1955: The Year that Was Basically Gossip Girl Minus Blake Lively

I actually don't watch Gossip Girl and have never seen it so I suppose I can't be using it too effectively as a means to make fun of stuff. But what I do know is that I'd probably intensely dislike all the melodrama, but it'd possibly be worth it to ogle Blake Lively. If my unemployment ever reaches a staggering second year, I'll watch the full run of the show and make a lot of subsequent jokes about myself. But for now, we'll have to settle with the 3(!) melodramas from this year to make fun of. Luckily I'm a big fan of the winner, so it's not all negative.

We begin with Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing. Do I normally capitalize words like "is" and "a?" I'm not certain...it's kind of bothering me. Like, a lot. I'm just that way. It's going to be tough writing about these because I have the exact same complaints about all three of them and I'd like to parcel it out beforehand but I've never done an outline for a research paper (let alone a blog entry). And before you ask: yes I got all As on my research papers. Past a certain point in my education cycle anyway. Okay...so the movie. It's about two ill-fated lovers. One of whom is in the military and one of whom is half-Asian. And it's the era when that love would be looked down upon anyway, but certainly during the aftermath years of World War II. And one of them is a widow and one of them is still married or something...I forget. Yes, he's married (I've just remembered without Wikipedia, I'm proud of myself). Because he asks her out and she's like "aren't you married?" and he's all "so?" and she goes "tee hee!" Then before you know it, they're both willing to spit in the face of societal norms and put themselves in possibly actual physical danger by being together. There must have been some seriously X-Rated banging going on off-screen because all we see them do is have tea like once and then they're madly in love. And there's my sole complaint of all of these types of films. They never sell the romance. They go right from barely knowing each other to moving heaven and earth to be together in about the time it'd take you to check the movie's IMDB Trivia section (true story). It should take most of the movie for them to get together, or they should already be together at the beginning. If I were to apply the same level of development to a crime drama: Michael Corleone would kill the heads of the five families because one of them stepped on his shoe once. It's jumping straight into the plot where the movie needs to go without having sufficient reason to be there. Especially when you've got things like racial tension going on, you REALLY have to have some good reasons for the two to be a couple. Beyond the reason that they're both attractive. Plenty of attractive people out there. And I'm not super sure who Jennifer Jones is/was/whatever but she was definitely hot enough to snag whoever. Just saying. Then he goes to war and dies. So they put them together for no reason, tore them apart for no reason, and I'm sure everyone ate it up and loved it because it was at least more drama than they were getting on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. In closing: good performances. Great music. Not much to work with though.

A flawed but certainly much better film is Mister Roberts. It sounds like the heartwarming tale of an old curmudgeon who befriends his young next door neighbor, thus revealing his inner humanity, and then dies having let go of the pains of his past. But it's not. I wish I still had the Netflix slip cover with the plot description, because it was absurdly inaccurate. It said it was a heartwarming movie about the triumph of blah blah or something. It's actually a fairly serious movie with comedic undertones. Very much like most stage plays, and it is unsurprisingly based on one. Stage plays always try to make people laugh, even if it's way dark, because a laughing audience is an engaged audience. It's a bit of an odd movie because it has two directors, one of whom is John Ford, and Jimmy Cagney is the bad guy but it's sort of a comedic role. It's lost in the space between comedy in drama. It's kind of in that awkward 90th minute stage that most comedies nowadays hit where things get all dramatic, except that's the whole movie. It's definitely good though. With Cagney and Henry Fonda and the rest of the cast it would have been tough to screw up. It's the usual story: the commander of the ship is a bit crazy and so the hero of the movie has to stand up to him while simultaneously keeping the crew in line. I added too much detail for it to be a "usual story" but it's actually crazy similar to the 1954 movie I'm watching now (which at least knows it's a drama). But the story of the chain of command getting in the way and having the moral quandary of duty vs. "the right thing to do" was even old in 1955. Not to say that makes the movie bad or not enjoyable or poorly written. Because it's not. Although it is a bit too long for what it is, I will say that. But it's a bit like watching a good episode of Law and Order. It's enjoyable and you don't expect much from it. But if it suddenly got nominated for an Emmy for that episode you'd say "wait...what?" 1955 seems like a dull year. Even the winner, which I quite like, is a small and cute movie. Maybe with all the gravitas of 1954's winner and quite possibly some of the other nominees (we'll see) they wanted some fodder this year. I don't know. But there's not much more I can really say, other than that if you see this movie on TV then give it a watch. It's a good way to spend your time, even if it's not the best way.

Continuing with the melodrama is Picnic. At least Kim Novak was a hottie. I was already a fan of hers from Vertigo (a FANTASTIC movie that is brilliantly directed by Hitchcock. See it anywhere on my blog as a nominee? No? It was among the first films to be Dark Knight-ed). The whole movie is basically a big picnic, as the title would suggest, and the various melodramatic goings-on. There's the young girl looking to break free from her family, the middle-aged woman who can't let go of the past, the older dude who's lonely for whatever reason, blah blah. They essentially have a character for everyone in the audience to empathize with. Not "recognize with" mind you, as that would be the quite incorrect way to phrase that (contrary to my previous posts). But the whole thing is so pointless. Because you know where a lot of it is going and all of the acting is so over-the-top and soap opera esque. Not to say the actors in it are bad in other things because they're not. But Academy Award winner Frances McDormand was in Transformers 3 and she was really stupid in it. It happens. Wikipedia says it was praised at the time for being a richly detailed snapshot of the Midwest in the 50s. Well I sincerely hope that they just mean in terms of atmosphere and not in terms of character archetypes. Although they probably mean both in some ways. I'll admit that it's difficult for me to tell what the film's intentions are with regards to certain characters. So I don't know if it's trying to be ironic at times or if it is actually meant to be taken seriously. Because since there's such a gap in my mind between societal norms today and societal norms back then, it's basically impossible for me to view it within the intended contexts. Which is the mark of a not great movie in many cases. There should be more to a film than just zeitgeist and angst. Zeitgeist and angst is another possible title for my autobiography, I'll write that down. Anyway, the most ridiculous point comes at the end when Kim Novak (who's playing an 18-year-old I think) decides to run off with William Holden (who's older and has been around the block a few times. You know, the euphemism-y kind of block). Her mother tells her something along the lines of: "you know he's just going to cheat on you and toss you aside when he gets bored!" To which she replies: "nobody's perfect mother!" When Billy Wilder ended his brilliant Some Like It Hot with that same line (sans mother) it's hilarious. Because it's so absurd. But this is played COMPLETELY seriously. So I'm sitting there thinking to myself: "this is the happy ending to the movie? The teenage girl running off with a dude who she reasonably expects might cheat on her?" So what's the point of all that? Don't know. Don't really care. I give them points for helping to move the cinemascope format forward (which was new at the time) but it's a bit of an odd movie for it. Just saying.

A slightly-better-but-still-melodramatic movie is The Rose Tattoo. What's with these titles? Tattoos and picnics and off-brand Mr. Rogers. They sound even more boring than the movies actually are, which is impressive. This one is about an old Italian lady dealing with the death of her husband and being really restrictive of her younger daughter, who is trying to live a life of her own. See a trend here? It's not even the 60s and there's been a whole lot of moonbeam-y mess. Somebody can't let go of the past, somebody else can't grasp the future, and I'm sure somebody had present issues too. Probably all of them, elsewise it would've been a strange 2001 precursor. So the old Italian lady's husband dies in an accident. Then she finds out he had been cheating on her. Then she becomes a misanthrope and prevents her daughter from living her life. Then she changes her mind after some scenery gets devoured and everybody is happy at the end. And somewhere in there are two tattoos of roses on various people and I'm sure they represent something profound like life or anti-monasticism or something. I remember reading somewhere, and I wish I could remember where, that people really took to the movie because they had never seen breasts as big as Anna Magnani's before (she's the middle-aged biddy). Really? Really 1950s? This does support my theory for why Titanic won so many awards and why it made so much money, but the 50s is supposed to be better than that. And it's not like there were a bunch of terrible looking women in movies back then. They were classy, top-of-the-line hotties and great actresses. I'd take a 30s-50s starlet over any actress today any day of the week (except Annie from Community). The movie is a little too serious if you ask me. If you don't balance out the serious with some humor then the whole thing becomes melodrama. For instance, other films that I enjoy which also feature the same few people bickering in a few rooms for two hours are Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Lion in Winter. In the latter, there are actual things at stake so that helps. But in the former there's basically nothing at stake. It's still really good. Because it's funny at times, and the acting is better, and the writing is better, and everything is better. It balances itself out well. The scenes have some variety. I think that's what gets to me the most. Films like Tattoo seem to consist of the same two conversations over and over again. It might as well just be "can I?" "No!" "Can I?" "No!" (final two minutes) "Can I?" "Well, okay. Molto bene!" Cue credits. They consist of two characters having the same prolonged conversation and one of them finally giving up. There's more to it of course, but nothing particularly interesting.

Thankfully, this year's winner is our savior: Marty. Now here is a great movie that happens to be about basically nothing. It has no major consequences and doesn't concern anything too important. But it's really excellent, and also the shortest movie ever to win Best Picture I might add. I can't stress enough how great that is. In today's movies (and even starting in the 60s) when he decides to go call the girl after all there would be 40 more minutes of movie with more canned drama. But instead it leaves us with the idea that they'll live happily ever after and that's PLENTY. No need to overstay your welcome. As Jonathan Swift once said, "I apologize for the length of this letter. I didn't have the time to write a short one." I love that. Not that I follow that particular philosophy on my blog of course (although in some ways I do). But if I was making a movie or show, I absolutely would. The movie is also very funny. It captures the type of nonsensical dialogue of guys sitting around deciding what to do. They basically talk about nothing and keep repeating the same nothing. Paddy Chayefsky really nailed it with the dialogue. And then Marty, who gets grief from everybody about when he's going to get married, finally has a nice time with a lovely woman who other people just label "a dog." But as he says at the end, "I had a nice time! Who cares what she looks like? I think she's beautiful and I had a great time last night!" See, the film deals with some very recognizable issues but it doesn't shove them in your face. You instantly recognize the point being made without the movie telling you straight out. Because everyone has experienced situations where people give you advice about things and you discover that you should really just decide things for yourself. Or situations where you realize that the people you're hanging around with are no good and it's time for a change. His life is filled with guys talking about nothing and old Italian ladies talking about how everything sucks and everybody's dead that they knew. But they manage to make it hilarious! There are undertones of seriousness but it's truly funny. I'd call it a "delightful" film. That's the exact word I'd use. For what it is, they couldn't have made it any better.

Well I'm looking down the list of 1954 nominees and it's already more interesting just from the titles alone. So I hope it won't let me down. Because this year was just a complete mess. Peyton Place times 3 basically. The winner for '54 is already one of my favorites of all time, so it's already a better year. Hopefully the rest of the year will follow suit. All I know for now is that it will contain seven weddings, three bachelorettes, and one failed contender.