brady (William Jennings Bryan).  The film covers the whole trial as well as a portrait of the town of Hillsboro, but the unmistakable highlight is what happens in the courtroom – especially the astoundingly explosive exchange between Drummond and Brady on the stand, a scene that features both men at the top of their game.  Like 12 Angry Men, Inherit the Wind is based on the play of the same name, which accounts for the snappy dialogue, delivered in unforgettable speeches by Tracy and March.  The subject matter, too, is brainy and eloquent, asking smart questions about the nature of thought and the importance of belief.  In particular, pay attention to the character of E. K. Hornbeck (Mencken by way of Gene Kelly), whose droll witticisms mask a dearth of principals; I’d never paid much attention to Hornbeck before, but his relationship with Drummond seems key – evidence that the film is smarter than a reductionist agnostic-vs.-fundamentalist interpretation.  But even with the brain switched off, Inherit the Wind positively sizzles; Kramer gives us the hottest courtroom in recent memory and stages his scenes for maximum intensity.  Though the first hour is slower than the second, it’s not a detriment to the film, nor can I recommend Inherit the Wind highly enough.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Monday at the Movies - January 23, 2012

Welcome to the fourth weekly installment of “Monday at the Movies,” in which we find ourselves once more pigeonholed into reviewing movies that begin with the same letter. This edition of “Monday at the Movies” is brought to you by the letter “A.”

Adam’s Rib (1949) – I’ll not waste much time here and begin by saying that Adam’s Rib is one of my all-time favorite movies, and it’s easily the greatest of the nine films Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn made together. It’s also an extremely progressive picture, anticipating much of the women’s lib movement as well as advancing the cause of equality of the sexes long before the country at large embraced those ideas. Hepburn and Tracy play married attorneys Amanda and Adam Bonner, who find themselves on opposite sides of a case in which a woman attempted to shoot her philandering husband. The chemistry between the two is unindictable, as usual, but the Ruth Gordon/Garson Kanin screenplay is solid, witty in all the right places but genuine and earnest in the moments when the relationship of the Bonners is tested by the case. On this latest rewatch (I’ve seen this film dozens of times since discovering it back in high school), I realized just how frequently the scene gets stolen, and surprisingly it’s not Judy Holliday who does the stealing. It’s David Wayne as Kip, the flamboyant musician who lives across the hall and harbors a strange infatuation with Amanda; the highlight scene of the whole film is easily when Kip performs his new song “Farewell, Amanda” for the Bonners, only one of whom is receptive. But it’s the relationship between Hepburn and Tracy that keeps me coming back to this film, because the way they play off each other is so pitch-perfect that it’ll make even the most embittered cynic feel romantic.

Ayn Rand and the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged (2011) – I believe this is the first nonfiction film I’ve reviewed for this site, and it almost didn’t happen until the DVD release. While there was never any doubt that I’d be seeing this movie at some point (Atlas Shrugged being my favorite book of all time – and there go the readers), it took two free tickets to one of the very limited screenings to get there. Chris Mortensen’s documentary is music to the ears of Rand’s disciples, poison to those who despise her work, and downright antithetical to those who’ve never read her stuff yet loathe her anyway. The documentary begins with a biographical sketch, delves full-force into the composition and publication of Atlas Shrugged and the attempts to film it, and concludes with an overview of the Rand resurgence in our culture today. The title, however, is a bit misleading; I went in expecting a profile on the ways in which Atlas Shrugged anticipated today’s economic/political scene, but what I got was more of an overview. It’s a good introduction to new initiates in the Objectivist school of thought or even for those curious what all the hoopla is about, but for those who have done a fair amount of reading on the subject (as, in all honesty, I have) there isn’t much new here. Of particular interest: Scene-stealer Al Ruddy reveals just how close he came to producing an Atlas Shrugged movie after The Godfather, right down to locking in Clint Eastwood and Faye Dunaway (perfect casting). While worth a look, this documentary doesn’t introduce much to the conversation surrounding the Objectivist revival; the really good stuff is in the last fifteen minutes, leading me to hope for a “sequel” of sorts exploring those matters in greater depth.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Boom Town (1940)

There Will Be Blood - Lite is perhaps the best way I can think to describe Jack Conway's oil tycoon epic Boom Town. Certainly less taxing on the senses, Boom Town is something that P.T. Anderson's oil epic isn't - intentionally funny.

Boom Town is the story of two Johns - "Big John" McMasters (Clark Gable) and "Square John" {"Shorty" for short} Sand (Spencer Tracy) - with Claudette Colbert as Betsy, the woman they both love. Big John and Shorty are wildcatters, oilmen prospecting in sketchy territory. When Shorty's girl comes out west to see her beau, she ends up marrying McMasters. The grudge Shorty bears eventually kills the partnership, but the ill will doesn't stop there. It all builds up to an anti-trust federal case... and a surprise exercise in making things right.

Now, any movie with these three stars - and Hedy Lamarr thrown in for good measure as one of the oil men's lovers (I won't reveal whose) - can't be all bad. And it's true: Boom Town isn't all bad. The Gable/Tracy chemistry (for lack of a better word) is stellar, with Tracy as the perfect straight man to Gable's jovial amigo-to-all. Ditto for the Gable/Colbert chemistry, which panned out so well in Capra's 1934 It Happened One Night, the screwball comedy/road picture to end all others.

The special effects are, for the time, enthralling, but there's never a moment where we really believe Gable and Tracy are approaching a burning oil derrick - something I suspected Daniel Day-Lewis really did in TWBB. But you don't come to this movie for stellar special effects; it's the acting firestorms you'd be looking for, and the movie delivers. Unfortunately, though, the film builds to a climax that comes too early, in a fistfight that precedes the court battle. Maybe it's the jaded filmgoer in me, but I was expecting a tragic Wuthering Heights-esque ending to the Big John/Shorty partnership, but the movie outdoes Ian McEwan in terms of atonement here and ultimately disappointed me, the guy looking for an unhappy ending.

Ah, the simpler times, when buddies were buddies no matter what. Kind of makes me nostalgic. Kind of makes me want to go build an oil derrick. Who's with me?