“You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” Ah, there it is, the infamous Brando (as Terry Malloy) line delivered in the legendary nasally mumble during a conversation with his on-screen brother Charley. Terry continues by blaming Charley for his current position as self-proclaimed “bum,” accusing his brother of sucking him into the crime life of Johnny Friendly’s mob-like waterfront union. Terry’s alternate life, the one he wished he would have pursued instead of getting caught up with Friendly, would have been to be an elite boxer—an opportunity he sacrificed when he listened to Charley’s guidance and took dives in the ring at Friendly’s bidding so he and his cronies could capitalize on their bets. For Terry, all the talent and drive to be successful at boxing is within him, but he has missed his prime as a boxer and now has nothing useful to do but tag along with Friendly’s crew in order to receive cushy dock work…and tend pigeons on the roof, of course.

Terry and his young sidekick Tommy show Edie the pigeons Terry keeps.

The thing is, Terry isn’t the only character in On The Waterfront to have “missed his calling in life” and be struggling with his destiny because of that. Charley himself, a man far from unintelligent, does not live up to his potential. We can assume that, like Terry after him, Charley was scooped up by Friendly after having been orphaned after their father’s murder and dumped in a children’s home that was anything but nurturing. Friendly fills a void in both Charley’s and Terry’s lives—a father figure of sorts who provides monetarily for them and seemingly gives their lives a purpose, albeit a sinister one. Although Charley seems to be “all in” with Friendly, his iconic conversation with Terry in the taxi reveals the contrary: Charley also possesses guilt about not providing a better role model for his younger brother and for entangling Terry in Friendly’s web of racketeering and murder. In the end (spoiler alert!), Charley’s love for Terry triumphs over his loyalty to Friendly, but it costs him his life. What Charley “coulda been” (perhaps a lawyer representing the impoverished and cheated longshoremen) will never be known because Friendly eliminates him before he can reach his real potential.

Charley and Terry discuss how Terry “coulda been a contender.”

Edie Doyle, Terry’s love interest and the sister of Joey (the young dockworker whom Terry unwittingly lures to his death in the film’s opening scene), also vacillates between hanging around with Terry, a lackey of her brother’s murderers, or returning to the Catholic college where she is studying to become a teacher, a profession which would allow her to escape the turmoil of life on the waterfront. Edie’s father, also a dockworker, has sacrificed and saved for years in the hope of giving Edie a better life. Edie’s love for her brother and her determination to see his murderers come to justice leads her to put her dream of becoming “more respectable” on hold. This, combined with her love for Terry, leads viewers of the film to wonder about Edie’s fate. What happens to Edie after the close of the film? I think she will remain “on the waterfront” to be with Terry, but would that decision relegate her (and him) to a life of poverty and negate any possibility of her fulfilling what was supposed to be her life’s calling, teaching?

Lastly, we are perhaps most shockingly presented with a character whose life does not lead/end where it should in the character of Joey Doyle, Edie’s brother. On the Waterfront’s audience hardly meets Joey before he is hurled off the roof to his death by two of Friendly’s hit men. What we do learn about Joey as the film progresses without him is that Joey was different from most of the men who worked the dockyards. He saw the wrongdoing on the docks and determined to speak up about it. He became a martyr for his cause of reforming the waterfront. Just what someone like Joey could have accomplished had he lived longer is unclear in the film. But as Terry wrestles with his own conscience regarding Joey’s death, his role in it, and the evil conduct that goes on under Friendly’s rule, we get an inkling of what Joey “coulda been.”

For Me Then…

Sometimes in life the way forward isn’t very clear, and one’s “fate” is difficult to determine. What is certain is that doing what is right is always the correct option in moving forward in life. This is something that Terry struggles with in On the Waterfront. He knows what’s right, and he knows the risks in pursuing that right. But he also feels like his correct life path has been diverted by his throwing in his lot with Friendly. Joey is already dead and Terry’s boxing career is over when he experiences his change of heart. Therefore, he continuously asks himself if it would even be worth it to “squeal” on Friendly and co. What good could it do now? But Terry finds a new calling, a different worthwhile path in life. (Spoiler alert!) He goes from a “coulda been” to an “is,” boldly leading the other dockworkers to their task. So it would seem that Terry misread his destiny, not missed it.

“Cheap, lousy, dirty, stinkin’”—one of this week’s film’s most famous lines, but definitely not words to describe On The Waterfront (1954, Columbia). There’s no denying this is a rather dark film—reminds me a tad of The Godfather (but we’ll get to that later). Yet, good struggles against the evil portrayed in the movie and (spoiler alert!) ultimately prevails, which is probably why I like this film. How a story about murder and corruption can seem more pure than a film about soldiers stationed at Pearl Harbor in 1941 is beyond me. Anyhow, On the Waterfront was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including Actor in a Supporting Role for Karl Malden as Father Barry; Actor in a Supporting Role for Lee J. Cobb as Johnny Friendly; Actor in a Supporting Role for Rod Steiger as Charley Malloy; and Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture) for the great Leonard Bernstein, the only score he ever did for a non-musical film. The film won eight Oscars: Best Motion Picture, Cinematography (Black-and-White), Writing (Story and Screenplay), Film Editing, Art Direction (Black-and-White), Directing for Elia Kazan (to go along with his 1947 Oscar for Gentleman’s Agreement), Actress in a Supporting Role for Eva Marie Saint as Edie Doyle (her debut role), and Actor for the incomparable Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy.

Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront

Let’s talk about Marlon Brando a bit since he’s one of the greatest actors of all time. Born to alcoholic parents in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1924, Brando had quite a miserable childhood, not finding success in anything but acting. Oscar-winner Anthony Quinn said once about his Viva Zapata! co-star, “I admire Marlon’s talent, but I don’t envy the pain that created it.” Like his mother (who directed the Omaha Community Playhouse and mentored a young Henry Fonda) and his sisters, Brando felt called to acting and determined to succeed at it, first appearing in the Broadway play I Remember Mama in 1944 at the age of 20. Criticized later in life for transferring his acting talents from the stage to the screen, Brando nevertheless became a household name after his role in the film version of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, also directed by Kazan) in which he played the part of Stanley Kowalski and for which he received the first of his eight Academy Award nominations (Say it with me: “Stelllllllllaaaaaa!”).

While I think of his distinct voice and the legendary lines he delivered onscreen, a lot of people (especially in acting circles) associate Brando with method acting. “The Method” “engendered a close identification of the actor with the character’s emotions…emphasiz[ing] that authenticity in acting is achieved by drawing on inner reality to expose deep emotional experience.” Kazan disagreed that training in this type of acting was what made Brando exceptional and believed that Brando had “ruined two generations of actors, his contemporaries and those who came after him” because they falsely adhered to method acting to imitate Brando while Brando himself, though indeed highly trained, had his own method behind his art—one that involved more than just immersing oneself in a character’s emotions and then spitting them back out on the stage.

Brando with the Oscar he DID accept, the one for On the Waterfront in 1955.

However he did it, Brando was phenomenal. His performance in On the Waterfront is stellar—moody, gentle, perplexed, regretful, courageous. His lines fit him like a favorite old sweatshirt—he may be ad-libbing in some scenes, but every word flows like he really is the tormented Terry Malloy. Of course, overshadowing his brilliance in films like A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront is Brando’s iconic turn as Don Corleone in The Godfather (1972). Honestly, I’m not a huge Godfather fan (I’m sorry!); but Brando is unforgettable in that film. His winning a second Oscar for The Godfather gave rise to a moment the Academy might like to forget, though. A staunch advocate for the rights of Native Americans, Brando skipped the Academy Awards in 1973 and sent Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache woman who was president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee, to not accept the Oscar for him and to pass on a speech he had written to the press. Littlefeather stood on the Oscar stage in Native American garb and explained that Brando would not accept an award, however prestigious, from an industry which so misrepresented Native Americans. She was first booed, then applauded (it’s definitely worth finding this bizarre Oscar moment on YouTube). You can read the full text of Brando’s letter here: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/bestpictures/godfather-ar3.html?mcubz=3. Regardless of his political and social views, Brando firmly holds a place in history as a brilliant actor without whose skill On the Waterfront may have floundered.

Speaking of On the Waterfront…one other kind of interesting item to consider. The film wrestles with the issue of whether or not it is ever right to “rat out” one’s comrades. Terry goes back and forth in his mind for most of the film about which is more ethical: providing information that will lead to the arrest of a killer, or protecting a (corrupt) man who has given him his livelihood and supported him in the past. The thought-provoking idea here is that the director of On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan (whom we talked about a few weeks ago in connection with Gentlemen’s Agreement), had testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and spilled names of other “communists” just two years earlier in 1952. How very bizarre that he would then direct a film which lauds the individual who “squeals” on his guilty friends.

Well, for more thoughts on On the Waterfront and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!

Uncomfortable. That’s how this week’s BP From Here To Eternity makes me feel. To be frank, while I was watching this film, I was counting down the minutes until I did not have to be watching this film. Just not my cup of tea. Really raw and really difficult to swallow. I like heroic war movies, which is not this one.

Anyhow, the film’s final scene did grab my attention more forcefully than the rest of the movie did. So, spoiler alert! At the end of the film, the two main female characters, Karen, the adulterous officer’s wife, and Lorene, a “hostess”/call girl of the New Congress Club, stand together at the railing of a ship heading to the continental United States after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As the two women gaze back at the lovely island of Oahu, it is obvious that they couldn’t be more different socially, but what they do have in common is their reason for leaving: failed romances with men whose first love is the Army. Karen is returning home due to her husband’s forced resignation from the Army for misconduct and her failed romance with her husband’s sergeant, whom she had wanted to marry. Lorene is mourning the death of “Prew,” her sort-of boyfriend.

Both women watch as the leis Karen tosses into the ocean float out to sea. Karen explains to Lorene that if the leis float toward shore, the person who threw them will return to Hawaii. Lorene states flatly that she won’t be coming back because her fiancé was killed “on December 7th.” As Karen expresses her sympathy, Lorene continues: “He was a bomber pilot. He tried to taxi his plane to the edge of the apron. And the Japs made a direct hit on it. Maybe you read about it in the papers? He was awarded the Silver Star. They sent it to his mother. She wrote me she wanted me to have it…they’re very fine people, Southern people. He was named after a general – Robert E. Lee – Prewitt…Isn’t that a silly old name?” Viewers then see that while Lorene is talking, she is tightly holding the mouthpiece of Prew’s bugle, the one he had played at Arlington. The leis float out to sea, and the film ends. This is the part of the film that lingers in my mind.

Prew and his bugle.

A little earlier in the film, Robert E. Lee Prewitt goes AWOL for several days after a knife fight during which he kills the stockade sergeant who murdered his friend Maggio, recuperating from his wounds while hiding out in Lorene’s house. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Prew vows to return to his company—despite their cruelty to him and even though he will probably be punished for his absence. He refuses to listen to Lorene’s desperate pleas for him to stay safe with her, and he also fails to heed the orders of the men of his own company who are patrolling the barracks at night on the lookout for Japanese spies. When Prew doesn’t halt at their command, they shoot him dead. So, here’s the big question: why does Lorene lie to Karen at the end of the film regarding the manner of Prew’s death? This little untruth, for me, suddenly elevates Lorene to the most interesting character in the whole film (not that I’m a fan of lying, but just that it seems so unnecessary to the film’s story and occurs right at the very end). Here’s my theory.

Lorene, a.k.a. Alma. What motivates her lie at the end?

We find out earlier in the film that Lorene had a lengthy relationship with a wealthy young man that ended at the altar—for him and another socially superior young woman. A little later when Lorene refuses to marry Prew, we are told what her goals in life are: “I won’t marry you because I don’t want to be the wife of a soldier…Because nobody’s gonna stop me from my plan. Nobody, nothing. Because I want to be proper…Yes, proper. In another year, I’ll have enough money saved. Then, I’m gonna go back to my hometown in Oregon and I’m gonna build a house for my mother and myself, and join the country club and take up golf. And I’ll meet the proper man with the proper position to make a proper wife who can run a proper home and raise proper children. And I’ll be happy because when you’re proper, you’re safe.” Prew replies that he hopes she can “pull it off.” Lorene still wants what she almost had: respectability, financial security, and social comfort—all of which she is more than willing to sacrifice love for. I think that her lie to Karen at the end of the film is Lorene’s last desperate play to become “proper.” If she returns to the mainland as the former fiancée of a war hero, then any doubts about what other shady activities she may have been involved with in Hawaii disappear, and she becomes an object of sympathy and pity. People will feel sorry for her instead of judge her.

Karen and Sgt. Warden, a relationship not meant to last.

What Lorene does not know is that Karen is aware of Prew’s absence from his unit because of her affair with Sergeant Warden, Prew’s superior, who feels compassion for the mistreated soldier and wants to see him back safely with the company (and later mourns his untimely death). What Karen is thinking after Lorene’s lie is not clear, but perhaps she begins to realize that there could be an underhanded way for her as well to return home not completely disgraced. Perhaps she could also spin a story about the army men she loved and what horrors befell them on that day of “infamy.”

For Me Then…

I struggle with Lorene’s lie because I feel that it really denigrates Prew’s consistency in standing up for what he believes is right. Time and time again, he refuses to join the regimental boxing team because he had accidentally hurt someone he cared for while sparring and he wasn’t about to risk harming another. Even when he is mistreated and abused, Prew carries on with his duties, still professing his love and loyalty for the army: “You love a thing, you gotta be grateful. See, I left home when I was seventeen. Both my folks was dead and I didn’t belong no place, ’till I entered the Army. If it weren’t for the Army, I wouldn’t have learned how to bugle.” Though some other members of the Army try to take Prew’s pride and dignity away, the Army still gives him a part of himself. It reveals his talent and gives him purpose. For Lorene to change Prew’s story in order to give herself a better life is to attempt to cheapen Prew’s life. Maybe we can see this as the deceased Prew enabling Lorene to alter her life for the better; but it seems a selfish move on her part, even though her cherishing Prew’s bugle mouthpiece hints that she does still love him…or does it? We just don’t know enough about her to fully understand her motives, which makes her lie all the more compelling. But the end of From Here to Eternity sure doesn’t give me warm fuzzies. No doubt about it.

Prew refusing to budge under pressure from his superiors.

                                             Gentlemen-Rankers                                               Rudyard Kipling, 1892

TO THE legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
But to-day the Sergeant’s something less than kind.

We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray,
Baa—aa—aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha’ mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!

Oh, it’s sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops,
And it’s sweet to hear the tales the troopers tell,
To dance with blowzy housemaids at the regimental hops
And thrash the cad who says you waltz too well.
Yes, it makes you cock-a-hoop to be “Rider” to your troop,
And branded with a blasted worsted spur,
When you envy, O how keenly, one poor Tommy being cleanly
Who blacks your boots and sometimes calls you “Sir”.

If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,
And all we know most distant and most dear,
Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep,
Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?
When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters
And the horror of our fall is written plain,
Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling,
Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us
And we die, and none can tell Them where we died.

We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray,
Baa—aa—aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha’ mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!

How about a war movie that doesn’t really contain much of the actual war? That’s what this week’s Best Picture winner is like (to my great disappointment). From Here To Eternity (1953, Columbia) is a big Academy Award winner, nearly tying All About Eve’s record for nominations. Falling one short of 1950’s BP, From Here to Eternity received 13 nods, including Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture), Costume Design (Black-and-White), Best Actor for Burt Lancaster as Sgt. Milton Warden, Best Actor for Montgomery Clift as Robert E. Lee Prewitt, and Best Actress for Deborah Kerr as Karen Holmes. The film snagged eight Oscars: Best Motion Picture, Cinematography (Black-and-White), Sound Recording, Writing (Screenplay), Film Editing, Directing for Fred Zinnemann, Actress in a Supporting Role for Donna Reed as Alma/Lorene, and Actor in a Supporting Role for Frank Sinatra as Angelo Maggio (yes, Ol’ Blue Eyes himself!). It was the biggest Academy Award winner since Gone with the Wind and earned a staggering $30.5 million at the box office.

From Here to Eternity’s infamous make-out scene. Probably a lot of sand in those bathing suits…

But despite the film’s critical and monetary successes, I just don’t like it (sorry!). The characters frustrated and angered me. The script bored me at times. I was hoping for the actual events that occurred in Pearl Harbor in 1941 to occupy center stage a little more—rather than just show up for the film’s last 15 minutes or so (although the actual footage of the Pearl Harbor ships on fire was stunning and used very effectively in the movie). On the flip side, it’s interesting to contemplate the fact that 12 years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor From Here to Eternity raises questions about morality and integrity within the ranks of military men who have been consistently hailed as heroes (albeit flawed ones) in films like 1942’s Mrs. Miniver and 1946’s The Best Years of Our Lives.

Based on the explicit and lengthy novel of the same name written by James Jones and published in 1951, From Here to Eternity takes its title from a line in the Rudyard Kipling poem “Gentlemen-Rankers” included at the beginning of this post. It’s a very thought-provoking poem about enlisted soldiers who should have been officers because of their educations and/or social-class backgrounds, but who were not officers due to personal reasons such as demotions in rank or indiscretions committed as civilians. The dark atmosphere of the poem is mirrored in that of the film, which does not shy away from the issues of drunkenness, prostitution, infidelity, mob violence, and abuse of authority. If the film wishes to disturb its viewers and smash the shiny image of World War II heroes that its predecessors worked so hard to establish, it definitely achieves that goal. But I for one will be glad to move on to another film next week.

For more thoughts on From Here to Eternity and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!

Last night I stayed up well past my “bedtime” to witness the outcome of a fabulous game of football. Anyone watch the USC/Texas game yesterday/early this morning? Football should really always be like that—fast, hard-hitting, trick plays, down-to-the-wire kicking, etc. I remember a few years back in 2005 when those same two teams met in the championship game, and Vince Young was unbelievable; and USC was denied a repeat title, which I liked because I usually root for the underdog (unless my Wolverines are playing…). Anyhow, last evening’s game was a delight to watch with freshmen on both sides playing like veterans to give their respective teams a chance at victory. Yet it was the freshman walk-on kicker for USC who hit only his second collegiate field goal attempt to send the game into overtime and who nailed a gorgeous 43-yarder in the second OT to finally win the thing (I was actually cheering for Texas as the lower seed, but you gotta give props where they’re due!). A common comment thrown around last night was that the kid has “ice water in his veins.”

You might be wondering at this point how football fits in with this week’s film, The Greatest Show on Earth. Well, those who know me best understand that I would meld football into every aspect of my life if I could, but the main connection today is the reference to what people’s blood is made of. That just sounded rather disgusting, but stay with me for a sec. USC’s kicker has ice water in his veins, a metaphor for the fact that he performs well in high-stress situations. In our film this week, several characters bring up the idea that it is possible to have “sawdust” in one’s veins if one loves the circus. Holly, the trapeze artist, first accuses her boyfriend Brad, the circus manager, of having the woody substance flowing through his veins after he reneges on his promise to put her act in the center ring after hiring the sensational European aerialist known as The Great Sebastian. Buttons the Clown tries to comfort the disappointed Holly by explaining to her that, while he’s sure Brad loves her, he also knows that Brad’s dedication to the well-being of the circus requires him to sacrifice personal feelings for the good of his show. Throughout the film, Holly then struggles with whether or not Brad truly loves her and whether or not she loves Brad enough to forgive him his preference for the circus over herself. She allows Sebastian to toy with her, woo her, and even propose to her (which she accepts), disregarding the good advice of other women who have formerly been the recipients of Sebastian’s fickle attentions.

Holly enjoying the crowd’s applause under the Big Top.

While I felt that Holly should have been more understanding regarding Brad’s responsibility to produce the best show possible in order to enable the circus to visit all the small towns without being called home early by its owners, I do really sympathize with her when she leaves Brad for Sebastian. The poor girl seems so lonely for love that she is willing to marry a man whose tendencies indicate he will be unfaithful to her instead of staying with the man who really loves her but can’t fully show her he does because his job is always there between them. Plus, Brad doesn’t seem too upset when Holly transfers her affections from him—especially when Angel’s around to serve him coffee and tidy up his trailer.

At the end of the film (spoiler alert!) after the spectacular train disaster and the chaos that ensues, Brad might very well be wrong when he accuses Holly of having sawdust in her veins. As the wild animals escape from their cages and circus members wander around dazed and confused, Holly vaults into action, issuing directions and inventing creative solutions to save the circus when the wounded Brad cannot come to the aid of his performers. Her actions might just stem from the fact that she has finally realized she only loves the man with sawdust in his veins, and so she cares for what he loves and tries to save his show for him. Holly’s love for Brad mimics his love for the circus, leading Brad to see her dedication to the show as equal to his own—and allowing him to realize that they are soulmates who should be together, a fact which Holly realizes as well as she leads a buoyant circus parade through town and victoriously returns to the weakened Brad.

Buttons (who is really a doctor in hiding!) and Holly tend to the wounded Brad after the train crash.

For Me Then…

The Greatest Show on Earth’s toying with the sawdust/blood metaphor reminded me in a way of that scene from the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, The Curse of the Black Pearl, when Jack and Elizabeth are marooned on the deserted island and Jack tries to drunkenly explain the meaning of a ship: “That’s what a ship is, you know. It’s not just a keel and a hull and sails; that’s what a ship needs. But what a ship is, what the Black Pearl really is, is freedom.” I think likewise with the circus. The circus isn’t just clowns and acrobats and trained animals—and sawdust. Those are just the elements that make up a circus. But what a circus is, what The Greatest Show on Earth really was, was another type of freedom, similar to that which Jack Sparrow mentions. The freedom to see the world, to become acquainted with the unfamiliar. The freedom to let go of one’s every-day cares and permit oneself to be amazed at the illusion and the grandeur of the spectacle. The freedom to revel in the intimacy that arises when a mass of humanity enjoys something together. A mini-example of such a thing as the circus occurred in the L.A. Memorial Coliseum last night, and it was glorious.

Step right up, step right up! This week’s Best Picture, The Greatest Show on Earth (1952, Paramount), is part high-flying adventure, part love story, and part disaster film with a little sliver of comedy mixed in. It’s a circus of a film—and it’s spectacular! Directed by Cecil B. DeMille (who wowed a younger me with the parting of the Red Sea in his epic The Ten Commandments), The Greatest Show on Earth was nominated for five Academy Awards (including Film Editing, Costume Design [Color], and Directing) and won two: Best Motion Picture and Writing (Motion Picture Story)—in addition to DeMille being awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. The film features the ever-masculine Charlton Heston (dressed in what appears to be Indiana Jones’s fedora and jacket), the bouncy Betty Hutton (whose voice takes a little getting used to), the always lovable James Stewart (nearly unrecognizable at times in full clown make-up), and a whole plethora of real performers from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Plus, stars like Bing Crosby and Bob Hope make appearances as circus spectators, and who doesn’t love a good cameo!?

Charlton Heston and James Stewart (he’s under all the clown make-up) in The Greatest Show on Earth.

I don’t know about you, but I have some pretty fond and still vivid memories of going to see the circus as a small child. It didn’t roll into town on a train, nor was it held in the Big Top. But I remember not being able to take my eyes off the aerialists dangling from such heights, worrying that the large cats were going to escape their enclosure’s net and eat me, and being slightly traumatized when a woman was impaled on a sword (it was part of the act, and she was fine). Don’t get me wrong—it sounds like my circus experience was horrific, but it was in fact simply wonderful. Magical, even.

P. T. Barnum

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus—who trademarked themselves as “The Greatest Show on Earth,” hence the title of this film about this circus—existed for over 100 years, nearly 150 to be exact. Back in 1841, P. T. Barnum purchased Scudder’s American Museum, an eclectic place located in New York City. Renaming it Barnum’s American Museum, P. T. took his part-zoo, part-museum, part-freak show spectacle on the road in 1871 after the museum itself burned down, later partnering with James A. Bailey and James L. Hutchinson (who got jipped out of having his name as part of the circus’s title).

On the Ringling side of things, 1882 was the year in which five brothers (incidentally with the last name of Ringling) began their vaudeville show in Wisconsin, taking it on the road and adding trained animal acts within a few years. As the two circuses grew in popularity, they agreed to divide the United States between them, so they wouldn’t have to compete for business, the Ringlings based out of Chicago, Barnum in New York (this was a few years after P. T.’s death in 1891). After James Bailey died in 1906, the Ringling Bros. purchased Barnum & Bailey, keeping the two circuses touring separately until combining them as one show in 1919.

Admittedly, the circus wasn’t always glorious. There was a horribly tragic fire in 1944, just a few years before the release of our BP film. Almost 170 people were killed and several hundreds more wounded. And, yes, just within the past few years, there’s been all the controversy regarding animal rights. (Thank you to the documentary Blackfish for ruining all my childhood memories of happy trained captive animals.) Only last year, Ringling announced that it would be retiring its elephant acts and moved the pachyderms to its Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida. The next year—this year, 2017—Ringling gave its very last performance and disbanded its legendary Greatest Show on Earth (check out this page for clips of that final performance: https://www.ringling.com/).

Elephants exultant during a performance of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Let’s be controversial for just a moment. For lack of a better name, let’s just say Dumbo the elephant cannot live in the wild for some reason. He cannot fend for himself; he would just die. Now let’s say some group like the circus takes him in, feeds him, gives him all the medical attention he needs, trains him to do fun things like march in a line of elephants and cradle a person in his trunk. Dumbo loves his new life—he has nourishment, health, stimulation, and the love of millions. Is that animal cruelty? I think not. Is the exodus of the elephants the cause of the circus’s expiration? Quite possibly one of the causes.

I think it is safe to say that the demise of the circus is a commentary on the condition of our times. Decline in circus attendance is noted throughout The Greatest Show on Earth—and this film is from 1952! The circus wallowed on for another 65 years before it closed. But new technology such as the television (entertainment which can be had more cheaply and within one’s own home) was already helping to decrease interest in the circus in the 1950s—as was the film industry. It’s ironic, then, that a movie pays tribute to the waning of the circus. In our own age, yes, there is the controversy about the treatment of animals in captivity. But we also seem to not allow ourselves to be entertained as easily with what is, for the most part, wholesome entertainment. And I for one wish The Greatest Show on Earth had not closed its doors.

For more thoughts on The Greatest Show on Earth and its significance, check out the full post tomorrow!

Here I am on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, distracted by football on one channel and Irma coverage on another, pondering what depth I can pull out of a film which is very nearly one-fourth (or even one-third) dance sequences. Then it comes to me. Perhaps not a brilliant idea, but an idea nonetheless. Reality. Yup, that’s pretty much it. The main thing that irks me about An American In Paris is its lack of reality, which is pretty funny since I enjoy such movies as Mary Poppins, Inception, and The Lord of the Rings—furthermore, I think Lost is the best show to ever run on television (with maybe the exception of its sixth season). But the main reason why I don’t really take to An American in Paris is that it just doesn’t seem real enough to make sense to me.

The film opens with the protagonist, Jerry Mulligan, introducing himself to the film’s viewers: “This is Paris. And I’m an American who lives here. My name, Jerry Mulligan, and I’m an ex-GI. In 1945, when the Army told me to find my own job, I stayed on. And I’ll tell you why. I’m a painter. All my life that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do…Back home, everyone said I didn’t have any talent. They might be saying the same thing over here, but it sounds better in French.” We see where Jerry lives—a cramped-but-charming closet of an apartment in a corner of a very perfectly romantic-looking Paris. From its commencement, then, An American in Paris presents an almost pro-French, anti-American bent. Jerry has performed a great service for his country, serving overseas in World War II, but his government has seemingly abandoned him after the war, instructing him to “find [his] own job” like every ordinary American citizen must. Likewise, Jerry had no artistic talent in America; but in France he is accepted as an artist, and his works are far from poor.

We then meet Jerry’s friend, Adam Cook, an out-of-work concert pianist who reveals that he has just won his eighth scholarship/fellowship to study abroad and feels like “the world’s oldest child prodigy.” Adam is the film’s funniest character (and my favorite), but it is quite clear that Adam doesn’t possess a ton of drive. Most of the time he is on camera, he is either sipping coffee or plunking on his piano—or relishing an elaborate daydream about giving a performance of Gershwin’s “Piano Concerto in F,” in which Adam plays most of the instruments, directs the symphony, and even applauds the piece as a member of the audience. Whereas the American government has failed Jerry, Adam seems to have failed whatever American school or organization keeps awarding him scholarships by not taking advantage of the opportunities given him to make something successful out of his life.

After Adam, we are introduced to the suave Henri Baurel, a music-hall performer who took in and sheltered the daughter of resistance fighters during the Nazi occupation. That little girl, Lise Bouvier, is now grown up and supposedly in love with Henri. The couple is planning on marrying soon, though Henri is old enough to be Lise’s father. What Henri himself was doing during the war is unclear. He doesn’t seem to have been a soldier; so while his care of Lise is admirable, questions arise as to the extent of his support of the Allied cause in World War II.

Adam is disturbed that Henri (left) and Jerry (right) are in love with the same girl without realizing it.

As romance films go, there is of course a love triangle with the characters of Henri, Lise, and Jerry. But there’s another female character in the mix as well, Milo Roberts, the wealthy American heiress who supposedly is interested in promoting Jerry’s career as an artist. Oddly, Milo explains her name by referencing the Venus de Milo, an ancient Greek statue often seen as a portrayal of ideal femininity. I think this comparison makes Milo seem like a fake, a fabricated name for an unreal person. It is also interesting that Milo feels the need to explain the origin of her money, a sun-tan oil company that she or a family member owns. Her joking comment “There’s a lot of red skin in America” again somewhat denigrates Americans. While Jerry and the rest of the GIs in France are living in near-poverty, people back home in America are in need of sun-tan oil for their recreational activities. Not a real “sunny” picture of Americans. But it leaves this viewer wondering why Milo is even in Paris at all.

Which brings us to the issue of how Paris is utterly romanticized throughout the film. It is perfectly beautiful and stirs the characters to heights of love and peace. Even in the film’s final sequence (the ballet and the final scene on the stairs), the city dominates, blooming with colors and flowers from which the characters seem to take life and respond with love for each other as well as for the city, which only saw the end of Nazi control in the late summer of 1944, a short few years before the film’s setting.

The American guy always gets the girl? Lise and Jerry on their first date.

For Me Then…

I want to love this musical. But it just doesn’t do it for me. I understand how the government often fails its citizens and how people lack the motivation to live up to the expectations of others who believe in them—and we viewers are led to feel affection for both Jerry and Adam. (Spoiler alert!) But it is Henri who really deserves our sympathies, isn’t it? He is the one from whom the film demands the sacrifice of his love, Lise, to Jerry and who leaves the story alone, apparently on his way to America to become a star. He is successful in his occupational life, but not his personal life.

Henri even gets jilted in the film’s title. Its main noun is singular (“An American”), whereas the story encompasses the Paris exploits of two American men, one American woman, one French man, and one French woman. What are we to conclude then about the occurrence of an American presence in the capital of France after the world’s greatest war? It seems to me that the film indicates that an American man, cast off by his own country, would learn to integrate himself into the everyday life of France to the extent that he takes French women away from French men, which is okay because that French man was too effeminate enough to participate in any legitimate combat and is therefore satisfied with being single and off to the great land of America, a country which forgets its servicemen and finances losers who happen to be closet comedians. And in the end, the American-failure-turned-artist waltzes away with the young and impressionable French girl. Hopefully, this isn’t reality.

“There is a strange sort of reasoning in Hollywood that musicals are less worthy of Academy consideration than dramas. It’s a form of snobbism, the same sort that perpetuates the idea that drama is more deserving of Awards than comedy.” ~ Gene Kelly

This week’s film is more like what I think of for films coming out of the 1950s—light, colorful, sing-songy. An American In Paris (1951, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won six: Writing (Story and Screenplay), Cinematography (Color), Art Direction (Color), Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture), Costume Design (Color), and Best Motion Picture (it failed to win in the categories of Film Editing and Directing). Gene Kelly, the star of the film, was also awarded an Honorary Oscar “in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.” Kelly, who experienced great success in his career as a dancer, choreographer, and even director (particularly for 1969’s Hello, Dolly! with Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau), was born the son of a phonograph salesman, worked on Broadway, and served in the Navy during World War II. His greatest film credit, though, is probably for his role in the iconic Singin’ in the Rain, which was released the year after An American in Paris and also co-directed by Kelly.

The very flexible Leslie Caron.

Kelly actually discovered his co-star for An American in Paris, Leslie Caron, when he and his first wife attended a performance of the Ballet des Champs-Elysees (of which Caron was a member) in Paris in 1948. While the two did not meet that night, Kelly remembered Caron’s performance a year later during casting for his upcoming musical film. Caron herself would go on to a stellar career as a dancer, singer, and actress, starring in 1958’s Best Picture winner, Gigi, and even capturing a Primetime Emmy in 2007 for her guest appearance on Law and Order: SVU.

Also worth mentioning is the director of An American in Paris, Vincente Minnelli—yes, that Minnelli, the second husband of Judy Garland and the father of Liza Minnelli, one of the few people in the world to have won a Grammy, an Emmy, a Tony, and an Oscar (for 1972’s Cabaret). Vincente Minnelli worked as a costume and set designer before taking up directing. The colorful 17-minute ballet toward the close of An American in Paris is an example of a sort of signature feature of Minnelli’s films as he almost always included some sort of dream sequence in his pictures. Set to music by George Gershwin and choreographed by Gene Kelly, the film’s ballet cost a cool half a million dollars! And I personally found it a little bizarre…

Kelly and Caron during the “ballet” toward the end of the film.

But it’s not so much the ballet sequence or the awards haul that An American in Paris is notable for, as much as it is memorable for its helping to launch a nearly twenty-year era of musical winners like the Academy had never seen before nor since. We’ve looked at a couple of musical-ish BPs with The Broadway Melody (1929) and Going My Way (1944); but while those films undoubtedly deserve their recognition, they are not truly what we refer to as musicals nowadays. An American in Paris fits the bill for a real musical, using song to convey thoughts and replace speaking lines—rather than just inserting songs into the film’s storyline. In the two decades after this film, five other musicals would capture the Academy’s highest honor: Gigi (1958), West Side Story (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), and Oliver! (1968). Since Oliver!, only one musical has won Best Picture, Chicago in 2002—and let’s be honest, that film probably deserves a place on the bottom of the Best Picture rankings. The Two Towers, anyone? I’m still a little bitter about that one…as I am about 2012’s potential legitimate musical Best Picture winner Les Misérables losing out to Argo. But to be fair, 2012 was a doozy of a year for film; and several of the nominated films were worthy of BP. Anyhow, I digress.

If you’re looking for something a little different (and creepy) relating to this week’s film, check out this footage of Vincente Minnelli’s abandoned mansion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9h7TpXzBeI. For more thoughts on An American in Paris and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!

In one of my favorite non-BP films, The Prestige, two young magicians, Borden and Angier, witness the greatest performance they’ve ever seen. It doesn’t take place in the theater, and Angier is skeptical if he is even observing a performance opposed to a way of life. What they are watching is an ancient Oriental magician being helped into a carriage. Borden insists the old man’s “real performance” is not the tricks he performs while on stage, but his constant pretending (every single moment of every day) to be frail and in need of physical assistance. According to Borden, the old man demonstrates “total devotion to his art,” which requires “a lot of self-sacrifice.” He has become what he is portraying in order to ensure the success of his act. We see something very similar in this week’s BP All About Eve.

Like 1940’s Best Picture, Rebecca, All About Eve is very much about identity. Let’s begin with the slithery Eve since the film is all about her. This young, aspiring actress puts on a persona very unlike her actual conniving one in order to get what she wants, sacrificing her own self for fame and praise. Upon first meeting her idol Margo and being asked to relate her life story, Eve shares how, as a child, acting began to take over her life: “It got so I couldn’t tell the real from the unreal. Except that the unreal seemed more real to me.” This quote pretty much sums up Eve’s life as an adult. She is completely unreal, a fake. She no longer even knows her real self because her actual self has been replaced by a sham one, one that manipulates those who can promote her career goals and tramples those who are in her way. Identical to the aging magician in The Prestige, Eve’s performance is constant. She lives her work unceasingly. Contrary to the old man, though, Eve’s routine is only for herself. She is the only human being for whom she has any regard, the only one for whom she considers or cares at all. It really is all about Eve.

Eve receiving the Sarah Siddons Best Actress of the Year award, which she earned through back-stabbing and deception.

But why? What might cause someone to dismiss the rest of humanity in favor of only him/herself? The film does not neglect to address this issue as well. During one conversation Eve has with director/Margo’s boyfriend Bill Simpson, Bill declares that anyone wishing to be a good actor or actress “can’t be ordinary” because so much self-sacrifice is involved in return for “almost always so little.” Eve is slightly taken aback and replies: “So little. So little, did you say? Why, if there’s nothing else, there’s applause. I’ve listened backstage to people applaud. It’s like, like waves of love coming over the footlights and wrapping you up. Imagine to know, every night, that different hundreds of people love you. They smile. Their eyes shine. You’ve pleased them. They want you. You belong. Just that alone is worth anything.” Worth anything? Worth stabbing “friends” in the back and creating an entirely false life? For Eve, yes. But in looking closely at her words here, we can notice that she mentions love twice. To Eve, applause is evidence of love, of belonging to others. In essence then, Eve is searching for love, for something that fills the empty longing of her heart to feel wanted and valued by others. It’s tragic that she has convinced herself that to achieve such love she must discard everyone she uses. As the cold theater critic Addison DeWitt tells Eve, she (and he) possesses “a contempt for humanity, an inability to love and be loved.” What Eve wants she cannot truly have because she cannot demonstrate it herself.

Eve and Margo

Let’s turn to All About Eve’s other main female actress, Margo. Like Eve, Margo struggles with identity; but although Margo is often outwardly more irascible than even Eve, inside she is less confident, more tender and vulnerable. Margo admits she doesn’t know her real self at all. She confides to her friend Karen: “So many people know me. I wish I did. I wish someone would tell me about me.” Karen replies, “You’re Margo, just Margo.” But that is not enough to tell Margo who she really is. Margo continues: “And what is that besides something spelled out in lightbulbs, I mean, besides something called a temperament which consists mostly of swooping about on a broomstick and screaming at the top of my voice. Infants behave the way I do, you know. They carry on and misbehave. They’d get drunk if they knew how, when they can’t have what they want. When they feel unwanted or insecure or unloved.” And there’s that word again: love. Margo seeks love and affirmation just like Eve does—but not exactly how Eve does. While Eve wishes to elevate herself to a platform above all of humanity, Margo just wants to find her place within humanity. Eve wants to be worshiped. Margo wants to belong. Both have attempted/are attempting to use the stage of the theater to reach the kind of love they are seeking, i.e. to use falsity to reach truth. What Margo knows (and what Eve does not yet know) is that all the human praise in the world cannot provide the satisfaction of real love. Just like the acting that occurs on the stage, the love that is supposedly evident in applause is pretend as well.

Ironically, it is Margo’s age and the experience it brings with it that allow her to realize that there is a higher fulfillment than just that found in people’s approval. Yet it is Margo’s age and her fear of becoming irrelevant that lead to her hot-temperedness and ungoverned lifestyle. Other characters in the film frequently call Margo childish, and she herself constantly harps on her age and the fact that she is eight years older than her lover Bill. But her experience with Eve and the change in perspective of observing self-centeredness and how love of praise affects a person allow Margo to relinquish her insecurities about aging and failing to be lovable. After her and Bill’s engagement, she matures quickly, declining the role that Karen’s husband wrote for her in which she was to play a “twenty-something” woman. She declares: “I mean it now…I don’t want to play Cora…It isn’t the part. It’s a great part in a fine play. But not for me anymore. Not for a four-square, upright, downright, forthright married lady…It means I finally got a life to live. I don’t have to play parts I’m too old for, just because I’ve got nothing to do with my nights.” For Margo, the real-life pretending is over. She has found a real purpose, a real love, and a real identity. For Eve, the charade continues.

Is this the real Eve? Probably not.

For Me Then…

I really enjoyed this film, but I find it unfortunate that Margo only realizes her true identity as a married woman—as if she is incomplete until she is married. It makes me wonder if the film is hinting this is Eve’s struggle as well—if she was properly married, she would quit her scheming because she would have more fulfilling pastimes such as housekeeping and pleasing her husband. Along with this idea of women needing men to complete them…All About Eve makes a pretty blatant statement about women in showbusiness being willing to do anything to succeed. The film’s final shot of Phoebe, the “next Eve,” wearing Eve’s cloak and holding Eve’s award while reflected countless times in the mirror implies that there will be an endless succession of desperate, scruple-less pretty faces in the world of entertainment. Are we to take warning not to believe the rags-to-riches tales they will undoubtedly tell us? Do they all need men to set them upon a straight path in this world?

Again, I wish the film would offer us a little more hope than marriage and friendship as a way to find meaning in life, but it still provides plenty of food for thought regarding what is truly important in life and how to achieve that state of contentment. How many young ladies (and young men as well!) feel the pressure to conform to what the world tells them it wants only to find that conformity doesn’t bring the love and acceptance that they so desire?! And this idea extends beyond Broadway and Hollywood. For those of us with more “mundane” lives, there is also the insistence of looking a certain way, possessing certain gadgets, etc., etc. All of us are searching for meaning and fulfillment and not finding it in how we look, things we own, or activities we do. All About Eve might say that we can find our best selves by not seeking fame and by being satisfied with establishing a stronger familial unit, but there is a greater love than even that. We can find it here: John 3:16, and here: I John 4:8, and here: John 15:13, just for starters. Living in this love allows one to be his or her truest self.

Welcome to the 1950s! What better way to kick off this decade than with a big BP winner! All About Eve (1950, 20th Century-Fox) still holds the record for most Academy Award nominations with a whopping 14. It’s tied with a couple of other stellar films (Anyone know them? One is very recent; the other I’d only like to think is not as old as it actually is…). The nominations for All About Eve included a record four for actresses (Best Actress nominees Bette Davis as Margo Channing and Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington, as well as Best Actress in a Supporting Role nominees Celeste Holm as Karen Richards and Thelma Ritter as Birdie)—surprisingly, none of these ladies took home the coveted statuette. The film also received nods in the following categories: Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture), Art Direction (Black-and-White), Film Editing, and Cinematography (Black-and-White); and was victorious in six categories: Best Motion Picture, Sound Recording, Costume Design (Black-and-White), Directing, Writing (Screenplay), and Actor in a Supporting Role for George Sanders as Addison DeWitt.

Amid a plethora of splendid performances, Bette Davis’s is superb in this film. Ironically, at the age of 42, Davis was in a way sharing many of the experiences of her All About Eve character, Margo Channing, beginning to feel that the world had lost interest in her, that she was past her prime, that she was about to be upstaged by younger, fresher actresses—for instance, a fledgling actress by the name of Marilyn Monroe, who plays the small part of the naïve-but-sensual Miss Casswell, who is only just embarking on a hopeful career on the stage. Yet it is Davis who steals the show in All About Eve, delivering what is perhaps her greatest on-screen performance.

Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, and George Sanders in All About Eve.

The story Davis and her co-stars portray in All About Eve is not as original a story as viewers of the film (including myself) usually think. Instead, it is based on real-life events. Back in the early 1940s, a famous Jewish actress from Vienna, Elisabeth Bergner, was performing on Broadway in a play entitled The Two Mrs. Carrolls. When Bergner repeatedly noticed a young woman who stood outside the stage door for every performance, she took pity on her and invited her into her dressing room, eventually hiring her as a secretary/assistant for herself and her husband, writer/director/producer Paul Czinner. The mysterious young woman called herself Ruth Hirsch (but later changed her name to Martina Lawrence).

Elisabeth Bergner in 1935, a few years before she met Ruth Hirsch.

At first, Hirsch’s secretarial relationship to Bergner was a success; however, it wasn’t long before Bergner began to feel that Hirsch possessed sketchy motives with regard to their relationship—such as Hirsch’s desire to hijack Bergner’s role in The Two Mrs. Carrolls (as well as steal her husband!). The breaking point in their relationship came when Hirsch read in Bergner’s place during another actress’s audition for a role in the play. Those present at the reading noted how Hirsch’s performance was an exact copy of Bergner’s. When Bergner walked into the audition and witnessed Hirsch’s usurpation of her role, she was infuriated. To make matters even worse, Bergner soon received a letter praising both her and her secretary’s acting skills and encouraging her to see that Hirsch received more opportunities to act as she was a rising star. Bergner was outraged—and not totally convinced that Hirsch hadn’t written the letter herself! When Hirsch stole the letter from Bergner, their relationship was over; and Hirsch was no longer welcome in Bergner’s life or circle of acquaintances.

The story of the “real Eve” probably would have laid dormant forever if Bergner had not mentioned her entanglement with Hirsch to a friend and fellow Broadway actress Mary Orr during a dinner party. Orr happened to also be a writer; and at the suggestion of her husband, quickly penned a very short story based on Bergner’s experience with Hirsch. The story was called “The Wisdom of Eve” and was published in Cosmopolitan in 1946 (it was this story on which Joseph L. Mankiewicz based his screenplay for the film). Hirsch (by that time, known by her new name of Lawrence) read the story, immediately recognized herself as the inspiration for Eve, and was not pleased with the story, to say the least. Even well into the 1990s, she hassled Orr regarding the story, though it is not clear what result Lawrence was seeking.

Bette Davis as Margo Channing.

To make the whole “real Eve” idea even more odd, in my opinion, is the fact that Bette Davis herself was often accused of patterning her All About Eve performance on the acting style of Tallulah Bankhead. Bankhead was one of many who noted the similarities between herself and Davis’s Margo Channing, but maybe we can say that Bankhead had the last laugh when she played Margo on the radio version of All About Eve later in the 1950s. Speaking of people stealing other people’s acting jobs…when All About Eve was adapted into a Broadway play called Applause in 1970, Anne Baxter, the actress who plays the diabolical Eve in the film, actually replaced Lauren Bacall as Margo, literally acting out the role-stealing she so famously portrayed in the film.

Well, that’s show business, I guess.

For some interesting biographical information on Elisabeth Bergner, check out this link: https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/bergner-elisabeth. To read Mary Orr’s 2006 obituary, go here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/obituaries/06orr.html?mcubz=3. And, for more thoughts on All About Eve and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!