What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Touchofevil]

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The Americanization of Emily from 1964 with James Garner, Julie Andrews, James Coburn and Melvyn Douglas


"The first dead man on Omaha Beach must be a sailor."

"The first dead man on Omaha Beach is alive!"


This movie gets more enjoyable with every viewing. While the book is better (comments here: #8119), the movie stands nicely on its own.

It works well because it's a fun story about two American Naval officers, colloquially known as "dog robbers," who "take care" of their admirals by procuring food, liquor, luxury goods and, yes, women for their parties and pleasure. Yet tucked inside this movie about a superficial corner of the war is a complex morality tale about militarism, patriotism and the insanity of battle.

James Garner and Charles Coburn are the dog robbers for their Admiral, wonderfully portrayed by Melvin Douglas. These two officers are having a nice, safe and comfortable WWII in a luxurious London hotel redoubt (after the Blitz). They are surrounded by well-stocked storerooms and plenty of young English lasses happy to "be with" these handsome officers with access to all the things England has been doing without for several years now.

Garner, an actor with a great talent for playing likable rogues, meets war widow and military chauffeur Julie Andrews, looking ridiculously cute while proving she can act in a movie without singing. Andrews is prim, proper and, initially, as disgusted by good-time Garner as he is with "stuck up" her.

She sees his military featherbedding and proudly admitted cowardliness as morally contemptible. He sees her devotion to duty and pride in the military deaths of her husband, brother and father as ignorant sentimentality perpetuating a rah-rah view of war.

I've read the book once and have seen the movie, probably, half a dozen times and still am not sure of Garner's and, one assumes, the book's author, William Bradford Huie's philosophy. It seems to be denouncing the romanticizing and propagandizing of war, but is not really against war itself. Especially if the war is necessary, as it was in WWII, to, well, save the world.

Garner gives long speeches about how if the men who die fighting would ignore the "hero stuff" and push back against war, war would be hard to wage. It's less of a sincere blueprint to stop war than a cri de coeur against its glorification.

While Garner and Andrews fall in love arguing over the purpose of war, Garner's Admiral, the slowly cracking-up Douglas, hatches a crazy scheme to have a film made of the first man, a sailor, dying on the beach on D-Day. It's all part of his coldly calculating strategy to increase the Navy's standing when post-war budget cuts begin.

The sheer cynicism of his plan all but drives a usually fawning Garner to confront his Admiral, but he figures why risk his comfy situation for a principal. Yet when the spiralling into crazytown Admiral assigns Gardner to lead the filming on D-Day, Garner is now faced with being the cannon fodder he deplores or being hauled off to the brig.

From here, it's Garner looking for every angle to get out of his assignment, while Andrews, now confronted with losing another man she loves, deeply questions her previous views of honor and duty.

The end is hokey, but a ton of fun with everyone's morality getting spun in the centrifuge one more time. Garner and Andrews are so appealing that you can just enjoy the boy-chases-girl-then-girl-chases-boy story and let all the multi-layered morality slide by. At least that's becoming my preferred method for watching The Americanization of Emily.


N.B. The first line of the quote at the top is the genesis of the crazy plan of the Admiral's to glorify the Navy. The second line reflects the brass' chagrin when, with a publicity-driven memorial service all set, they discover their dead sailor is actually alive - don't you hate it when that happens?

After reading your review, I now wish I had watched The Americanization of Emily. This is not the first time this has happened. Thank you for your reviews!

 

[Fading Fast]

After reading your review, I now wish I had watched The Americanization of Emily. This is not the first time this has happened. Thank you for your reviews!

Very much appreciate the kind comments. Keep your eye on TCM as they play it, usually, a few times a year.

 

[Touchofevil]

Very much appreciate the kind comments. Keep your eye on TCM as they play it, usually, a few times a year.

I have seen it on the schedule a number of times but never paid much attention to it. I really like James Garner and probably would have checked it out if I had realized he was in it. Now I will.

 

[Harp]

This past Preakness with Rombauer going off at 12-1 and winning...should have seen it.
I blamed a state of complete exhaustion after the week, but stillshouldasawit, my own damn fault.

 

[Edward Reed]

Did a 1941 double feature today.
I wanna slum with Veronica Lake and have Irish Stew with Paulette Goddard!
It was coincidental that I picked two pictures that were similarly themed.
Goddard and Stewart are a great pairing here in Pot O' Gold. Lighthearted fun and the musical numbers are typical Hollywood fanfare but with a few funny twists...

Sight gags and quick-witted jokes are riddled in Sullivan's Travels. Playfully quaint and the whimsey starts to get a little too cute and a bit trite but the plot finally takes a dark turn which it really needed. Plenty of crush worthy-scene stealing moments by Veronica....

 

[Doctor Damage]

DePalma's "Body Double". There's a good movie in there, but in the third third of the movie he veers off into an unnecessary strip club / sex club / porno scene which interrupts the main story and distracts from the suspense, which means the climax/ending doesn't have the impact it should have. Shame.

 

[Touchofevil]

Tony Rome starring Frank Sinatra on FXM. Not bad and not great, it is worth a watch.

 

[Worf]

Being 12 to 15 miles from Saratoga, and with the meet on (they ran The Whitney yesterday), you'd think I'd be a rail bird as well but no. I don't bet the nags nor do I gamble at all except Nickle, dime and quarter poker with friends. Still I've been there twice, once this year. My first visit over 20 years ago I found it to be a muddy, run-down mess full of desperate people chasing Sea Biscuits ghost. This year the lack of crowds the last year and a half has allowed the grounds to recover. I was there 2 weeks ago and it looked beautiful. I won 3.50 woo hoo!

Worf

 

[Harp]

Being 12 to 15 miles from Saratoga, and with the meet on (they ran The Whitney yesterday), you'd think I'd be a rail bird as well but no. I don't bet the nags nor do I gamble at all except Nickle, dime and quarter poker with friends. Still I've been there twice, once this year. My first visit over 20 years ago I found it to be a muddy, run-down mess full of desperate people chasing Sea Biscuits ghost. This year the lack of crowds the last year and a half has allowed the grounds to recover. I was there 2 weeks ago and it looked beautiful. I won 3.50 woo hoo!

Worf

As a professional I second your view that tracks-like all forms gambling-have desperate and lost souls.

I assume familiarity with The Cincinnati Kid and the dialogue betwixt McQueen and Malden
when the latter asks, "Playing with amateurs?" And McQueen responds "The only place I could get a game
where I wasn't holding markers..." There is another scene where McQueen-the Kid-is still at his apartment
before leaving to meet the Man (Edgar G Robinson) for the game. And McQueen is seated, staring at
a poker percentage chart, moving a card down the list. A professional preparing to meet another professional.
Thoroughbred graded stakes like stud poker is a strictly pro high stakes betting game.
And there are percentages at play but also intuitive instinct. Both objective and subjective factors in
the shuffle, all boil down to brass tack choice and some chance.

And if you haven't seen The Cincinnati Kid you would love it.

 

[Fading Fast]

...And Justice for All from 1979 with Al Pacino, John Forsythe, Jack Warden, Jeffrey Tambor and Christine Lahti


The 1970s looked broken, apparently, to those living through them if movies reflect something about how a society views itself. Klute, Saturday Night Fever, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Three Days of the Condor and ...And Justice for All, to name just a few, show a society coming apart at the seams.

In ironically named ...And Justice for All, broken is the word that most comes to mind: judges - broken; defense attorneys - broken; ethics committees - broken; prosecutors - broken; criminals - broken; prisons - broken; broken, broken, broken, it's all broken.

Defense attorney Al Pacino knows how to play the system, but even he's breaking. As opposed to most Hollywood tales, Pacino is a regular good guy who bends his morality to fit the system, but tries not to let it break. He's no cardboard hero, just a man trying to do reasonably right in a very wrong system.

Since this is Hollywood, though, the movie focuses on innocent or not really bad people being falsely arrested or convicted and, then, broken by the system. These are the clients Pacino defends day in and day out.

A kid gets pulled over for a faulty tail light, his identity is mistaken for a murder suspect and, owing to a series of bureaucratic mistakes and a callous judge, he ends up dead. A cross-dressing man, guilty of a minor crime who should've been given parole, instead, owing to a defense attorney's error, receives a multi-year sentence. He kills himself his first week in prison (it's amazing he made it that long).

These are horrible stories that break your heart, but in real life, there are stories that pull in the other direction. The only one of those lightly touched on here is quickly and diffidently told. A defense attorney gets a murder suspect off on a technicality, despite knowing his client is guilty. Once freed, his client kills two children.

Of course, this tale, as opposed to the above stories, is only briefly discussed and not shown, which greatly reduces its emotional impact. It only focuses on the psychological distress it causes the attorney.

How come we don't see the murdered children happily playing before they are killed or their distraught parents afterwards? That would highlight how there are costs to the innocent when the system becomes too lenient - not a point Hollywood almost ever wants to make.

Okay, we know Hollywood has its bias as seen in the movie's main story of a (of course) conservative judge, John Forsythe, who hands down harsh sentences while constantly ignoring pleas for leniency. He is arrested on a rape and assault charge and then manipulates the broken system to all but ensure an acquittal for himself.

In one of those twists that only happens in movies, Judge Forsythe forces Pacino to be his defense attorney. As it is public knowledge that Pacino hates this judge, it serves to make Forsythe look innocent even before the trial begins.

From here, it's a full-throttled morality tale as Pacino, doing what he is morally obligated to do as a defence attorney, works within the system to build Forsythe's defence, while Forsythe arrogantly admits to Pacino he is guilty. Forsythe, doing an outstanding job in the role, seems to enjoy rubbing his guilt in Pacino's face (there's a 1970s metaphor in there somewhere).

But of course, a defense attorney's job is to defend his client, so Pacino goes into court, offers an iron-clad defense of Forsythe and then...breaks. In the movie's famous line - you know it even if you haven't seen the movie - a ranting Pacino, being admonished by the judge, screams out, "...this whole court is out of order!"

In seven words, Pacino delivers the movie's theme, its condemnation of the justice system and a pretty good summary of Hollywood's judgment of America in the 1970s. ...And Justice for all is over-the-top, but still, it's well acted and fun-as-heck entertainment.


N.B. #1 Who came up with ...And Justice for All's soundtrack, which is more like a cheesy 1970s TV-sitcom soundtrack than one for a major motion picture release?

N.B. #2 Could there be less chemistry between two actors supposedly in love than Pacino and Christine Lahti? Both are fine actors, but they generate not one spark of real passion the entire movie. Despite their relationship attempting to highlight the moral quandaries good lawyers face - she's on an ethics committee investigating Pacino - the movie would have been better if the entire relationship had been lifted out.

 

[Harp]

^I asked one of my law profs who taught on the side of his solo general practice about defending
the guilty; since ironically sometimes the defense counsel does not really know, and he simply replied
that occasionally he leaves it to God. A more temporal perspective denotes compromise within the system
at play, for better or worse. I deliberately passed on this one because of its formulaic structure,
given up on Hollywood to leave the agenda alone for once; also, 12 Angry Men with Fonda nailed the lid
down for trial flicks. Any redo would only disappoint.

 

[Zombie_61]

^ What, My Cousin Vinny doesn't do it for you?

 

[Harp]

^ What, My Cousin Vinny doesn't do it for you?

Nope. Marisa Tomei does do it for me but not enough to sit through Cuz....

 

[Julian Shellhammer]

Kruty 1918 (2019), a Ukrainian film about a group of students who in WWI enlisted in the army and were ordered to defend a train station against Russian troops. More historical background on my part would have been beneficial. The part about the Russian commander in his customized railcar, directing the attack via a periscope, seemed exaggerated, but it could be true. Off of Amazon.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Mortal Storm from 1940 with Margaret Sullivan, Frank Morgan, Jimmy Stewart, Robert Young and Robert Stack


Mrs. Miniver is my favorite upbeat WWII propaganda film. I get that it's propaganda, but for two-hours, England and the Miniver family are my heroes fighting to survive after getting knocked back on their heels by the evil Nazis.

The Mortal Storm is my favorite downbeat WWII propaganda film. Set in Germany, the half-Jewish, half-Aryan Roth family gets ripped apart by the Nazis, with one-hundred-and-ten-pound daughter Freya Roth, played by Margaret Sullivan, standing up to every Nazi she meets as the fascist state tries to grind her and her family into dust.

Based on the outstanding book of the same name by Phyllis Bottome (comments here: #7738), The Mortal Storm uses the fictional Roth family to show how a powerful state that puts itself ahead of the individual destroys personal freedom of thought and action leaving only automaton believers and enemies of the state (the remaining free thinkers).

After the Nazis come to power, Roth family pater and respected Jewish scientist Frank Morgan is arrested when he won't denounce his research on race (talk about being in the wrong field, at the wrong time and in the wrong place). His arrest is a huge embarrassment to his Aryan and party-member stepsons, while it places the rest of the family - his wife, daughter Freya and a younger son - at risk.

Old family friend and farmer Jimmy Stewart tries to help the Roths and another older Jewish friend, but he is no match for the growing-more-powerful-by-the-day state. All the horrors we now know too well are here in this 1940 movie: late-night arrests, concentration camps, gangs of party members randomly beating up Jewish people and any other "undesirables," citizens trying to leave being arrested or shot and fear permeating every action and relationship.

This daring-for-the-date effort by MGM mentions Hitler and the Nazis a few times early on, but then elides those names for most of the movie. It also leaves no doubt that it is the Jewish people who are being persecuted, but never actually uses the words Jew or Jewish. Despite these tentative steps, MGM deserves kudos for making a powerful anti-Nazi movie that worked against its German business interests.

Nothing is perfect as MGM was probably trying to hedge its German-market business risk with those moves, but the movie it made is so poignantly anti-Nazi, MGM movies were banned in Germany afterwards.

The Mortal Storm is, oddly, a visually beautiful movie (despite being mainly filmed on sets) where a small German town's attractive architecture, set against a pristine snow-covered landscape, serves to highlight the darkness of Nazism descending on this once peaceful village.

Despite its skillful handling of large themes, The Mortal Storm works so well because it personalizes those issues in characters we care about. Nazi evil and individual liberty are big philosophical ideas, but what really moves you in a film are the people: does tiny-but-fearless Freya, trying to flee across the border, escape the assassin's bullet fired by her once fiance and now Nazi officer Fritz Marberg (played frighteningly well by Robert Young)?

The Mortal Storm is an impressive, early entry in the anti-Nazi movie oeuvre that deserves more attention today than it receives, for both its timelessness and its influence on the large output of anti-Nazi movies that have riffed on its themes and techniques ever since.

 

[Edward]

^ What, My Cousin Vinny doesn't do it for you?

The yutes of today, huh?

 

[Bushman]

Stan Winston's Pumpkinhead. Not many movies are made based on a poem, or directed by the leading practical effects wizard in Hollywood, but that's what makes this movie so interesting. This is one of the few movies DIRECTED by Stan Winston, the visionary behind the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, the Predator, the Terminators, and Edward Scissorhands. In this one, Lance Henriksen, out for revenge against teenagers who accidentally killed his son, makes a deal with a bog witch to unleash the demon of vengeance against them.

The real magic in this movie lies neither in the story nor the dialogue, but the visuals. The effects are top of the lines, as expected, but it's the characterization of poor farmers living in Dirtville USA, their superstitions clashing with their kinship, that makes this movie great. The visuals and setting of the movie are very strong, and carry the movie all the way throuugh.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Case of the Velvet Claws from 1936 with Warren Wiliam, Claire Dodd and Wini Shaw


The Case of the Velvet Claws is the first Perry Mason novel (comments on the book here: #8591), yet it is the third in the 1930s Warner Bros. Perry Mason movie series. Unfortunately, the series seemed to lose energy and focus by this entry.

Warren William is back as Mason and having as good a time as ever playing the celebrity lawyer cum sleuth with an exaggerated devil-may-care attitude. He's not the problem, but the Hollywood-altered script is.

While the crime-mystery plot from the book is pretty much the same in the movie (confusing as heck), for some reason, Warner Bros.' writers decided to marry off Mason and his smart, acerbic secretary Della Street.

In the book and earlier Mason movies, Della Street is a strong, whip-smart woman who helps Mason with his cases - finding clues, partaking in the investigation and making connections Mason sometimes misses - while calling him out on his BS or when his head gets a bit too swollen.

It's a wonderful dynamic that, for the day, portrays Della Street as an early independent female role model. Yet here, as a newlywed, she, for the most part, plays a complaining wife as Mason interrupts their honeymoon to solve a case. The real Della Street would have jumped in to help, possibly resulting in a William-Powell-Myrna-Loy type of married-couple dynamic a la The Thin Man Series.

With the lovely Claire Dodd as Ms. Street all but sidelined in this one (she does get in a few good zingers though), the movie feels flat especially with its too-complex plot and a bit too-much slapstick from the Warner Bros. team.

The plot itself is a "who killed the mean rich publisher of a salacious tabloid" story. Was it the publisher's young gold-digging wife (Mason's client), his playboy son, his business partner, one of the household staff or, even, Mason himself. It's so confusing, I doubt I'd have followed it if I hadn't already read the book.

But these movies aren't about solving the crime, they are about enjoying Mason and Street running all over the city, keeping the cops at bay, finding evidence, making up evidence (yup), confronting suspects and outwitting everyone in the end. The fun is the joie de vivre of it all.

The Case of the Velvet Claws is something modern audiences are familiar with, a movie series running out of energy as it ages. It's still okay, but you'd get more enjoyment reading the novel or watching one of the earlier Warner Bros. Mason movies instead.


N.B. In addition to Della Street, there is a female judge in this one who is respected by all, including Mason (whose number she clearly has). To be sure, especially during the era of the Motion Picture Production Code, women, sadly, were often shown in traditional roles with the men getting to do all the cool stuff. But as with Della Street and the female judge in this one, even under the code, some smart-and-strong-women roles found their way to the screen.

 

[Harp]

Warren William is back as Mason and having as good a time as ever playing the celebrity lawyer cum sleuth with an exaggerated devil-may-care attitude.
But these movies aren't about solving the crime, they are about enjoying Mason and Street running all over the city, keeping the cops at bay, finding evidence, making up evidence (yup), confronting suspects and outwitting everyone in the end. The fun is the joie de vivre of it all...

Unfamiliar though I am with either book or film, this Warren William-as opposed the later Raymond Burr-
Mason is a bit too much the cad than attorney at law Perry Mason. Manufactured evidence is ground
for disbarment and Burr was always a stickler which is an endearing trait.
All the more so in criminal law practice.

And Della Street cannot marry Perry Mason.
Not even an occasional romp in the hay, one-nite stand, or even a peck on the cheek.

 

[Fading Fast]

Unfamiliar though I am with either book or film, this Warren William-as opposed the later Raymond Burr-
Mason is a bit too much the cad than attorney at law Perry Mason. Manufactured evidence is ground
for disbarment and Burr was always a stickler which is an endearing trait.
All the more so in criminal law practice.

And Della Street cannot marry Perry Mason.
Not even an occasional romp in the hay, one-nite stand, or even a peck on the cheek.

Based on the one Mason book I read (the first one), Mason was of his time (the 1930s) and his code was "I fight for my client anyway I can." Thus, he felt if he had to make up evidence to get an innocent person off, so be it.

Heroes, overall (there are always exceptions) were different in the 1930s than today as they were more about a personal code and rough justice. By the '50s (Burr's era) heroes were already morphing into social-justice warriors (what our heroes today are).

Also, 1950s TV was not going to have a lawyer making up evidence as time and standards had already changed. But you see it time and again in the 1930s where the heroes - think "The Thin Man -" were more about a man having a code with it being acceptable for him to break the law to get his client off or to get to the truth (illegal searches almost didn't exist in this world).

I'm not, at all, saying making up evidence is right, I'm just saying it was a thing that our culture looked at differently back then. Also, Mason didn't mind making a buck; today, almost all our heroes are repelled by making money.

I like the personal code of honor thing and the not-opposed-to-getting-paid aspect of the '30s heroes versus today's money-is-dirty and the only-good-fight-is-the-social-justice-fight stand of today's heroes, which comes across to me as sanctimonious virtue signaling mixed with our obsessive politics.