August 29, 2023 • 5:58 pm 0
I’d never properly registered that M*A*S*H came out the same year as Kelly’s Heroes. That was a pretty good year for comedic and critical treatments of war, though obviously M*A*S*H is a much more serious film, while also being much funnier, and extremely more foul-mouthed than Kelly’s Heroes. And both feature Donald Sutherland. How sweet is that! As it’s Eliot Gould’s birthday today, going to try to rewatch M*A*S*H tonight, for maybe the… 20th time? who even knows at this point.
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August 29, 2023 • 12:50 pm 0
Kelly’s Heroes (1970)
Directed by Brian G. Hutton
Cast includes Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Don Rickles, Carroll O’Connor
Kelly’s Heroes is a marvel of a movie. It’s one of those WWII all star cast movies—like A Bridge Too Far or Battle of the Bulge—with Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Carroll O’Connor and Donald Sutherland. It’s also one of the WWII caper movies, like The Dirty Dozen or—the absolute best of all this (sub)genre—Where Eagles Dare (1968), also starring Clint Eastwood. It’s a caper/heist movie, of which a number—and some of the best—were made around this period, including The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), The Italian Job (1969), The Hot Rock (1972), and The Sting (1973). As a caper/heist movie, in terms of its cast and its overall tone, it probably mostly closely resembles Ocean’s 11 (1960) and The Hot Rock.
(Caper/heist movies have enjoyed a bit of a surge in popularity in recent years, particularly since 2016. It’s interesting that so many of the best have been remade – from Ocean’s 11 to The Italian Job – and that these remakes are amongst the best made in the 21st Century. But one has to wonder why they didn’t just… rerelease the originals.)
And it is also a Vietnam War movie, a fact which seems to have eluded some critics at the time of its release, as well as some commentators since then, who note the weird anachronistic elements such as Oddball’s (played by Sutherland) clearly hippie nature either without any real thought as to what they might mean, or without fully groking the implications and exploring the impact. The frequent massive major bombardments and explosions were complained of by some critics at the time of the release, again seemingly without any consideration of their role in the film. Unnecessary perhaps in a caper film, sure, and often having no significant or apparent role in the plot per se. But as elements of a Vietnam War movie, all those chaotic, often misdirected bombardments can be seen as clearly serving a role. The chaos, confusion and mindless brutality of war, with humans just scurrying around within it. Very different from the heroic infantry soldier scenes or the Battle of Britain dogfights so popular in more positive depictions of war.
In 1970, the Vietnam War was still very much in progress, and considered as part of the (sub)genre of films critical of that war, Kelly’s Heroes would have to be one of the first, significantly predating films like The Deer Hunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979), though obviously the critique here is indirect, and more at the level of “vibe.” Watching Kelly’s Heroes, it’s hard not to think of it as having been an influence on Apocalypse Now, with people going off mission, going behind enemy lines, caper elements, the band of misfits (including the very young Laurence Fishburne), etc. Oddball has speakers attached to his tank—“We got a loudspeaker here and when we go into battle we play music, very loud. It kind of calms us down.”—and it’s impossible not to think of the “Ride of the Valkyries” scene in Apocalypse Now, hearing that now.
The pointlessness of war, the disaffection of common soldiers, the corruption and incompetence of officers, the waste of lives, prostitutes and substance use, dissolution and rebellion. It’s all there in Kelly’s Heroes—all that’s missing are some officers getting fragged and heroin. Oddball does remark at one point that he hates officers; Crapgame (Rickels) reassures him by noting that Kelly does, too. And the reason for that is Kelly, then an officer himself (a lieutenant), was ordered by his command to attack the wrong hill and ended up killing a bunch of American soldiers. Which is so a Vietnam War anecdote/tragedy.
And I feel pretty confident the filmmakers knew exactly what they were doing. They knew they were making a bizarre, goofy ass chimera of a movie, and they committed to it. It’s a big part of why the movie is so fun, so good. They even throw in some obvious references to Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns—The Good, the Bad and the Ugly came out in 1966—with a bit of music (the soundtrack is by Lalo Shifrin) clearly intended to call up Ennio Morricone’s scores at one point, and the showdown between Kelly, Big Joe (Savalas), Oddball and the German tank commander near the end.
(In looking at the film in relation to Eastwood’s work, it’s perhaps worth noting that Kelly’s Heroes came out only one year after that other bizarre chimera in his filmography, Paint Your Wagon (1969).)
It’s not as pure and tight a war caper film as Where Eagles Dare. It couldn’t be and still be that goofy ass chimera, and—let’s be honest—Eagles is a truly excellent bit of filmmaking. Similarly, it’s not a sustained and focused meditation on the Vietnam War. But I think it has a solid claim to being one of the first major films to start the process of critiquing that war from the perspective of the ordinary grunt.
Obviously, this movie is one of my favorites, and has been since I first saw it as a kid (not sure if that was on TV or at some rep cinema screening—I started going to rep cinemas when I was in elementary school and never looked back). People who know me will not be surprised to learn that it wasn’t Kelly that got me all excited back then, who I bonded with. It was, of course, Oddball
Update: mulling this over, since I wrote it, I’ve become much less convinced of the claim that this is a Vietnam War film in any way. Sure, it’s fairly scathing about the venality and ineptitude of military command, celebrates soldiers disobeying and looking out for themselves, and anachronistically features 60s hippie stuff, but other than the hippie stuff, those critiques of war are not particularly uncommon and not confined to the Vietnam War. (Whether M*A*S*H is more about Korea or Vietnam… I don’t know. The latter I tend to think.) Having a weird hippie tank commander could have been a largely commercial move – appealing to audience sensibilities and adding a lot of lightness. Big Joe and Kelly are, after all, pretty serious the whole way through. But… still something to consider.
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Filed under: Movies, caper, Clint Eastwood, comedy, Donald Sutherland, Film, war
August 17, 2011 • 3:33 pm 0
After today’s Bogart marathon—all day today, 13 films and 1 documentary—TCM’s “Summer Under the Stars” with Jean Gabin on Thursday, Debbie Reynolds on Friday, Montgomery Clift on Saturday and then Cary Grant on Sunday. The program then continues for the remainder of the month (full schedule here).
With stars like that, and more than a dozen of their films each day, there’s no shortage of highlights. Here, though, are some of the highlights of the highlights:
Grand Illusion (1937) – directed by Jean Renoir, with Jean Gabin as a French prisoner in a WWI German camp, commanded by Erich von Stroheim – showing Thursday, Aug 18 at 7pm. One of the great classics of world cinema, Roger Ebert called it “a meditation on the collapse of the old order of European civilization.” It’s followed by another film by Jean Renoir and starring Jean Gabim, La Bete Humaine (1938), based on the novel by Emile Zola.
Singin’ In The Rain (1952) – directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, and starring Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds – showing Friday, Aug 19 at 11:15pm. Kelly and O’Connor play a couple of song and dance men who are trying to make the transition from silent movies to sound. Reynolds is a club dancer and movie fan. A sparkling script by Betty Comdon and Adolph Green. Roger Ebert says Singin’ “is a transcendent experience, and no one who loves movies can afford to miss it.” Leonard Maltin called it “the greatest movie musical of all time.” Selected as one of top ten films of all times in the Sight & Sound critics’ poll.
And yet… And yet… You’ve probably already seen it, so maybe you should check out The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953) with Debbie Reynolds and Bobby Van, Hans Conreid (The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T) and Bob Fosse – showing first in the Debbie Reynolds marathon, at 3am. The film on which the TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, featuring pop culture’s first beatnik, Maynard G. Krebs, was based.
Red River (1948) – directed by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in one of the greatest Westerns of all time – showing Saturday, Aug 20 at 10am.
Saturday, August 21, features 13 movies starring the incomparable Cary Grant, including many of his greatest. The top picks:
4:30am: I’m No Angel (1933) – with Mae West
6 am: My Favorite Wife (1940) – with Irene Dunne
12:30pm: The Philadelphia Story (1940) – directed by George Cukor, with Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart
2:30pm: North By Northwest (1959) – Alfred Hitchcock once said that Cary Grant was the only actor he ever loved. The two made four films together, and this is the last. It might also be the least. It’s spectacular, with some amazing cinematography—including the wonderful shots at UN Plaza and the scene with the crop duster. But it also has Hitchcock’s weakest blonde, Eva Marie Saint—though perhaps she only seems weak in comparison to Grace Kelly, who’d been in Grant and Hitchcock’s previous outing together, the sparkling To Catch a Thief. Still, immensely satisfying.
7:15pm: Only Angels Have Wings (1939) – another one directed by Howard Hawks, and a personal favorite of mine – with Jean Arthur.
1:15am: Bringing Up Baby (1938) – an another by Howard Hawks, probably a personal favorite of just about everyone. The classic screwball comedy starring Grant as a mousy professor and Katharine Hepburn as a scatterbrain heiress. Clearly TCM wanted to finish their day of Cary Grant on a very high note.
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Filed under: Movies, Classic Films, comedy, musicals, screwball, TCM, TV, Westerns
December 5, 2010 • 8:00 pm 2
You Can’t Take It With You (1938)
Directed by Frank Capra
Screenplay by Robert Riskin; adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart
Cast includes James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore and Edward Arnold
I thought I knew You Can’t Take It With You. After all, I’ve seen it at least a half dozen times, possibly as many as a dozen or more. Tony Kirby (Jimmy Stewart) is a young executive, the boss’ son, who falls in love with his secretary, Alice Sycamore (Jean Arthur). She comes from a screwball family of irrepressible eccentrics. Like so many romantic comedies, the film follows the basic Shakespeare comedy schema: boy and girl are in love, but their relationship is blocked by the forces of social order, so they flee to a forest, a space apart, where they can be together—in this case, the forest being the ramshackle house of Alice’s family, where most of the movie takes place (an obvious marker of its origins as a stage play).
Well, all of that is true as far as it goes. But watching it the other night, I realized I had it all wrong really. You Can’t Take It With You is not so much the story of the son and his relationship, but rather that of the father, Anthony P. Kirby (Edward Arnold) and his crisis of character. He’s the protagonist, the one whose character has an arc, undergoes a conflict and a transformation. The son just breezes along. Stewart and Arthur are both so wonderful that it misleads you—though this isn’t their best work, nor even their best work together for Frank Capra, which is in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (in which Arnold also appears). No, it’s Edward Arnold’s Anthony P. Kirby that is the real hero here, as should have been obvious from the title—he’s the most likely person to whom “you can’t take it with you” might be addressed. Seen this way, the movie is the story of his realization that his life as a successful man of high finance has led him away from what is really important, and threatens to not only destroy his relationship with his son—and his son’s happiness—but also threatens his life.
The first key moment in his transformation comes during the exceptionally awkward first encounter between the families of the two love birds. When Mrs. Kirby describes her interest in occultism, Alice’s mother dismisses it as superstitious nonsense. Arnold as Kirby does the sliest of double takes—eyes shifting left to look at the exchange, as a very discrete smile plays across his face. Clearly, he thinks it’s nonsense as well, and is pleased to have his wife told so by someone other than him. It’s a nice bit of underplayed acting by Arnold, and Capra deserves credit for having him play it this way—Arnold’s acting is pretty much the only subtle thing in the movie, which is more in a slapstick mode for most of its performances. Also during this scene Kirby is given a harmonica by the patriarch of the madcap household, Alice’s Grandpa Martin Vanderhof, played by Lionel Barrymore with a wry folksiness over a powerful will and resolve.
This harmonica plays a role in the other key moment in the transformation of the older Kirby, which comes during an extended scene at the bank, where he is about to put through a major deal that will give him a monopoly on arms manufacturing. As he stands in a conference room contemplating his life, he is confronted first by his son (the Jimmie Stewart character), who tells him he is quitting the business, and then by a former friend, the business rival whom he has just bankrupt. After a long speech attacking Kirby, his rival collapses; he’s helped from the room, but then we are informed that he has died. (I suppose it would have been too melodramatic to have him die on the spot.)
All the while, Kirby has been toying with the harmonica given to him by Grandpa Vanderhof, spinning it idly on the conference table, pushing it away from him, and finally retrieving it and putting it in his pocket. Then, as he rides up the elevator to make the deal of his life, he changes his mind, and commands the elevator to take him back down. It’s a replay of a scene we’ve had told to us before, and seen as well—and it’s the crucial turning point, the crux of the movie. Grandpa (Barrymore) earlier explained how he used to be a successful businessman, but one day while riding in the elevator he realized he’d had enough, and that none of it was satisfying, so he turned around and left—and never went back. And early in the film he convinces a clerk, Mr. Poppins, miserable in his job, to quit—and he does, joining him in the elevator, and then as part of his extended household of oddballs. So Kirby’s about face in the elevator is heavily significant. He’s changed sides.
The coda, the final step in his transformation, is when he joins Grandpa in a harmonica duet. Not only does this symbolize that he is now in tune (the pun is inevitable) with Grandpa’s philosophy (“you can’t take it with you”), but it also serves to bring the reunited young couple, Tony and Alice, into the drawing room when they hear the music, thus reuniting father and son as well. The music can also be read as equivalent to the wedding scene at the end of a Shakespearean comedy—the forces of social order have been overcome, the couple are joined in wedlock in the magical forest. And they all live happily ever after.
Seeing the movie as the story of Anthony P. Kirby and his crisis of character, rather than as a romantic comedy about Tony and Alice, may explain why the film is somewhat unsatisfying, not as artistically achieved as Capra’s other famous comedies, films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and Meet John Doe (1941). It’s an unwieldy melding of the two stories and unbalanced by trying to have it both ways. The long bank scenes about the business deal don’t belong in the romantic comedy, and the love scene in the park—with the “Big Apple” dance—doesn’t fit in the other movie. So the final result is too long, and awkward. And the casting of Jimmie Stewart and Jean Arthur in the romantic comedy weights things so heavily on that side that you can’t help but feel a bit impatient with the Edward Arnold scenes. Wonderful though Arnold is, you always want more Jean Arthur.
Despite these flaws, the film was a major critical and commercial success. Capra won the last of his three “Best Director” Oscars for it. The film also won for Best Picture, and had five other nominations as well. And it was the highest grossing picture of the year. But I don’t think it has fared quite as well in the years since, being less often shown and less well-regarded than most of the other major Capra pictures. Much as I enjoy the film, particularly its madcap components, I have to agree with that view of it—and I think it’s limitations are precisely the fault of this bipolar disorder, the split or conflict between the stories of Kirby the elder and Kirby the younger.
Misreading the movie as the story of the young couple and the oddball family rather than as Anthony P. Kirby’s transformation was not the only thing I got wrong. I’d interpreted or misremembered the movie as roughly in accord with my own liberal and free-spirited—and, to be frank, anarchistic—social philosophy, but in fact it looks to me now a lot like a piece of Tea Party propaganda avant la lettre.
When an IRS agent calls on Grandpa in an attempt to collect on back income tax, he’s challenged to justify the whole notion of income tax. What does he get for his money, Grandpa wants to know. The hapless tax man blusters and splutters—the whole thing is so huge and unexpected that he can’t come up with anything like a coherent response, but in trying to explain, he mentions interstate commerce.
The commerce clause is one of the most fundamental powers delegated to the Congress by the Constitution, and its scope and limits have long been the subject of debate, discussion and Supreme Court deliberations. Most recently, Tea Party followers have argued—sometimes with intelligence, but more often quite stupidly—that the commerce clause has been pushed beyond recognition and that the Federal government has vastly overstepped the proper limits on its power (e.g. here).
And when Grandpa also rails against all the ism’s that people seem to be getting involved in, particularly communism and fascism, and calls for more “Americanism,” he’s clearly very much in tune with Tea Partiers there as well.
But of course, there’s another side to it. Whatever their claims to libertarianism, the Tea Party is functionally a tool of big business (see here and here)—and it’s not much of a stretch to see similarities between Arnold’s financier, Anthony P. Kirby, and the billionaire bankrollers of the Tea Party. So in the end, while Grandpa’s “Americanism” and rejection of income tax (and perhaps his views on race relations) seem to match up well with the attitudes of the Tea Party, the film’s overall critique of big business in favor of loopy individualism seems like less of a comfortable fit. The dancing, fireworks and vibraphone evenings at the Vanderhof home seem more like what one would expect from liberal, loopy, free-spirited San Francisco than any Tea Party stronghold—though perhaps that’s just my desire to rescue a movie I’ve always enjoyed from what looks like a flawed and lousy political philosophy.
But to return from this consideration of broader social issues to the movie… While his name not be familiar to you, there’s a good chance you’ll recognize Edward Arnold as Anthony P. Kirby. In addition to this film, Arnold appeared in two other Capra movies (in a more clearly supporting role)—Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and Meet John Doe (1941)—and in more than 150 other films during the course of a long career that began with Shakespeare on the stage at the age of twelve and continued with extra work in silent film, and then a wide range of sound roles, briefly as a lead and then as a much in-demand character actor.
Although he was labeled “box office poison” in 1938 by an exhibitor publication (he shared this distinction with Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Fred Astaire and Katharine Hepburn), he never lacked for work. Rather than continue in leading man roles, he gave up losing weight and went after character parts instead. Arnold was quoted as saying, “The bigger I got, the better character roles I received.” He was such a sought-after actor, he often worked on two pictures at the same time… (via Wikipedia.)
Whatever the shortcomings of You Can’t Take It with You, Arnold elevates every scene he’s in: he never outshines the star wattage of the young and lovely Stewart and Arthur, but he gives a wonderful, subtle performance, the most powerful and crafted of the film.
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Filed under: Movies, Classic Films, comedy, Film
November 18, 2010 • 9:06 pm 0
Well, it isn’t a new season of “Spaced” – that ship has sailed, can’t go home again, yada yada yada – but any new Simon Pegg joint is more than welcome – and here he’s reunited with Nick Frost, his memorable sidekick in Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead.
Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Seth Rogen in “Paul”: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) reunite for the comedy adventure Paul as two sci-fi geeks whose pilgrimage takes them to America’s UFO heartland. While there, they accidentally meet an alien who brings them on an insane road trip that alters their universe forever.
For the past 60 years, an alien named Paul has been hanging out at a top-secret military base. For reasons unknown, the space-traveling smart ass decides to escape the compound and hop on the first vehicle out of town—a rented RV containing Earthlings Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Collings (Frost).
Chased by federal agents and the fanatical father of a young woman that they accidentally kidnap, Graeme and Clive hatch a fumbling escape plan to return Paul to his mother ship. And as two nerds struggle to help, one little green man might just take his fellow outcasts from misfits to intergalactic heroes. (via Spotlightreport “Best entertainment Web in oz”.)
More info available on IMDB.com: Paul (2011)
Simon Pegg – another one of my guilty pleasures.
Filed under: Movies, comedy, Film, science fiction
November 16, 2010 • 9:42 pm 0
Starting at 5pm PT tomorrow, Wednesday, Nov. 17, TCM is featuring a masterclass in silent comedy, with films from the three geniuses of the form, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, including the films that represent perhaps the purest examples of the work of each.
First up is The Kid (1921), one of Chaplin’s masterpieces. In The Kid, Chaplin is a tramp who raises The Kid (Jackie Coogan) as his own, and then fights to keep him. This is followed at 6pm by The Pilgrim (1923). These two are the last films Chaplin made for First National, before moving to the studio he co-founded, United Artists.
The Chaplin films are followed by a pair of Buster Keaton films – One Week (1920) at 8:15pm and then at 8:45pm another masterpiece, Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928). Keaton is the weedy son of a tough steamboat captain, who falls in love with the daughter of his father’s rival. In the end, of course, Keaton saves his dad’s boat and the day – and wins the girl.
This exceptional night of films from one of the key moments in the history of cinema finishes with a movie by the least known of these comic geniuses, Harold Lloyd – probably his greatest, Safety Last! (1923). Lloyd plays a young man from a small town who goes to the big city and works to earn the money to marry his sweetheart, and endures a series of comic misadventures with his job at a department store.
I know you can get these movies on video or from NetFlix (and you can probably watch them on the interweb) – or even TiVo them to watch whenever, but it still seems so special to me to be able to watch The Kid, Steamboat Bill Jr. and Safety Last! – three of the greatest comedy films of all time – all in one evening. A moment.
Footnote: Lloyd’s work was a major influence on one of the greatest physical comedians of recent years, Jackie Chan, and Chan has paid homage to Lloyd in a number of his films and in particular to Safety Last in one of his best films, Project A.
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Filed under: Movies, Classic Films, comedy, Film, TCM
September 5, 2010 • 6:30 pm 2
Well, I missed one of my guilty pleasures, on this morning: Bye Bye Birdie (1963), directed by George Sidney and starring Ann-Margaret, Dick Van Dyke and Janet Leigh. This is a fun musical spoof of… well, of Elvis Presley fandom and of his joining the Army—with some elements of a “beach blanket” movie thrown in. You can read more about it on Wikipedia. Ann-Margaret has never been more fun—here she is singing the title tune
But there are some terrific films still coming up this week. Tomorrow night (Monday, 6 September) they are having a “Prime Time Tribute to Telluride” and will be showing, among other things, the great Jacques Tati film Playtime (1967) and Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala (1975). Both of these are classics of world cinema and if you have never seen a Jacques Tati film… well, you’re really in for a treat. He’s essentially a silent movie comedian, like Keaton or Chaplin—the films have very little dialogue, and because the visual dimension is so important, they are best seen at a proper movie theater. But how many chances do we get for that these days?
On Tuesday morning, there are two more classics, films that regularly make it on “best” lists: The Ladykillers (1955)—the original with Alec Guinness, Herbert Low and Peter Sellers, not the deeply misguided remake with Tom Hanks; and A Matter of Life and Death (1947) starring David Niven as an aviator who must argue in heaven for his life.
Both of these films are exemplars of a group of films: The Ladykillers of the great Ealing Studios comedies, and A Matter of Life and Death of “Powell & Pressburger,” the filmmakers Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger who created a series of absolutely wonderful films in the 1940s. Again, as with Playtime and Jacques Tati, if you aren’t already familiar with these groups of films, you are really in for a treat. Perversely, TCM lists The Ladykillers as “Crime” rather than “Comedy”—don’t be fooled. Very, very funny.
Later in the week:
Touch Of Evil (1958) – Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, Marlene Dietrich – absolutely not to be missed – Wednesday evening
Babes in Arms (1939) – a great Busby Berkeley musical with Andy Rooney and Judy Garland – late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning
Get Carter (1971) – the original with Michael Caine – another chance to see the original of a botched and unnecessary remake – Thursday night
The Curse of the Cat People (1944) – classic B horror film, which I haven’t seen since I was a kid and watched it on “Creature Features”- late Thursday night/early Friday morning
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) – directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda – a key movie in the Cahiers du Cinéma discussion of Ford’s auteur qualities – Saturday morning
Saturday night (11 September) is devoted to the films of Raoul Walsh—a director much loved by film scholars, with a kind of auteur status, but who has never really received general recognition as an important filmmaker. TCM will be showing what is perhaps the best-known of his films, High Sierra (1941), starring of course Humphrey Bogart, but the one not to miss is showing just before that, at 5pm PST: White Heat (1949) with James Cagney.
White Heat is important both as a terrific example of film noir—coming right when that genre was getting firmly established—and also as a very late instance, really the last, of the gangster movies that had been so popular in the 1930s, a cycle of films which Cagney more or less established with The Public Enemy (1931). White Heat is also the film in which Cagney utters the oft quoted line, “Top o’ the world, Ma” – just before he gets blown sky high.
Filed under: Movies, Classic Films, comedy, Film, film noir, TCM
zerode - a sensibility 