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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
The Real Treasure
Literature has three basic plots: man against man, man against nature and man against himself. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE features elements of all three plots. Its central character is driven insane by greed (man vs. himself). The treasure hunters face bandits (man vs. man). The journey is a constant struggle against the elements (man vs. nature). The film's characters are constantly struggling against insurmountable odds.
The movie moves in threes: three plot elements, three men searching for treasure, a three-stage journey (getting to the mountain, getting the gold and trying to carry it back), the treasure split three ways and three separate fantasies about what to do with it. Each of the film's three acts can even be sub-divided into three smaller acts.
The plot centers around Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart). He's a penniless drifter in Tampico, Mexico. Three times (there's that number again), he begs a "fellow American" for money. (The white-suited American is played by director John Huston.) When he has cash, he immediately spends it. We see him buying cigarettes, a lottery ticket, a haircut and meals at a restaurant. We know that if he does find gold, he'll quickly squander it and return to begging. He's mean, too; when a young boy tries to sell him a lottery ticket, he snarls and throws a drink in the boy's face.
Dobbs and his companion, Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), take jobs at a local oil field. After a crooked manager cheats them out of their wages, they assault him and take what he owes them. They team up with Howard (Walter Huston), who has excited them with stories of prospecting for gold. Howard has spent his life digging for gold in the mountains of Mexico. Pooling their wages and Dobbs's lottery winnings, the three men set out on a treasure hunt.
Eventually, the three men find a mountain with a rich vein of gold. Most treasure hunt stories end with the heroes finding the loot. THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE takes the story through its next logical steps. We see the conflicts that arise between the men as they are mining their gold. The conflicts deepen as the men try to return to civilization with their treasure. The perennially poor Dobbs obsesses over his share, becoming convinced that the other two are plotting to steal his gold. Greed and paranoia combine to drive Dobbs insane. The bandits, the federales (police forces), the elements and Dobb's insanity combine in one of the most elegant, complicated and ironic endings in movie history.
I prefer black and white to color film. Black and white is more visually expressive. Here, it makes a harsh, gritty landscape seem that much harsher. We seem to see every rock, every dangerous creature, every grain of blowing sand. The Sierra Madre is a barren mountain range, a land seeming set on its edge. Color would soften this landscape, making it seem less intimidating. In black and white, it seems tough and unforgiving, even deadly.
In the Sierra Madre, human life is cheap. Water can be more precious than gold here,since men can die of thirst. Bandits try to murder travelers for the clothes on their backs. Federales perform summary executions. Poisonous reptiles hide under rocks. Sandstorms of epic proportions sweep across the land. Death can strike without warning.
The failed quest is a common theme in John Huston's films. In THE MALTESE FALCON, the characters fight over a supposedly priceless sculpture only to discover that it's worthless. In THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, two men set out to rule a country only to have its inhabitants turn against them. In this film, the main characters risk their lives for gold and end up recognizing their true desires. At the end, they haven't realized their dream, but they know what would truly make them happy. That's the real treasure of the Sierra Madre.
The teaming of Humphrey Bogart and director John Huston is one of the greatest success stories in Hollywood history. During their 17-year partnership, they made six films together. Five of these are considered classics: THE MALTEE FALCON, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, KEY LARGO, THE African QUEEN and BEAT THE DEVIL. For nearly fifty years, Huston was one of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers. He announced his retirement several times, but he never retired. John Huston lived to make movies. Only death could stop him.
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
Harryhausen at his best
THE 7TH VYAGE OF SINBAD is Ray Harryhausen's greatest achievement. His later films were more technically polished, but they also had tighter, more constrictive narratives. Here, he lets his imagination run wild. Harryhausen is at least comparable to Disney or Miyazaki. He is among the greatest animators of all time.
Harryhausen mastered stop-motion animation, a painstaking technique in which an articulated puppet is photographed one frame at a time and moved a fraction of an inch between shots. When the frames are projected in sequence, the illusion of motion is created. Harryhausen refined stop-motion to an art form and integrated his creatures seamlessly with the live action. His revolutionary work ushered in the age of special effects extravaganzas like the STAR WARS films.
Sure, the acting is terrible, but who cares? We don't go to fantasy movies for award-winning performances. If I want great acting, I'll watch a Bogart movie. The bizarre creatures and the fairy tale plot are the stars of this show.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Perfect For Black & White
Most of my friends know that I prefer black & white movies to color. Black & white can be very visually expressive, with its brilliant foregrounds and its deep shadows. It can also be perfectly suited to certain subject matter. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD examines the difference between good and evil. For this, we need infinite shades of grey.
The story takes place in a small Alabama town during the Depression. The central characters are Jem Finch, his sister Jean Louise (nicknamed Scout) and their father, Atticus (Gregory Peck). At first, the movie seems innocent. It concentrates on the children's attempts to get a glimpse of Boo Radley, the local recluse. This sense of quiet innocence is about to be shattered.
Atticus, a lawyer, is appointed to defend a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman. The man, Tom Robinson, is an honest, hard-working field hand. The accusers, Bob Ewell and his daughter Mayella, are the town pariahs. Bob Ewell is an unemployed drunk, an abusive father and, as we will discover, a liar. His daughter Mayella is a truly pitiable character: she must deal with her drunken father and care for her siblings. In expressing sexual attraction to a black man, she has broken one of the deepest unwritten laws of her society. She lies both to cover her feelings and to avoid her father's wrath. Tom Robinson has also violated an unwritten law: he has felt pity for a white woman. Thus Tom is punished for a virtue while the Ewells are rewarded for bearing false witness.
Atticus Finch seems untouched by the rampant prejudices of Southern society. Compared to the other characters in the film, he seems impossibly noble. Many of the film's adult characters claim to be Christian, but Atticus is the only one who seems to live by Christian principles. He has a choice between the easy thing to do and the right thing to do. As the story develops, we come to see him as a hero battling to the end against impossible odds. Still, every hero has an eventual Ragnarok. Though Atticus proves Tom's innocence beyond all possible doubt, prejudice has stacked the deck completely against him. Tom Robinson is found guilty and eventually killed.
Still, we must honor the hero, even in defeat. So Stand up, Miss Jean Louise. Your father's passin'!
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Cross Dressing and Cross Purposes
Hidden identity is a running theme in SOME LIKE IT HOT. Two musicians, Jerry and Joe (Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis) witness a brutal Mob hit orchestrated by "Spats" Colombo (George Raft). This is Chicago in 1929. Our two heroes know how the Mob deals with potential witnesses. They respond, in typical screwball comedy fashion, by disguising themselves as women, joining an all-girls band and fleeing to Florida. This doesn't really make sense, but hey, it's screwball comedy. It's not supposed to make sense.
Of course, our two cross-dressing fugitives run into the ultimate real woman: Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe). We know that at least one of them will end up in love with her, just as we know that a showdown with Spats is inevitable. It's the film's other twists and turns that make it unpredictable.
There is one more predictable twist to the movie: a man will fall in love with one of our cross-dresing fugitives. The fall guy is millionaire Osgood Fielding (Joe E. Brown), who delivers the film's ultimate punch line. Naturally, Fielding passes up all of the beautiful women in the band and woos the homeliest gal of the bunch. He introduces himself in a priceless scene in which each punch line sets up the next. Eventually, Fielding tangoes with "Daphne" (Lemmon) while "Josephine" (Curtis) disguises himself as a millionaire and lures Sugar to Fielding's yacht. Brown and Lemmon tango with superb comic timing, even passing a rose back and forth between their teeth. Meanwhile, Curtis and Monroe engage in one of filmdom's most famous love scenes.
Dialogue drives SOME LIKE IT HOT. It's high-octane dialogue, too. The script, by director Billy Wilder and screenwriter I. A. L. Diamond, is a marathon of punch lines. Even the best visual gags usually have a line or two of dialogue to set them up or follow them. Usually, the dialogue comments the film's oddball situations. For instance, when we first see Jerry and Joe in drag, they complain about how hard it is to walk in high heels. Sugar immediately appears, gracefully strutting in heels through some well-timed puffs of steam. The men see her and comment, "It's like a whole other sex!"
Like its main characters, SOME LIKE IT HOT is in disguise. It features gangsters, but it's not a gangster film. It has musical numbers, but it's not a musical. It's really a comedy about sex, and nothing more. It firmly cemented Marilyn Monroe's reputation. She is the benchmark, the ultimate sex symbol against which all others are measured.
Bullitt (1968)
A High-Octane Plot
In his earlier tough-guy roles (TV's DEATH VALLEY DAYS and the movies THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN and THE GREAT ESCAPE), Steve McQueen created a mystique. In BULLITT, director Peter Yates showed that he knew how to use that mystique. San Francisco police detective Frank Bullitt is the ultimate tough cop. He seems indestructible, and he always gets the job done. He may have to go against authority and break rules, but he always does the right thing. BULLITT sets the tone for later cop thrillers like DIRTY HARRY and THE FRENCH CONNECTION.
Bullitt is assigned to protect a Mob informant. When the informant is killed right under his nose, Bullitt is determined to track down and punish the killers and the man who hired them. The plot is a by-the-numbers police procedural, but it takes some very unexpected turns. Naturally, out hero is put in harm's way several times, including one of the greatest car chases ever filmed. Even after forty years of more and more intense action films, the chase scenes and shootouts in BULLITT rank among the best ever filmed.
If BULLITT has a flaw, it's the romantic subplot. McQueen's scenes with Jacquelin Bisset interrupt the film's rhythm and contribute nothing to the plot. They are unnecessary baggage.
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966)
An Old Idea Reworked
The basic plot of THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY has been done before. In fact, the film inverts the premise of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. In TREASURE, the three men searching for the gold worked as a team. The team broke down because of external pressure (the bandits) and internal pressure (Fred C. Dobb's paranoia). In THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, the three men searching for the gold never team up. They are kept apart by internal pressure (the fact that one of them is a murdering sadist) and external pressure (the ebb and flow of the Civil War).
In TREASURE, only one member of the team knew how to find gold. Here, the location of the gold is a secret. Two men know opposite halves of the secret. Blondie (Clint Eastwood) knows a name on a grave. Tuco Ramirez (Eli Wallach) knows the name of the cemetery. Their shared secret forces the two men into an uneasy alliance. The third seeker is Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), a professional killer. He has learned about the gold from one of his victims.
The opening and Ennio Morricone's unique theme music set the tone: this will be a harsh, gritty, offbeat film. Freeze-frames tell us which character will be good (Blondie), which will be bad (Angel Eyes) and which will be ugly (Tuco). The difference between the three men isn't motive, since they all want the same thing. What sets them apart from each other is what they are willing to do to get it. Angel Eyes will torture and kill anybody who gets in his way. Tuco is a bully and a loudmouth, but he only kills in self-defense. Blondie is quiet and intelligent, a planner who carefully works out every detail well in advance.
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY is set in a harsh, unforgiving landscape. The quest for the gold takes our characters through a desert, a prison camp, a war-ravaged frontier town, a Civil War battle and, finally the cemetery where the inevitable showdown happens. The few outposts of civilization huddle against a vast, imposing wilderness. In such places, even the best man has to be a little bit bad and ugly to survive.
Casablanca (1942)
Here's Looking at CASABLANCA
Occasionally, great films are happy accidents. A HARD DAY'S NIGHT and SINGIN' IN THE RAIN were written and produced in unconventional ways. So was CASABLANCA. It was a wartime romantic melodrama based on an unproduced play. Everybody thought that it would be good, but nobody considered it special.
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman weren't part of the original cast; their roles were originally slated for Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan. George Raft was also considered for the lead. Raft and Reagan were unavailable, though, so the role of Rick Blaine went to the only man who could have played it.
The screenplay is another oddity. Julius and Philip Epstein began by extensively revising a stage play called "Everybody Comes to Rick's". When the Epsteins were called away to another assignment, Howard Koch took over. Later, the Epsteins returned to collaborate with Koch on the film's final act. Despite the multiple writing credits, the film is very unified.
The film is set in French Morocco in 1941. The port city of Casablanca is a stopping point on the refugee trail. Refugees are pouring into the city, but they can't leave without exit visas. Cafe owner Rick Blaine is accidentally left with two letters of transit, documents which allow the bearer to travel without a visa. No sooner do the letters fall into his hands than his former lover, Ilsa Lund (Bergman) arrives with her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid). Laszlo is a charismatic Underground leader sought by the Nazis. Their only hope for escape from Casablanca is the letters of transit held by Rick.
Ilsa is torn between the two men. She loves Rick, but she also loves Laszlo. She realizes that she is the inspiration for his work against the Nazis.
The background for the love triangle is the film's array of memorable supporting characters. Louis Renault (Claude Rains) is the local police chief who trades exit visas for sexual favors. (The film is surprisingly frank about this.) Ugarte (Peter Lorre) is a small-time thief who is arrested for murder. Ferari (Sidney Greenstreet) is a rival club owner and a key figure in the local black market. There are also the employees of Rick's Cafe, led by Sam (Dooley Wilson). The Germans are led by snarling bully Major Heinrich Strasser (Conrad Veidt). All of these characters and their various story threads are introduced in a long series of scenes depicting a typical night at the Cafe.
Movie plots usually follow a three-act structure. CASABLANCA has a more Shakespearean five-act structure. Act 1, which introduces the various characters and subplots, ends with Ilsa's reunion with Rick. Act 2 consists of Rick's reminiscences of his affair with Ilsa. Act 3, which shows Laszlo's futile attempts to get exit visas, ends with his confrontation with a group of Nazis at Rick's. After this, the events of the last two acts (the night of the resistance meeting and the resolution of the love triangle) are inevitable.
Some of the film's plot points are pure fiction. For one thing, there's no such thing as a letter of transit. It's a plot device, a McGuffin. Besides, if the Nazis really wanted a person, no document would prevent them from arresting him. For another, even if Ugarte did get letters of transit, he wouldn't have sold them. He certainly would not have given them to Rick. He would have used them to leave Casablanca. These plot points don't make sense. The Epsteins slide them past us with great dialogue and wonderful characters. After all, if Rick doesn't get the letters, we don't have a movie.
CASABLANCA is a movie about love and sacrifice. It has one of the greatest endings in movie history. In fact, it has the only ending it can possibly have.
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
A Highlight of the Series
It's virtually impossible to include spoilers in a James Bond review. Everybody knows that the world of Bond is the ultimate hero fantasy: the good guy will thwart the villain and get the beautiful girl at the end. We know what he'll do before the movie starts; we just don't know how he'll do it.
In his third outing as 007, Roger Moore finally hits his stride. In his first two Bond films, the production team treated him as just a replacement for Sean Connery. Here, Moore is finally accepted on his own terms. LIVE AND LET DIE and THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN played like holdovers - or rejects - from the Connery era. THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is the first film written specifically for Roger Moore. It is certainly the best of the Moore Bonds, and arguably a highlight of the series.
THE SPY WHO LOVED ME has all of the classic Bond elements: beautiful girls, fancy gadgets, international intrigue, exotic locales and a megalomaniac villain armed with infinite manpower and resources. A truly great hero needs a worthy adversary, a foe capable of defeating him. Harry Potter has Lord Voldemort. Sherlock Holmes has Professor Moriarty. Bond has a line of evil schemers bent on global domination. They are, in fact, so proud of their plots that they always boast to 007 late in the film, giving him just enough info to save the world at the last second.
This time around, the megalomaniac villain is shipping magnate Karl Stromberg (Curt Jurgens). Using a high-tech tracking system, he has hijacked British and Russian nuclear subs. Bond must join forces with an elegant Soviet spy, Agent XXX (Barbara Bach) to thwart Stromberg's plan for global domination. Like all great Bond villains, Stromberg has an army of paid assassins armed with an impressive array of weapons. He lives in Atlantis, an elaborate submarine house off the coast of Sardinia.
THE SPY WHO LOVES ME takes time to soak up the exotic flavors of its locales, even as the plot zooms ahead. Austria is an icy wilderness of mountains and glaciers. Egypt is presented as a romantic desert full of impressive monuments. (The movie even pokes fun at LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.) Sardinia is a tourist's paradise of sun-soaked beaches and twisting coastal roads. The ocean floor on which Atlantis rests teems with strange and beautiful (but deadly) life forms. The scenery change sets us up for the film's grand finale, one of the biggest mega-battles in the entire Bond series.
The film also makes excellent use of Ken Adam's magnificent set designs. The sets for the film were so elaborate that the world's largest sound stage, the 007 stage at London's Pinewood Studios, had to be built especially for the movie. The awesome sets earned the Bond team an Oscar nomination for production design.
This is one of the best Bond films ever made. It gives us several of the most memorable villains, gadgets and adventures in the history of the series. It's a vast, elaborate production. Most of the gadgets and stunts stretch belief, but the Bond films were never meant to be realistic. This is one of the ultimate spy fantasies. This is classic James Bond.
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
That's What They Said About the Horseless Carriage!
"Singin' in the Rain" is a great movie about change. The change it describes, of course, is Hollywood's shift from silent film to talkies in the late 1920s. Ironically, it was made during another period of change. In 1952, Hollywood was shifting from mostly black and white movies to mostly color and from standard format (1.33:1) to widescreen. "Singin' in the Rain" bridges the gap; it's shot in Technicolor in standard format.
A better title might have been "Dancin' in the Rain". Almost all of the musical numbers have their dance sequences. From Gene Kelly's tap duets with Donald O'Connor to his fantasy ballet with Cyd Charisse, the film is a study of the human body in motion.
In most musicals, the songs are written to fit the simple plot. In this one, a complex plot was constructed to fit songs that were over 20 years old, and it works. The film doesn't stand still during the musical numbers: the plot drives the songs and the songs drive the plot. The "Broadway Ballet" finale and the corny but hilarious ending are epilogue; the film's real climax is the scene where Don Lockwood (Kelly) dances along a rain-washed street. He has fallen in love with the girl of his dreams. The problem of Lina's voice has been solved. Everything that follows is inevitable.
Set in 1927, the plot revolves around silent star Don Lockwood, his on screen romance with Lina LaMont (Jean Hagen) and his off-screen romance with aspiring actress Cathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). Mix the love triangle, the career-wrecking advent of talking pictures and comic relief man Cosmo Brown (O'Connor) and stir liberally for a great screwball musical comedy.
The coming of sound destroyed the careers of many silent film stars. It was a form of entertainment-industry Darwinism. Those who didn't have good voices suddenly couldn't get work. Don is a wonderful song & dance man, but Lina's voice is sharp enough to cut steel. Until now, her job has been to look pretty and pantomime on the silent screen. As Cosmo puts it, "She can't sing, she can't dance and she can't act. A triple threat." Her well-rounded incompetence and her spoiled-brat attitude make her one of the greatest comedy villains of all time.
Most movies try to hide the tricks of the trade, but "Singin' in the Rain" is a movie about film-making. It revels in the secrets of movie-making and the technical foibles of early sound films. In one of its most memorable scenes, Don declares his love for Cathy on a movie set. In the process, he demonstrates some special effects machinery.
For the 50th anniversary edition, Warner Bros. (which now owns the rights to the movie) has put together a handsome 2-DVD package worthy of the film. The documentaries on disc 2 are all interesting. The easter eggs (on both discs) are even better. In fact, the egg on disc 1 is one of my all-time favorites.