Down the stretch...

...we come.  Almost home.

We're on the first of the last 10 films I'm watching and writing about from the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition).

And I put this one in the last 10 because I love watching it, and I wanted it to be part of the last push.

Film 91

91.  "Citizen Kane" (AFI Rank #1)

If it hasn't been obvious during the course of these essays, I have no formal education in regards to film.  For that matter, I have none for theatre.  I take inspiration, mix it with experience, and rip the fuck off anywhere I can when I do theatre.  If I'm occasionally capable of directing a really good play, or giving a really good performance, it is because of my particular skill set with emotional/intellectual recall.  I also have a pretty good eye, am decidedly myopic in regards to what I want, and I try not to treat people like shit.  All that has served me reasonably well.  And were this essay about me, I could go on and on.  I'm getting off topic.

My point was that there are dozens and dozens of essays, books, opinions, whatever, written about this film by people FAR more educated and often smarter than me.  The AFI ranked it the best that the United States had to offer, and this film is often cited as the greatest ever created, no matter the country.  It's not my favorite film, but it's the best one I've ever seen.  It's high on the list of my favorites, too.  What this one does to me, mostly, is make me appreciate its art.  I find myself gasping out loud, and this past viewing was no exception.  And this, my friends, is as high as this art gets.

Directed by a barely 26 year old Orson Welles, who had capitalized on his fame with the Mercury Theatre to negotiate a full-control contract with RKO Pictures.  Welles got to make the film he wanted to make, and he had full artistic license to do so.  The film wound up as a failure for RKO, losing the film company about $150K, but the contributions of this film to the art of film was invaluable.  Telling the tale of William Randolph Hearst as a slightly fictionalized Charles Foster Kane, this film was beset by a barrage of negative advertising in all of Hearst's papers, along with RKO pulling its support, and limiting its release.  None of that matters. What matters is what happens when the film starts playing.  And what happens then is nothing short of astonishing.

Julie and I watched this together, and she asked me what it was that caused me to gasp and say "wow," etc. as I watched.  Well.  That's a tough question.  Let me attempt to answer it.  I'm blown away right from the start, as Welles slowly pans around the neglected estate of Xanadu, while always, somehow, no matter the angle, keeping one lit window in the same spot in the frame.  It is that attention that just thrills me.  That he chose to end the film with almost an identical shot, only this time, the light is out, and the estate billows smoke as Kane's personal effects are incinerated, is...well.  Come on.  Does it get better than that?

I'll be here all day if I start talking about all the great shots that are present in this film visually.  Let's just say this...I don't think I can recall a film that takes such care with each shot, and everything, and I mean EVERYTHING feels intentional.  There's a scene where the characters of Leland and Bernstein are speaking with each other, as Kane does a dance at a celebration for Kane's triumph over the rival newspaper in town.  Check that scene out.  Every frame includes Kane, reflected in the window, between Leland and Bernstein, a constant presence in the moment.  And despite f-stops and all kinds of other crap...there's Kane in that scene...in perfect focus.  Check out the camera work in this film.  Often characters are FAR away from the subject of the frame, and yet, when Welles wants them to be, they are in perfect focus.  That's pretty heady stuff from a 25 year old kid, whose entire experience was in live theatre and radio.  Camera angles are played with throughout, lighting and shadows are used to amazingly dramatic effect, mirrors are used, montages are used to show the passage of time.  The breakfast scene, and the dissolution of a marriage told at the breakfast table through a passing series of vignettes is genius.  Everything in Kane's life is a grotesque, often way off the charts in terms of scale.  Check out the fireplaces.  Look at the arches in the house.  Everything is HUGE.  These items are meant to tell a story.  

I'm going to comment on just one more thing that you may not have noticed, but I did, and then I'm stopping discussion of the visual, because, again, I'll be here all damned day.  Just before the final shot of the film, as the treasures that Kane has hoarded are panned across, something you may not have caught is that every object that plays a key moment in a scene earlier in the film is shown.  There's Kane's trophy that was presented to him by the staff of the paper, then the headboard from the bed that Kane moved into the newspaper office.  It's meant to show us that nothing the man touched was too small to keep, and NONE of it gave him any pleasure, except as a sort of museum to his own life.  And of course, the sled gets thrown in the fire, which leads to the final shot I described above.  The film, ultimately, asks the question...to what end?   What does it all mean?  Know what the title was supposed to be?  "John Q," or "American."  Little tougher film to stomach when its viewed as a morality play about ALL of us, rather than a scathing lampooning of one specific individual.  And that's what this film is, ultimately.  What drives us?  What gives us pleasure?  What can we live without?  What can't we?  What do our things say about us, and is Kane's perverse manner of holding onto things really just a metaphor for memory?

Dammit.  I can't.  I have to talk more about the visual, and its effect on the story.  Look, it's 2016.  This film is 75 years old.  We have technology that can create worlds that don't exist, and show us things in our world that are too hard to capture visually.  Want a guy to get run over by a car?  CGI!  Yet here is the greatest film ever made, and almost all of it is shot in the camera using either practical effects or miniatures.  The visually stunning political rally?  It's a photograph with holes pricked in it, behind which light was passed, which gives the illusion of movement.   Kane's shoes are shown in several shots, because the fucking camera was dug into the floor.  Why?  Because a shot of the top of his shoes wouldn't feel the same.  Anyway, we have nearly unlimited technology available to us now, and still, we can't achieve this.  Film can't make us feel the way this one does by visual power any longer.  The focus is grandeur, and the details present in those.  Welles was reduced to finding the details in the mundane, because that's what was available.  Amazing.

Acting in this film is tremendous, top to bottom.  Actors often talk on top of each other, while maintaining their focus.  Know what that sounds like?  Real life.  Try having a conversation with someone.  Watch how you don't wait until they're done talking.  Watch how often you interrupt, or they do, or how you express similar ideas at the same time.  Welles grabbed that idea and throttled it in this film.  Especially Kane.  Maybe that was yet another choice, meant to show how little Kane listened, or how much he wanted to be heard.  And again...is that Kane, or is that all of us?  Anyway, this film is played almost entirely by complete rookies from the Mercury Theatre, including Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, and Everett Sloane.  The ensemble work is tremendous, and characters are interesting, deep, and focused.  Like the visual.  Ha!

If one could quibble with something on this film...it's the plot.  I've been pondering this a lot.  It doesn't seem as the plot really goes anywhere.  And the more I think about it, the more I think that, too, is yet another cheeky turn by Welles and co-script writer Herman J. Mankiewicz.  The story being so dissatisfying, if you will, is because the message it is conveying is one of dissatisfaction.  Work with me on this.  It works.

Bernard Herrmann wrote the score, and this, like everyone else involved, was his first film.  That his score is largely unremarkable is no reflection of its greatness.  It is just overshadowed, often literally, by what happens to us visually.   Herrmann is one of Hollywood's treasures, as his career not only included this film, but the score for "Taxi Driver" and "Psycho" as well.  Tell me if you remember the music from either of those.  I'm guessing you do.  If John Williams didn't exist, we'd be talking about Herrmann as the greatest of Hollywood's composers.

You know, I tend to get into directors a lot in these.  I am an idiot.  Gregg Toland is the cinematographer, and he deserves just as much praise as I gave Welles above.  I forget all the time that there is a person responsible for the composition of the photographs we see, and that guy was Toland.  I've short-changed him.  The guy probably did most of the work.  So, I mentioned him.  And now we know he did it.

I'd love to drone on about this film.  I can't, because as soon as I start, I'll never stop.  Here's what I want you to do.  I want you to watch it.  I want you to watch it like an artist.  Don't go into this movie expecting it's going to affect you like "Pretty Woman" does.  It's not even going to get you like "Star Wars" does.  It's going to get you like looking at the Sistine Chapel does.  It's going to get you to think..."Really?  You thought of THAT, too?  DAMN!"  Every brush stroke in this masterpiece only makes sense when all the brush strokes are viewed, yet one could get lost just looking at the brush strokes.
 
Yes.  This film is that great.

Everything you've heard about it is true.  It requires you to think.  It requires you to pay attention.  It requires you to listen.  It's high art, folks, and high art is often lost on the masses.  I'm trusting you, gentle reader, not to be among the masses.

And let me just say this.  I'm not educated about film.  And as I've said countless times, I don't read Ebert's essays until I'm done.  Well.  This uneducated simpleton nailed it.  At least I nailed it as far as Ebert's concerned.  His essay is here.

Never, ever, ever...

...would have watched this film.  And I'd be poorer for it.

Decidedly bloody-kill-deathy in this chapter of writing about watching the entire AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition) in a brief time period.  I never would have imagined I'd love a film like this.  And I did.  I loved this film.

Film 90

90.  "The Wild Bunch" (AFI Rank #79)

I've been staring at the screen wondering how to start this piece.  Do I start by saying that it's the last film in the list that I'd never seen before?  Do I start by saying that before watching this film, my entire knowledge of Sam Peckinpah comes from Monty Python?  Do I start by reiterating that I generally dislike Westerns?  Do I start by talking about William Holden appearing in yet another film in the Top 100?  Do I start by talking about my preference for "male-themed" films?  Wait.  I think I just did all of those.  So clever...I like to think I am.

I watched "The Wild Bunch" the other night, and frankly...I was blown away by how damned good it was.  And that term is applicable.  Blown away.

Saddled (HA!) with a premise that seems so tired:  "one more job, and then I'm done," this film came at me with one hand tied behind its back.  It was at a disadvantage, and I sat in contempt as the film opened.  Then something amazing happened.  This prejudicial take that I'd had on it was shattered within the first five minutes.  What I was watching was a western, complete with all of its clichés, but the film was so much more.  Sam Peckinpah, as I said above, was familiar to me only from the very funny, very graphically bloody "Sam Peckinpah's 'Salad Days'" sketch on "Monty Python's Flying Circus."   You know what?  That sketch is not necessarily that far from the truth, at least as I saw it in this film.  And, Python makes a good caricature of Peckinpah, at least what I saw.  However, there is so much more there, so much depth to be plumbed.

Telling the tale of a group of outlaws who start the film in an ambush, this film sets its tone IMMEDIATELY.   A bloody (and  yes, BLOODY) shootout begins almost from the start between our protagonists and a group of guns hired by the railroad to kill these men who have taken so much.  The leader of the hunters is a former member of the gang, Deke Thornton, the partner of William Holden's Pike Bishop.  He is played with great depth by Robert Ryan, who, while charged with killing his former friends, clearly hates the idea, and is doing so only to avoid jail time.  As the gang is getting ready to leave the site of a train holdup, they are besieged by Thornton's band of criminal bounty hunters, who are firing upon them from various places on various roofs.  Several members of both gangs are killed.  Now, that's fairly standard stuff.  What isn't standard, however, is that the whole gunfight happens in broad daylight, in a NON-deserted  town square, right as a Temperance Union parade is marching down Main Street.  Civilians are killed, both male and female, and children are placed in harm's way.  We are clearly looking at a film where morals are not based on "good and evil," like most Westerns, but a film in which the good guys are clearly as warped as the bad guys.  And that, friends, is interesting as hell to this here viewer.

Eventually, the protagonists get away, and regroup at the compound of a straight-out-of-central-casting old man, complete with cackle and bad teeth.  The members of the gang are Dutch Engstrom (Ernest Borgnine), brothers Lyle and Tector Gorch (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson, respectively), and Angel (Jamie Sanchez).  As they deal with regathering themselves, they go to split up the loot, only to discover that the coins in the bags are just washers.  Old man Sykes (Edmond O'Brien) cackles away, and eventually the men do, also.  This film has a lot of that, by the way.  It has a lot of men laughing wildly.  In fact, I might consider that a bad thing, as the laughter often serves as the button on a scene, and it often feels put upon.  Whatever.  The men decide that they are going to do one last job, and rob a train right along the Mexican/American border.  Eventually, we wind up in Angel's home town, where his girlfriend has been stolen by a drunken buffoon of a general named Mapache (Emilio Fernandez).  Meeting with Mapache, the men decide to take the train, which has a load of guns that the general wants.  For this, they will be paid $10,000.  Angel sees his girlfriend, now a concubine in Mapache's harem, and kills her dead.  Mapache, in spite of the insult, lets him go, but the men have crossed a very powerful man.

Long story short, they rob the train, Angel decides to keep some of the guns himself, he's branded a thief, and Engstrom leaves him in Mapache's clutches.  The rest of the men take their money.  After an attempt to talk with the general, they leave Angel again, as he is being tortured by Mapache.  Finally, at long last, they give each other the "looks like it's a good day to die" look, and they decide to take Angel back by force.  Four against an army.  The final shootout is amazing, and the ending is great.  I'm not giving away more.

Look, to call this film bold would be an understatement.  Its use of squibs to show bullet damage was not new.  Its excessive blood might have been.  Its use of nudity wasn't new, but the way it's used, it is right in your face.  And that's the crux of this film.   It's just always in your face.  It's making you part of whatever happens, good, bad, or otherwise.  The torture scene makes you feel pain.  The gunshots show what happens to mere flesh when hot metal comes in contact with it.  Horses are...well.  If you're an animal lover, you probably want to avoid this film.  I'm not sure any horses were injured, but I'll say this.  A stuntman may know that a bridge is about to collapse under him in an explosion.  A horse doesn't.  In today's CGI, horses can be abused and it's all pixels.  Not so with this film.  Nope, stunts are practical, and horses are a big part of what happens.

Early in the film, there is a scene of a scorpion being placed in an ant hill.  Again, it may not mean a whole lot symbolically, but the image can't be shaken.  Whatever it was that Peckinpah is saying, I'm not 100% sure.  What I am 100% sure about, however, is that he meant to say it.  He may not have always had a plan, as my research suggests, but once he made a decision on how to take a scene, he committed to that decision.

I'm also going to say that the final march of the men into Mapache's compound should be among the 100 film scenes you watch before you die.  It's stirring, gritty stuff.  And from all research I've done, was made up kinda right on the spot.  Camera angles, music, acting, lighting, plot, everything is so well executed in this brief scene.  Really, it should be talked about as one of film's great iconic shots.

Ultimately, this film just makes us ask questions of ourselves.  We find ourselves rooting for truly despicable men, because they are against slightly more despicable men, whether on the side of law, or military, or whatever.  Filmed in 1969, this is a decidedly anti-establishment story/film.  I've little doubt that there is deeper allegory in the entire thing.  No one is worthy of our admiration, no matter what they are doing at the moment, yet we are drawn to them, because we see us in all of them.  At least I do.  I am, as you know, a firm believer in the idea of choice in my villains.  What must it take to make the choice to be a criminal?  What must it take to hunt them?  When do the lines get blurred?  I'm not sure.  Peckinpah wants to be sure that you ask yourself that, though.

Cinematography is breathtaking, at times, as most Westerns are.  Flash "subliminal" images can be found throughout.  Blood is bloody.  Gunshots matter.  Bad guys die.  Good guys die.  Man, this is a tremendous film.  "Bonnie and Clyde" started the trend towards violence having visceral consequences.  This film takes that idea/technique, and perverts it, setting precedents for far more bloody, more visceral experiences.  Put it this way.  "Saving Private Ryan" doesn't have the same Omaha Beach scene without this film.  It's that important.  Oh, and Quentin Tarantino doesn't exist, AT ALL, without Sam Peckinpah.  Period.

Acting is about as good as can be expected.  Holden is fearless, and offers us a complex protagonist.  Early on in the film, we know we're supposed to like this guy.  Yet, when one of his men is wounded in the opening gun battle, it is Bishop who dispatches the man with a bullet to the head.  Lines are drawn, then erased.  Holden shows these depths in all he does.  Borgnine also shows a staggering range, even if he often feels like a good guy, just having a great time.  Check out his face during the train robbery.  It's beautiful, and it's full of depth.  Borgnine may be the sergeant, the rough number 2 who keeps men in line, but there's one moment in that train robbery where we see real mirth in what he does.  It's awesome.  Ben Johnson and Warren Oates are capable enough throughout, but it is their steely resolve for the final scene that really cements the scene.  Tremendous.  Even Edmond O'Brien is great, if caricature.

The other side of the story, of course, is the man hunting the criminals down, and Robert Ryan is brilliant in his portrayal.  Full of melancholy, regret, and resolve, Thornton is chased by demons, which compel him to chase them himself.  In lesser hands, we'd likely dislike Thornton a lot.  He is a turncoat.  However, because of nuance expressed by Ryan, and the relatively delicate treatment of the bombastic film, we get a fully fleshed out character who is intriguing as hell.  Apparently, however, Ryan was a pain in the ass during the film, and if you watch the opening credit sequence, you'll notice that he is billed alongside a photograph of a horse's ass.  I mentioned that this film was in your face, right?  Unfortunate, of course, is the portrayal of the Mexicans, but even films like this need some caricatures.  Mapache is a slimeball, though, and Fernandez does a tremendous job of showing us that.

All right folks, I've now watched them all.  This one right here, I was dubious about in advance.  No longer.  This is a VERY important film, one that I was dead wrong about in advance.  I'm glad that this project makes me watch these films, though.  I've gotten to see a bunch of great ones that I would have otherwise avoided.  I'm telling you to watch this film.  It's that good, and it's that important.
One other thing.  If you're a woman, this film may cause you to grow a penis.  Not that I'd call that a desirable condition, but this film will suck all femininity out of anyone, because there's nary a whiff of it in the film.

Roger Ebert goes so far as to call the film a masterpiece.  I'm inclined to agree with him, and he and I explore similar themes in our critiques.  Ebert had obviously watched it more than once, but I love his essay.  Roger included the film in his series on "Great Movies."  It's here.  I agree.  It's a great movie.

So.  That's it.  I've watched them all.  Up last are the 10 I saved for last, including 2 of the top 3 of all time (according to the list), and a bunch that are just films you watch time and again.  Can't wait.

Almost.  Almost.  Thanks for reading.  It means a hell of a lot.

Hey, look! I read...

...this book!  Of course, that was 32 years ago, and I read the entire thing in a day, because the test was the next day.  As such, I don't remember much about it, except that lots of bad stuff happened to a bunch of people who'd already had a bunch of bad stuff happen to them, and there was something about a turtle.

The turtle didn't make it into this chapter of my quest to watch the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition).

Film 89

89.  "The Grapes Of Wrath" (AFI Rank #23)

I have been more than a little flabbergasted as I've gone through this list and encountered great literature put on film, that the average amount of time between the publication of the novel and the release of the film is usually VERY short.  It seems odd to me that one could make an enduring, great film out of a story that is so fresh.  Several major U.S. novels are included on the list, and at least two of them are considered "all time, required reading" kind of literature.  This is one of them.  As I alluded to above, I was required to read this my sophomore year in high school.  I did, in fact, read all of John Steinbeck's long-ass novel in a day.  I did it by skipping the "intercalary" chapters (all the stuff about the turtle), then coming back and reading those when I had finished with the story of the Joads.  Yes, that was not what Steinbeck intended.  Yes, I got a perfect score on the test the next day, so whatever Steinbeck intended was secondary to that for me.  Anyway, it is mind-boggling to me that such a great film can be whittled out of a novel so quickly.  This film debuted in 1940.  The novel was released not even one year prior.

Guess what, gang?  This is film number 89 on this quest.  As I did blocs of films I hadn't seen/those I had, and as I'm closing out with 10 films I'd seen before this began (and most of the 10 I've seen a LOT of times), that means I have ONE film left on the list that I've not seen in my lifetime, and indeed only one with which I'm not already intimately familiar (there were several films I'd seen before that I didn't remember as well as I thought).  That film?  "The Wild Bunch."  (Pssssssssst.  Since I wrote this paragraph, I watched it.  I've seen them all now, but have to finish this and one other piece.)

I called this film "great" above, and it is.  I'm not sure it's as great as #23 all time, but it's a great film. Directed by John Ford, a staunch conservative, and maker of all manners of westerns, etc., with John Wayne, this film seems to be decidedly in the "wrong" hands.  And yet Ford treats the subject with great care and sympathy.  Stunning vistas appear occasionally, and the visual presentation of the film is decidedly artistic.  Often placing the subjects of focus to the right or left of the screen, Ford uses many wide shots that serve to "weaken" the characters present, and make sure that we see the totality of what is affecting them, rather than just their faces.  The focus of the film is Tom Joad, played with tremendous sincerity by Henry Fonda.  Tom has just been released from prison, where he served 4 years of a 6 year sentence for homicide.  He was in a fight, a guy stabbed him, and Tom killed him.  The film opens with a shot of a crossroads, indeed, the opening scene takes place in parking lot of the "Cross Roads" store.  Ford isn't exactly subtle about this, as our protagonist is most assuredly at a crossroad in his life.  From there, Tom hitchhikes home, a couple of miles up the road in a delivery truck.  When he's dropped off, he runs into the character of Casy (John Carradine), who's "lost the spirit," and no longer preaches.  Striking up conversation with Tom, he joins him on the brief walk to the Joad farm.  Except the farm is abandoned.  There are traces of the Joads there, but the people have gone.  Poking around the house, they stumble upon a character named Muley Bates (John Qualen), hiding in the shadows of the Joad house.  Muley explains that the dust storms have wiped out the crops, the depression has wiped out the money, and that the banks have determined that sharecropping is no longer a viable option, and that they can compress 12 farms into one, and install one caretaker instead of multiple families.  It's a cruel, but economically sound strategy, but leaves families like the Joads out of their homes, with nothing to show for it.

Muley's scene is told in flashback, and is filled with wonderful visuals, like a brief montage showing Caterpillar tractors tearing up the land.  The final visual of the long shadows of his family after the house has been demolished in one quick push is exceptionally haunting.  Tom is told by Muley that the Joads are headed to California, and that they've gathered at his Uncle John's before the trip.  Tom and Casy head to see the Joads, and Tom is welcomed back warmly.  It turns out that he got there just in time, as the family was leaving the next morning.  There is an exceptional scene where Ma Joad (Jane Darwell, in an Oscar winning performance) rummages through her box of a few memorable items.  We see her take a dangling pair of earrings, a luxury item that a farm woman would rarely need, look at herself in the mirror...and...we see just how miserable she is.  Her reflection is not one of pride, nor joy, nor anything else in fond memory of times past with those earrings, it's all remorse.  The following morning, the Joads (all 12 of them) load into the truck, and ask Casy if he wishes to join them.  He readily agrees, and off they head to California, buoyed by a flyer promising good wages, plenty of jobs, a place to live, and a company store right on the farms.

The balance of the film is spent showing just how awful things were for the "Okies" as they were met with prejudice, unscrupulous bosses, and very few opportunities.  Along the way, Grandpa and Grandma both die, one of the sons stays at the border (although he really just disappears) of California, a son-in-law abandons his pregnant wife (Tom's sister).  The Joads do find work, picking peaches, and are given a little hovel to live in.  Wages are just enough to buy food for the family, and no more.  However, the farm is the subject of a workers' strike, and the Joads are breaking that.  A series of events have separated Casy from the family, and Tom sets out one night to find out about the strike.  Turns out Casy is one of the leaders.   As Tom is discussing matters with the leaders of the strike, a group of men approaches, armed with pick handles, and Casy is killed by a deputy.  Tom, in retaliation, kills that man, but is struck on the cheek, leaving an easily identifiable mark.  Tom is no longer safe on the farm (or really anywhere), so the family must leave.  It's pretty awful.


Ford is unflinching in the material that he shows, often taking the "side" of the downtrodden against the establishment.  Rabble-rousers are treated with reverence, and authority figures are generally corrupt. There is one very wonderful, very hopeful sequence which takes place in a Government camp, run as a sort of collective.  Frankly, without this sequence, I'm not certain I could have stayed with the film.  Oh, I'd have gotten through it for the sake of writing this, but it was pretty damned bleak.  I understand man's inhumanity to man.  I think people can be really shitty to each other.  This bright spot helped me, and its inclusion in the film came at just the right time.

It is hard, in the 21st century, with so many of us choosing a side and thinking that the other side is just completely out of its mind, to understand how a film like this might actually make sense coming from such a conservative mind.  I grew up in a Republican household, and while I do not share a lot of those values, never once did I feel that my parents were against the little guy.  They are very charitable people, and acutely aware of injustice.  I think that's what this film is really all about.  It's a tale of survival against the injustices of the powerful.  I can't really think of something more patriotic or "American" than that.

Acting in this film is generally very good.  Jane Darwell's Ma is a wonderful portrayal.  Steadfast, honest, caring, yet looking out for her own first, Ma Joad is a complex character, and Darwell gives a complex performance.  I will admit, however, that there are times when we see "stock worried mother," but she's usually very, very good.  Also of note is John Carradine's Casy.  Wacky when he needs to be, earnest when he needs to be, it's a wonderful performance from start to finish.


I need to say something that I'm not sure I want to say.  I'm not entirely certain that I particularly care for Henry Fonda as an actor.  The timbre of his voice is off-putting (I can hear Norman Thayer in the young man), and he generally sound annoyed whenever he speaks, even if he's not.  Now, I know that Fonda is an iconic film star, but I'm not sure I like him.  Of course, that may change in a film that's coming up soon in this list, but this film...and parts of that one...I feel...well.  I see the naturalness behind his interpretation, at times, but I sense a certain "put on" quality.  It's probably just his voice that annoys me.  Bah.  I feel like I've already ruffled feathers by not liking Cary Grant all that much.  I hope I don't alienate too many people if I impugn Henry Fonda.

I do want to talk about one particularly moving moment in the film.  There is a scene that happens in a campground where the Joads run into a guy who is leaving California and going home to the midwest.  The time in California has cost him his entire family, two children and a wife, all dead from starvation.  Contrasting that with the "hope" of the Okies headed west...it's stirring stuff.

I'm not entirely certain I'd call this a wonderful work of "art," but I'd call it a great film.  I'd call it a story that needed telling, and that story carries a great deal of water for this film.  So, in that sense, it is a great film.  I can understand people who think Fonda is great in this.  I just don't think that.  I may be wrong.

I'm glad I saw this film.  I'm not certain I will watch it again.  Who knows?  Maybe I need to see it again...to "get" it.  It's a great film.  Watch it if you want.  I can think of far worse ways to spend a couple of hours.

Ebert has similar thoughts (although I am in stark disagreement with him about Henry Fonda).  They can be found here.

Down to three...

...films that I've not seen before.  After this is done, it will be two, then onto the final 10.

I'm going to make it through my quest to watch the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition) in a brief period of time.  I've missed my goal of my birthday, which is fine.  I could have made it, but it didn't make sense to watch some of these without partners, and that tends to slow me down.  Somehow, Julie doesn't want to watch a movie EVERY time we see each other.  This is one I watched with a couple of friends.

Film 88

88.  "The French Connection" (AFI Rank #93)

As a goal oriented person, I enjoy little milestones on the way.  This is the last film from the "Bottom 10" films I will be watching, and the first group of 10 films (my first criteria in organizing how I'd watch these) I will have "closed out." I have AFI rank film 50 still to come, but the group of 10 it comes from is 41-50, so it is still in the "40s", technically.  Useless shit my mind enjoys.

I have been honored to have any one of you share in this journey.  Some fun discussions have come out of it, along with watching some movies with people I care about.  Whether it was sitting in a room with me, or watching and sharing through the internet, I've been privileged to feel, throughout this, that I wasn't doing it alone. This time, that was literal.  My friend Geoff said to me a while ago, "When you get to "The French Connection," I want to watch it with you."  Then, my friend Ken said, "Yeah, I want in on that, too."  Some logistics later, we were able to meet last week, enjoy some ribs, gyros, beans, cole slaw, salad, and each other's company.  Oh yeah, and we watched this film.  I didn't take it as seriously, perhaps, as I could have, as I did some "MST3K" style commentary, and paused a couple of times to crack wise, but we watched the film intently, and the conversations during it were valuable to the film as an experience.

Winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1971, along with Best Actor for Gene Hackman, and Best Director for William Friedkin, this film has a weighty reputation as a gritty crime thriller.  It is that.  It is so much more, though, and that's what makes it great.

This film, like so many other great ones I've watched on this journey, just drops us in the middle of the story already unfolding.  Starting in Marseilles, France, and taking a long time to watch a man who gets shot in the face and never appears, except in very brief conversation, again, the first 5 minutes of this film - I said aloud -were part of, "The most French film I've ever seen."  There was a languid pace to the filming, with no explanation of just what the hell was going on.  Then, a guy's face exploded, a baguette was taken, and on we went to Brooklyn.  And the film starts running, and never, ever relents.  The film then plays parallel stories, one in France, one in Brooklyn, until the two finally intertwine in one city.  Brooklyn sets introduce us to Popeye Doyle, played by Gene Hackman, and Sonny Grosso, played by Roy Scheider.  The two are partners in the narcotics division of the New York City Police Department, working undercover to make minor arrests here and there.  While making a routine bust in a bar, Popeye is told by an informant that heroin in the city has dried up completely, and that something big is rumored to be on the way.  That's the set-up.  What we find out, eventually, is that 120 lbs. of pure heroin has come to New York in the rocker panels of a Lincoln, and that the only reason it's not on the streets yet is that the big players involved with purchasing it haven't gotten comfortable enough to pay the $500,000 price tag.  It doesn't hurt when it's revealed that the smack is worth $32 million when it's finally cut with God knows how many impurities, then distributed in smaller batches, until the supply is exhausted.  There are some seriously cool cats in charge of the deal on both sides, the French are the suppliers, the Americans are the buyers.  And two cops are figuring it all out.

While we were watching, we commented on New York City of the 70s.  What a gross, dirty place it was.  I'm sure it still is, but the filth just pours off the screen and into one's lap.  The city itself is as much a character as any human in the film.  We see, in one scene, two sides of life.  We see Doyle, the civil servant, standing outside in the bitter cold, watching as Alain Charlaine (the French kingpin, played by Fernando Rey) enjoys a multi-course meal in an opulent French retaurant.  We see Doyle choking on a slice of pizza.  We then see him disgustedly pour out his coffee, just as Alain and his dining partner are enjoying a cup from a French press.  We can see Doyle in the background of the interior shot.  It's a great scene, and it shows not only the two sides of the characters, but the two sides of New York.  Yes, it can be the city of dreams, but it can also serve a shitty cup of coffee and pizza.  It's a masterful scene.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the infamous car chase sequence.  I did not know, no matter how many times I've seen clips of the absolutely breahtaking car shots, that Popeye Doyle was chasing a train.  Researching the sequence a bit, and discovering that most of it was planned, but some of it wasn't, and some of it wasn't shot with permits, or with street closures...well.  What the hell?  Reckless is the word that comes to mind, for certain.  However, the thrill of that sequence is palpable.  That it is shot entirely without music is another coup-de-grace by the production team.  The music of the motors, squeal of tires, crashing of metal, etc., is all the scene needs, and it's executed brilliantly.  Oh, did I mention that this film won the Oscar for Best Editing also?  Because that is kind of a no-brainer when you watch this sequence.

Another major piece of brilliance happens on the train at another point in the film.  A game of cat and mouse between protagonist and antagonist ends in the bad guy getting the upper hand on Popeye, while never even letting on that he's in on the game, never looking in Doyle's direction.  He's just playing the detective for all he's worth, and he gets his man.  His smarmy wave "good-bye" to Doyle as the detective is left on the platform as the subway pulls away with his quarry on it is used to great effect later in the film, when Doyle has the upper hand.  It's a great moment, and it caps a terrific sequence.

Acting is good to great in this, but like the story itself, tends to take a while to digest.  At one point, I turned to my compatriots and said, "I'm not entirely sure I know what the hell is going on here," and we were at least halfway through the film.  Friedkin doesn't spoon-feed his audience, and relies on their ability, by film's end, to have put the pieces together.  This is a common practice in these films, and the acting on display reflects this.  Hackman is great as Doyle, part psychotic, part hero, part...psychotic. He's a man of depth, but that depth is only hinted at at times.  His porkpie hat, however, has become an iconic prop from a great film.  I will say one thing, the last moment that we see Popeye's face is chilling.  Simply chilling.

Roy Scheider plays Popeye's partner, and he is all his Roy Scheider best.  Part cool, part just tired, Scheider shows us the chops that he will put to much greater use in a film about a shark that is coming up for review soon.  We see a real connection between Doyle and Grosso, and it usually the "lesser" role that has to make that connection feel real.  Scheider is superb.  I should also mention Fernando Rey in this.  He's just dynamite as the French smuggler.  There is one other person that deserves recognition.  The real-life Popeye Doyle, a man named Eddie Egan, plays a role as the head of Doyle and Grosso's department.  He doesn't feel like a guy thrust into a film.  He feels like an actor playing a role, and playing it well.

There is a lot to digest in this film, and you need to keep your mind sharp as it progresses.  There are scenes of graphic violence that don't need to be there, but somehow make the film richer.  There are scenes that are brief that have great significance.  Time passes without us being aware of it.  Yet, if we stop and watch, there it is.  It's a film meant to be taken as a whole, rather than as a sum of its parts, and I loved that.  One thing about the ending, though.  It is fun, as the screen shows what happened to those that survive the ending, to note that the people who receive the most punishment at the end of the story are the police officers and the man who is used as a front for the whole thing.  Everyone else, for the most part, gets away with it.  That's a moral mindfuck that we have to love.  Once upon a time in Hollywood, stories weren't allowed to end with the bad guys winning.  This film, and films like this, made in the great era of the 60s and the 70s, threw that aside and said, "sometimes, sometimes, it's more interesting if the bad guys win."  That is most precisely the case with this film.

After it was over, we discussed it, and I asked my friends why they felt compelled to be there when I watched it.  Geoff mentioned the grittiness, and the very real filthy feeling that the film conveys, and that he just loves that.  Ken mentioned the final shot of the film, and how it feels like someone slammed a door in your face.  Interestingly, that gets used literally rather than figuratively in "The Godfather," the following year.  It was great fun to get to share the viewing of this film with these men, and I don't know if I'd have enjoyed it as much without them there.  I did enjoy the film a LOT, though.  It's a great one.

Ebert's take on this film is here.  It says 1971, but it references "Raiders Of The Lost Ark," so this was obviously written later.  Anyway, Ebert and I are on similar trajectories.  

I just wish...

...that this film had some wildly quotable section.  I'd really like it if that quote was misquoted all the time, also.  What?  COOL.

A film that I loved...LOVED...on my first viewing on this stop on the list of the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition).

Film 87

87. "The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre" (AFI Rank #38)

The last blogpost I did I confessed to certain prejudices.  Welp.  Guilty.  Again.  I will say that in this case, it's about the poster.  It shows Bogart in his typical Sam Spade style hat, and I always assumed it was a film along the lines of "The Maltese Falcon."   Until I actually WATCHED "The Maltese Falcon," of course, that movie had always bored me.  Why would I sign up for the same thing with this one?  I'm an idiot.

It is inconceivable to me, now that I've seen this film, that I haven't seen it before.  It is everything that I love in a movie/story.  It has grandeur, it has small moments, it has strong moral leanings, it has weak moral leanings, it has good guys choosing to be bad guys, it has good guys choosing to be better guys.  I'm decidedly, and unabashedly, a lover of "male-oriented" stories.  That doesn't mean I like "Men's Movies" - which are usually associated with gunshots and explosions, etc.  No, what I love, deeply, are stories in which men are pitted against each other by wits, or by rivalry, or whatever.  I don't need them to blow shit up, but I do need them to explode each other's intellects.  I could probably write a whole essay on why so many of the films in the Top 100 are dude films (the last 13 I have left are almost exclusively dude films), but I'm not going to.  Whatever.  I ain't alone in my thinking, methinks.

This film was directed by John Huston, marking his third appearance on the list.  His efforts in the list include the aforementioned "The Maltese Falcon," and "The African Queen."  Here.  I'm going to make another confession.  I like "The African Queen" better now that I've seen THIS movie.  That's irrelevant, but it speaks to the genius of this film.  Adapted from a book by a recluse named B. Traven (who, according to several sources, hung out on the set pretending to be a representative of the author's - but no one knew what Traven looked like), John Huston wrote the screenplay for this one, as well as directing it.  This piece of art, I submit, was Huston's great masterpiece.  Yes, "The Maltese Falcon" is the more populist choice, but that film doesn't pack the emotional punch that this one does.  Why this one?  Well...let's get into that...

This film's premise is simple enough:  3 American strangers brought together by a series of circumstances in Tampico, Mexico, head off to the hills to find their fortune in gold.  They do, actually, find it.  They find a LOT of it.  They pull $105,000 worth of gold from the hills..when gold was worth $20 an ounce.  For those of you keeping score, that's 328 pounds.  Today the market for gold is $1260/oz.  That means their take, in modern terms, is $6,615,000.  That's a LOT of gold, and a LOT of money.  What they also find is a whole lot of trouble that comes along with that, including gluttony, envy, greed, sloth, pride, wrath, and a tinge of lust.  Well.  That doesn't sound so simple any more.  And it's not.  This film is a remarkable morality tale, set in a rather mundane adventure tale.  Yes, there are bandits.  Yes, there are guns fired.  Yes, guns result in deaths.  What we are presented with, however, is how man treats his fellow man, especially as man feels threatened.  It's stirring stuff.

I don't often get into the writing on these reviews, but this time I'm going to touch on it, if briefly.  Written by John Huston, this script takes its time to make some specific character choices which have to matter.  Early in the film, Fred Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) is panhandling.  He is able to convince an American in a white suit (played by Huston) to give him a total of 4 pesos.  The first he uses to get a meal...and a lottery ticket.  The second he uses to get a haircut and a shave...and the third and fourth...well.  We don't really see the results of those (unless I'm not remembering correctly), but the first two are key.  It must be a different kind of man who cashes in everything and moves to Mexico to seek his fortune.  That kind of man must be a gambler, through and through.  That we see Dobbs use the little bit of money he has to pamper himself...well.  I think there's a statement there, and it's made in the writing.  Later, that lottery ticket pays off, and Dobbs comes into probably enough money to get home...and get out of a very unwelcoming Mexico.  Instead of doing that, he takes his winnings and invests it into the tools needed to set up a gold prospecting adventure with fellow Americans Howard (Walter Huston), a grizzled prospector who's made and lost fortunes, and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), a man he met while working for a sleazy American named McCormick.  What we get through these moments, so well written, is a real sense of the kind of men we're dealing with.  Howard just wants another adventure, and maybe enough gold to never worry about money again.  Curtin wants a way home.  Dobbs wants to be rich.  Really rich.  He wants to spend every dime on the finest things life has to offer.  All of this is carefully written using a real economy of language/storytelling.  It's great.

Direction in this film, if it is defined by techincal prowess combined with an attention to small details that build relationships between actors, could not be better.  It is little wonder that John Huston took home the Oscar for Best Director, even if the film did not win for Best Picture.  We get stunning vistas.  We get a shadowy fight scene.  We get moments of pure genius from the actors, who show us things that a director must have seen.  Late in the film we find Dobbs, dying of thirst, and within sight of his goal with $105,000 worth of gold that he's keeping for himself (you'll have to watch it to see why), stopping to plunge his head into a muddy puddle, gulping water like a fiend.  Tell me a chill doesn't go up your spine when you see the oft-quoted bandit, and man they call "Gold Hat," standing there in the reflection of the water.  Bogart's acting in that moment is so good you can almost touch it.  All that we've built with this character is now gone.  He's helpless, and he knows.  We know it.  The bandits know it.  It's a tremendous scene.  It's the kind of thing that a director builds.

Beyond that, it could get really old that Dobbs is always paranoid, or that Curtin is always "good," or that Howard is just loony enough not to give a shit about anything.  Except Huston takes the time to make sure that each man in this film is all of those things.  We see the dominant characteristics of each one of them meld into the other two as well.  Howard gets paranoid.  Curtin gets loony, and Dobbs gets "good."  It's great stuff.  As the film progresses, we see the ravages of time and wealth, and the toll they take on the men.  We see them ready to kill a fellow American who happens upon their mine.  I want to relate a personal story.  I was in college, and I was blown out of my mind one night on whatever the hell mind-altering substance I took, mushrooms maybe?  Anyway, I was not on mood-altering drugs, I was on mind-altering drugs.  We went to a reservoir to party, and it was raining a little.  It was kind of a miserable night, weather-wise, and mood-wise.  I'd been struggling with a lot, and I was in a bad, bad place.  Should NOT have taken hallucinogens that night.  After we'd been out there a while in this barely rain, some other friends showed up.  I looked at them.  They were dry.  I looked at us.  We were soaked to the bone, and hadn't realized it.  I freaked out about how out of touch with reality I was in that moment and how I just wanted to be dry.  Something about this scene with the nice American showing up feels a lot like that moment.  We see these guys' sins exposed because they realize what they've become.  Eventually, they make a horrific decision, perhaps to deal with that feeling.  Whatever.  Later, we see their reaction to him being killed by the bandits, and it's quite different to what they felt before.  We see the seven deadly sins overtake each man, in one way or another.  We also see the passage of time.  Even if the wealth wasn't there, there is no doubt that 11 months living in the hills with two other men takes a toll on a person.  That aspect is perhaps glossed over, but Huston doesn't spare it, if he just dabs it into the painting he's making.

Also of note should be the use of the bandits throughout the film.  When we first meet them, there are a couple dozen of them.  The next time, maybe 9, maybe 12.  The next time...there's three.  As time goes on, something happens to these men as well.  Some of them are killed by our protagonists, some likely are killed by Federales, some likely moved on.  In any case, their lessening stature throughout the film is a mirror to the lessening of the three men we spend the film with.  Yes, they seem inconsequential.  I don't think it's an accident that we see their ravishment.  Oh, yeah, and the "stinkin' badges" thing is cinematic gold.

I've not seen Bogart do better work.  Dobbs is a great role for him.  He gets to be a tough guy, sure, but Bogart also gets to play defeated.  He gets to play paranoid.  He gets to play exhausted.  He gets to play...well.  He gets to play.  It's a man's man role, and Bogart was a man's man.  Tim Holt is the glue that holds the picture together.  Playing with iconic Bogart and with the performance that Walter Huston turns in (more in a moment), it would be easy for Holt to be run over in this.  It is his Curtin, however, that grounds the piece, that makes the risks taken by the icon and the old man make sense.  If Holt had been a lesser actor, the other two would have been diminished in return.  That Holt consistently stands up in the scenes he is in is a tribute to his skill with this role.  He never became a major star, but this film is an example of how a "never became a major star" actor can absolutely lend greatness to a piece of art.  I'm gushing.  I loved Holt.

As much as I loved Bogart and Holt, the acting shown by Walter Huston in this...is otherworldly.  Goofy as fuck on occasion, this role shows a wide range of emotions, and Huston is more than up to the task.  The quiet moments of regret, of sentiment, of heroic vision, of...wisdom...are amazing.  You can almost feel the emotion run up your back that he expresses at times.  Huston won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this film.  It was...well...it was deserved, to say the least.  Like other films I've watched in this quest, the old man with a heart of gold is an iconic archetype, and Huston absolutely relishes it.

I can't say too much more without giving away more of the film than I'd like.  I did that for "Double Indemnity," I'm not going to do it here.  Here's the skinny.  This is a great film, likely worth being ranked higher on the list than it is.  I'd likely place it in the top 20, if I was making the list with these 100 films.  It's that good.  Maybe I'll do that when I'm done.  In fact, I will.  I'll go through and list my Top 100, in order, using just these 100 films.   Sounds like a fun project that would likely only take a few minutes.  Yeah.  I'm gonna do it.  No matter if I get to that or not, I got to this film, and I consider it one of the greatest of the greats.  It's tremendous filmmaking, top to bottom, and I'm glad I got to see it.  I look forward to the next time I get to watch it.

One other thing:  There were two moments lifted from this film in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."  They are the shooting of a gila monster and the use of a brand to identify bandits.  In fact, the scene in "...Sundance..." is almost a frame for frame lift of this one.  It shows a little kid, and the camera angles, everything are identical to this one when the kid reports finding the brand on some burros.  It's quite the homage, if subtle.  It's there, though.  I caught it.

Ebert's take on this film is here.  He gushes about Bogart, rightly so.  He also gives away a LOT of the ending.  So, if you read that, I'm telling you that you are going to know how this film ends.  He does, however, talk about John Huston's love of male camaraderie.  I got that, too.

Noir...

...is a delightful word.  Noir.  Say it again.  It's a great word.  It's not "ours," of course, but damn, that's a great word.

Oddly, that word appears to have major significance on this latest journey into the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition).  We're onto the last bloc of 5 films on the list that I'd not seen before.  After that, I'm watching the 10 I saved for last.  Want to see the latest chart?  It's here.  I've watched 2 others since I watched this one, so I'm down to 2, but I'm not admitting that in writing.  Wait.  Shit.

Film 86

86.  "Double Indemnity" (AFI Rank #29)

It is going to be impossible for me to write this up without talking about the ending, or MAJOR plot points that give away the ending.  As such, if you haven't seen it, and you want to see this movie without any knowledge of what might happen, I'd advise skipping this.  Come back after you've seen it.  I'm serious.  Go on.  This will be here when you return.

Know what's great about this project?  Getting to see movies that "on the cover" don't look as if they'd appeal to me.  I've long had a prejudice against old films.  The patter, the music, the acting that wasn't quite gritty, the stories that had to end happy, or "right," with the right people being punished.  All that stuff rubbed me wrong.  It has been a privilege to get to watch a bunch of movies I'd have otherwise dismissed. This film, folks, is one of them.

My DVR is stuffed with brilliant films, recorded from TCM, or Retroplex, or HBO, or whatever.  The ones from TCM usually include the commentary by Ben Mankiewicz or Robert Osborne before or after the film. Mankiewicz did this one.  During his introduction, he called this film the "definitive" film noir.  I'm not sure about that.  Then again, having seen it, and fallen in love with it immediately, I'm not sure he's wrong.

Told as "confessional" into a wax cylinder dictaphone, this film tells us the story of Walter Neff, insurance salesman, who meets and falls for the wrong woman, a Mrs. Phyllis Dietrichson.  He then sells her unwitting husband an accident insurance policy worth $100,000, kills him, then watches his perfectly concocted, never-get-caught scheme unravel.  He winds up shooting the femme fatale (twice - just to make sure), takes an eventually fatal shot from her himself, then goes to his office to confess his story to the guy who figured him out, Insurance Claims Agent Extraordinaire (and Neff's best friend), Barton Keyes.  That's the story.

That story is kinda blandish/formulaic.  What isn't bland about this film, however, is the writing.  Breakneck pacing in speech, combined with innuendo-laden witty repartee are really what make this thing sizzle.  Here's an example (and as I was watching it, I hoped I'd be able to find this whole exchange):

Phyllis: Mr. Neff, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening about eight-thirty. He'll be in then.
Walter Neff: Who?
Phyllis: My husband. You were anxious to talk to him weren't you?
Walter Neff: Yeah, I was, but I'm sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean.
Phyllis: There's a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff. Forty-five miles an hour.
Walter Neff: How fast was I going, officer?
Phyllis: I'd say around ninety.
Walter Neff: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.
Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.
Walter Neff: Suppose it doesn't take.
Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.
Walter Neff: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.
Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder.
Walter Neff: That tears it.

That exchange, taken from Neff's first encounter with Phyllis Dietrichson BRISTLES with sexual energy, flirtation, seduction, you name it.  It's terribly engaging.  This film was written (among others) and directed by Billy Wilder.  Wilder, as you may or may not know, has 4 films in the AFI Top 100, tying him with Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick for second most.  Spielberg is first with 5.  Just for a minute, I'm going to let you think about that.  1 out of every 6 of the "Greatest" American films were made by one of those 4 men. Throw in Charlie Chaplin (or Francis Ford Coppola, or John Huston, or Martin Scorsese), and it's 1 out of every 5 -  by 5 men.  That's crazy.  And not.  Wilder was a genius.  Here's a further confession.  I had, before I started this in 2014, only seen his film "Irma La Douce," and that was when I was much younger. It is also funny to think that one of his two Best Picture winners, "The Lost Weekend," isn't on this list.  Wilder, as I said, wasn't the only credited writer.  Raymond Chandler is also credited as a writer.  I don't know his work well enough to comment on him.  This work, however, is tremendous.  

I've rambled a bit about Wilder above.  It is hard to imagine that the same guy who understood comedy SO well ("The Apartment," "Some Like It Hot") also directed this film and "Sunset Blvd."  This film, as I talked about above, is a noir.  The protagonist is constantly on screen, and the entire film flows through him.  Beyond that, the shadows, the use of light, etc. to create mood...amazing.  Simply amazing.  I'm trying to include as many photos as possible that show the use of light in this.  The first photo is most indicative of what was being created.  Look through the window.  It's a sunny Los Angeles day outside. Inside?  It's dark, dusty, hidden.  The filmmakers added dust to the air to achieve "sunbeam" effects, but also to show that behind any closed door could be something rotting.  Like the marriage between Phyllis and Mr. Dietrichson.  The cinematography in this is breathtaking.  Truly.  Which is odd, as it is mostly interiors.

Acting.  Edward G. Robinson plays the smallest role of our leads, Barton Keyes.  Robinson hardly

possesses a deep, rich tool box of emotions available to him at a moment's notice.  However, in this film, in this role, he's perfect.  I'll address a little of his character below, but I liked him in this.  A lot.  I tend to be a sucker for guys bound by logic, though.  Plus, as Neff says, Robinson actually makes us believe he's got a heart as big as a house.  The exchange at the end of the film, as Neff collapses in the doorway, dying of his gunshot wound, and his friend Keyes comes to him, helping him light his blood-soaked cigarette is stirring:  

Walter Neff: Know why you couldn't figure this one, Keyes? I'll tell ya. 'Cause the guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from ya.
Barton Keyes: Closer than that, Walter.
Walter Neff: I love you, too.

Barbara Stanwyck plays our succubus, our black widow, our femme fatale, whatever you want to call her.  Dripping sex appeal from the moment we first see her, as she's just come from the pool and is obviously naked except a towel, Phyllis draws us (through Neff) in immediately.  Played with just the right amount of ambition combined with steely-eyed cool, we want Phyllis, while being repelled by her.  I do think it is humorous that the tools that are supposed to show her "looseness" are an anklet and a wig, given today's mores, but hey, it worked in 1944.  There isn't, by the end, a whole lot to like about Phyllis.  We are told that she killed Dietrichson's first wife, then married him.  When she is shot and killed at the end, we kinda think she got what was coming to her.  That she wound up killing Neff as well...well.  That's gravy.  

Fred MacMurray, who was an incredibly likable actor, takes on the role of murderer in this, and plays it with great aplomb.  A great deal of the feelings that we get about the people we watch in this film are formulated through Neff's dying ramblings into the dictaphone.  It takes a lot of skill to do narration well.  When you toss  in the lines that Neff speaks in these moments, which are so exquisite, into the pressure he faces as an actor, you really appreciate the performance.  We have to feel like Neff got taken on a ride, for sure.  However, did he?  He's kinda the one that got the ball rolling on the whole thing in the first place.  And he's the prick who planned it all.  It's a balancing act that a lot of great actors have failed to achieve - playing a character who CHOOSES to be evil.  Oft-times we are left with an archetype.  Thinking actors make us understand why the character chose his/her path.  MacMurray does that, in spades, in this. It's a remarkable performance, and given my prejudices about acting in this era, I'm ashamed that I got it so wrong.  So wrong.  Look how accessible Neff is early on in the film, how jocular, how friendly.  Watch that strip away as the film goes on...and watch him recapture it when he realizes it's over for him.  It's a whirlwind, subtle performance.  Have I mentioned how great it is?  Good. 

I have to quibble about just a couple of things.  The first is that I cannot believe that an Insurance Claims Manager is the greatest detective on the planet.  That's kinda what's portrayed her in Keyes.  It's funny that this guy coaxes confessions out of people, then we never see the police.  That's funny to me.  The other quibble has to do with the confession.  I can forgive it if I believe that Neff knows he's dead.  Otherwise, except that he wants to make sure Keyes knows what happened, I can't believe he just wouldn't go to Keyes' house and do it all in person.  Maybe the impersonal separates him from his dear friend.  I don't know.  I just know that the entire premise of the film is dependent on this confession, and it doesn't feel like it would ACTUALLY happen.  I'll forgive it, though, as it makes for terrific storytelling.

This was the last of the Billy Wilder films I got to watch in this journey.  I think, if anything, I've learned that not all great film directors got their start sometime in the late 60s or 70s.  There were master craftsmen making amazing films long before Hollywood finally got sophisticated enough to trust the audience to see life's ugliness in gritty realistic terms.  Wilder had the advantage of having to be clever.  And the man was.  He really was. Of the 4 films he placed in the list, 3 of them were in the top 30.  That's a testament to the man's greatness. Watch his films.  That's the best testament I can give.


If you've seen this film, you know how great it is.  If you haven't, and I've just ruined the ending, I suggest you watch it anyway, as it's a great, great piece of art.

Ebert's take is here. Ebert has the advantage of multiple viewings.  I don't.  I do like his questioning why the criminals even commit their crimes. That's heady stuff.  I look forward to examining that angle next time I watch the film.