First up is a movie that I liked, but wasn't super enthusiastic about: Decision Before Dawn. It stars people I've never heard of and who didn't seem to do much else. That's a big plus for me (and the key to HBO's success I might add). Because there's no learning curve in terms of getting used to the actors being those characters. Plus, people looking to hit it big in Hollywood always put some more oomph in than people who have already made it. Now, I love the idea of this movie and I think it was well done through and through. But it doesn't need to be 2 hours long. It could really just be a Twilight Zone episode (albeit a decidedly non sci-fi one) in the sense that it has a great story arc which doesn't require much growth. The journey it takes you on isn't one which requires a lot of twists and turns. It essentially has one point to make. HOWEVER...in 1951 I imagine it would have taken an entire movie. Intrigued yet? It's about a group of German POWs who are recruited by the U.S. to spy on their fellow Germans, during the end times of WWII. Finally, a WWII movie that's a little different! They're all so similar usually. This was the first movie, literally the first, to show Germans in a sympathetic light. Not all of them of course. But the main characters are portrayed as conflicted, real people. This is good because it's so easy to think of the Nazis as this faceless organization that was unrepentantly evil. Some of them were, but not all of them. I won't spoil the plot of the whole movie but suffice it to say that by the end of it I imagine many audience members had at least somewhat re-thought their ideas of "the enemy" during wartime. The U.S. army characters in the film certainly do. This is a morally gray movie depicting one of the few times in United States history that is often viewed as black and white. Once again, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I've just seen similar things before which fit into an episode of TV. But for 1951 this was huge news and certainly groundbreaking. So I applaud them for that and I think everyone involved did a great job.
An exceptionally dark and excellent film that I wasn't expecting at all is A Place in the Sun. This reverse-reminded me of a film I detested, entitled Sons and Lovers. I actually had to take about 10 minutes to figure out that it reminded me of that melodrama. Because I remembered the plot but forgot which movie it was. Anyway, in that one he's torn between two women but he's a douchey teenager. In this movie, the man is quite actually in love with both women I think. And plus, he doesn't intend to have this happen to him. He's lured away by a seductress harpy. And who better to play such a woman than Elizabeth Taylor? The Academy must have loved her as much as I do because she's popping up just about every year and I am absolutely fine with that. This is believable and the other movie wasn't. Because in the other one his angst didn't come from a believable place. In this one, he's caught between two very different types of society. Shelley Winters plays his blue collar girlfriend and she is also quite beautiful of course. She represents his roots, his childhood, his lineage. Elizabeth Taylor represents the future, excitement, intrigue. Old life vs. New life. There is no correct answer. I think he could have been happy with either woman. But let's get real: there's only one Liz Taylor. BUT Shelley Winters is pregnant and now he has some tough decisions to make. Ordinarily I'd call all of this melodramatic BS...but it works! I think the reason it works in this instance is that each woman represents something very interesting and different. Get ready for a weird-but-applicable reference: Glee. On that show, there's this over-arcing conflict for many of the characters between getting out of Lima, Ohio and staying to raise a family like the umpteenth number of ancestors before them. I would have no qualms with settling down in Lima, Ohio with Dianna Agron. But I'd rather go to New York with Lea Michele. Okay...I'd actually rather settle in Lima with Lea Michele but I hope you see my point. It's a legit conflict! Well, I don't want to spoil the plot but let's just say that the main character's decision-making in this film is a whole lot darker than I was expecting. And that's what made it so good. I cannot believe this movie was actually made in 1951 and that they allowed it to come out. That makes it even better. Entertaining side note: the main actor, Montgomery Clift, was gay in real life and Elizabeth Taylor apparently tried to "turn" him at one point by putting the moves on him a little bit. It didn't work...so I'm thinking that he was pret-tay pret-tay pret-tay gay. When we lost Liz, we lost the world's best Gaydar. She needs replacing and Scarlett Johansson: I'm looking at you.
Next up is an uplifting-ish film that I had mixed feelings about but overall liked: Quo Vadis. The title is in reference to the apocryphal story of Saint Peter fleeing his matrydom and meeting Jesus. He then asks Jesus "Quo Vadis?" or, "Where are you going?" and Jesus says he's going to go get crucified again or something. So Peter goes and gets crucified instead of fleeing, but it's after continuing his ministry of course so it's a happy story (?). This scene actually doesn't happen in the movie (or if it did I missed it), but it does feature St. Peter asking the same question of God during a prayer. So it's kind of interesting because it's still a crisis of faith in that he's wondering what God's plan is but not in that he's an initial unwilling martyr. This is during the time of Nero sacrificing Christians to the lions so I'd probably be asking the same question if I was Peter. The story mainly focuses on a Roman centurion who falls in love with a Christian woman and gradually accepts her faith as his own. Now, would he have had the same religious awakening if it didn't eventually lead to getting into Deborah Kerr's pants? Probably not. But: mysterious ways and all that. The real highlight of the film is Peter Ustinov as Nero. He's such an over-the-top villain but it works so perfectly. Because if anybody at that point in history was a notorious moustache-twirler with no real sympathetic motivation, it was Nero. He's an unrelenting narcissist psycho and all of his servants have a serious case of the "it's real good you done that Anthony"s. Much of this movie is exactly what The Robe should have been. So it's pretty weird that this came out first...since you'd think they'd have improved on the formula instead of making it more terrible. The apostle Paul also shows up and it's interesting because he's portrayed more as a conflicted philosopher with sneaky ties to the Romans than the Odin of all hippies. Which is awesome because the former is how I think of him and the latter is how most people think of him (in slightly different terms). When they got to the major religious parts of the movie, such as the crucifixion of Peter, the film was framed like the various famous paintings that depicted the same events. So it's kind of cool in that it's giving you the story behind the painting but it also takes you out of the movie a bit. The film was also too long at almost 3 hours (!) and it's even worse that about a half an hour of that was focused on the main characters being fed to lions at the end. It takes away from the drama when you draw it out like that. It went on long enough to imply that they might escape...and then they didn't. So I was like: why have I been sitting here for half an hour? But overall: quite a good movie. And I do like a dark and powerful ending, even if it should've come a little sooner.
Now...talk about some dark stuff, well here's A Streetcar Named Desire. Holy. Freaking. Crap. I thought this was going to be some overdone melodrama like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (which was also a Tennessee Williams play). This is an intense and disturbing character drama, also wayyyyyyyyyy out of place in 1951. And the stage play is even darker! Back then, I think I'd have been a theater snob instead of a film snob. Because that's where the edgy stuff was. The story centers on Blanche DuBois (a Southern belle in decline) staying with her sister Stella. And also Stella's husband Stanley, played by the criminally-robbed-of-an-Oscar Marlon Brando. All of the other major players won this year so it was really odd that he lost. My dad says he lost to Bogart due to a classic Academy "honorary Oscar" situation, and Brando won 2 years later anyway so I guess it's all good. Brando is so good that actors doing the role on stage today are encouraged not to watch the film. Because they'll inevitably try to emulate him and obviously fall short. Vivien Leigh is equally brilliant as Blanche, and she tragically ended up being the pre-modern Heath Ledger after this role. She had other parts for years afterward but then she started to lose her mind like Blanche and began to lose track of which events happened to her and which ones happened to the character. Anyway, at first I hated her performance. I thought it was hammy and overdone. Then it hit me. She's a woman who puts on an act for everybody, and the act is wearing thin. The ham is intentional because that's the character's character that she puts on. We see the real Blanche more and more as the film progresses. As it turns out, she's a widow. Her first husband killed himself because "she talked him into it." I read online later that in the play it was very clear that he was gay and she caught him with another man, so he killed himself out of shame. 1951, people. It was apparently understood by many audience members that this was the story, even though it's never explicitly stated in the film. Eventually, her madness takes over and comes to a head when Stanley rapes her. 1951, people. And this was pretty clear. You couldn't really perceive it another way. So he has her sent away to the looney bin and she drops her "kindness of strangers" line in a way that lived up to the hype (for once). The way I saw it, she depends on the kindness of strangers because everyone who knows her wants nothing to do with her. In the movie, Stella tells Stanley to get lost (prompting the famous Stella! Stella! reference) but in the play she stays with him. Wow. I sort of like the movie ending better but the play one is poetic too, in a way. I'd like to say we've evolved beyond some of the situations in this movie but I found the scene that introduces Stanley to be all too familiar. He's drunk and fighting a bunch of dudes and being a general ass when Stella says to Blanche, "isn't he wonderful?" Happens all the time. Hate that mess. So I'm glad she kicked his ass out. I've gone and failed to mention Karl Malden again...the poor guy has the misfortune of starring in great movies next to Brando and George C. Scott (Patton). He got an Oscar for this though, so I guess he won't mind that I forgot about him. Okay, I'm done gushing. Go watch it. Seriously. I see it as a huge turning point for cinema. This should have been the Best Picture, no question.
But instead, with this year's winner we got drivel set to music with An American in Paris. At the beginning of the movie there's a great scene where Gene Kelly nimbly moves around an exceptionally small apartment with grace, style, and humor. It's all downhill from there. There are narrators conversing with other narrators, needless dance sequences, and fluffy songs that go nowhere. Now here we have another case of a love story being entirely based in looks. He is smitten instantly by Leslie Caron when he sees her at a party. She shoots him back with a fairly buck-toothed smile and he remains smitten. And I'm thinking: is this a 30 Rock cutaway or what is this? Is this Peter Griffin saying "remember that time I was smitten by that buck-toothed girl for some reason?" I think Leslie was a beautiful girl and an incredible dancer. If he was smitten with her after seeing her dance, I'd understand. But it's just from looking at her! And he was already on a date with a better-looking woman. For you ladies: would you abandon Brad Pitt because you saw Woody Allen look-alike smiling at you from across the room? I say look-alike because I'd probably abandon Brad Pitt to go say hey to the real Woody Allen, because he's awesome. On top of that, Leslie's character was going out with Gene's character's best friend already. HE BROKE THE BRO CODE FOR SOME BUCK TEETH. Add to that the fact that the whole movie is a fluffy romance with no substance, much like many of the ones I've already derided, and I'm left wondering why it's considered such a classic by some. Others call it one of the most overrated movies of all time and I must agree. We never find out what happens to his friend or the woman he dumped. I thought they'd at least stick them together...but no. So two people's lives were essentially ruined when the loves of their lives left them. And we're supposed to go: "yayyyyyyyyy!" because the one guy who dances is with the girl who dances. That's depressing to me. They probably both killed themselves after the credits. It also holds some kind of record because the entire last 20 minutes or so has no talking and is just a big dance sequence. It is the single most unnecessary thing I've ever seen put to film and I've seen a lot of HBO nudity. The sequence does have a point, he was dreaming about what his life with Leslie might be like, and then she actually appears at the end to kiss him and stuff. If they didn't end up together for real, the end sequence would have still been overdone but at least it would've carried some poignancy. A nice, intimate dance sequence with just the two of them would have been nice. Instead it's the Transformers 2 Egypt shootout of 50s dance sequences. It shifts from location to location for no reason except to give the audience some variety. And it just keeps going. This would be fine if I was at some kind of Big Band/dance recital. There is no reason for it to exist from a film perspective. And it cost like half a million dollars or something crazy. This whole movie would be a perfectly acceptable high school play. Or even an acceptable movie, given the time period. But this won 6 Academy Awards and it took Best Picture from 3 more deserving movies and 1 movie that's so much more deserving that it's actually insulting. I am offended as a film buff on the level of my feelings toward Coppola's 1972 directing snub, Hitchcock's lifetime achievement snubbing, and of course the lack of a Dark Knight nomination. Appalling. But I did my best to remember this as an overall great year.
Well, the 1950s are coming to a close. Sometime in the next decade we'll be back to a 10 nominee structure and that is very daunting. Although starting on Monday I will once again be employed part-time (it only took 15 months!) so I'll probably take more time to watch Oscar nominees. Which makes absolutely no sense. But that's how I do. I don't even have enough of a clue about next year's movies to come up with accurate snarky predictions so I'm just going to guess. So all I might know for now is that it will include an overblown depiction of the mother of humanity, a lost Indiana Jones adventure, and a colloquially very gullible person.
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