The Essential Films: The Terminator (1984)

A series of writings on films that I feel are essential for film lovers, coupled with films that are important to me. Spoilers for those who haven't seen the film. 

The Terminator is maybe my favourite movie. Many people prefer Terminator 2: Judgment Day but I always go for the first one. T2 is more of a crowd pleasing summer action film about a boy and his pet terminator (I like the movie but have complicated feelings about it) but The Terminator is much bleaker and dirtier, a mixture of sci-fi and horror which its writer and director James Cameron called "tech noir." Like most first films in a franchise there's a real purity to it. There's no formula or call backs, just an inventive story its director, like George Lucas with the original Star Wars, wanted to put on screen.

While Lucas had the success of American Graffiti to his name when he did Star Wars, Cameron had Piranha 2: The Spawning, which bombed with critics and audiences. It was during post production of that film where Cameron got sick and had a fever dream/nightmare about a robot skeleton dragging itself along the floor with kitchen knives. This obviously stuck with Cameron and became the basis for The Terminator. The film is often considered a horror film and of all the Terminator films it's the only one that feels like a pure translation of Cameron's nightmare on screen. The sequels go more for bombastic action than the pure terror of an unstoppable killing machine. And while Cameron could've just made a killer robot movie, he places the "slasher" element within the context of a intriguing time travel narrative that has, what I think, is one of the most underrated twists/payoffs in any movie.

In terms of the slasher genre, Cameron clearly took inspiration from John Carpenter's Halloween. Both Carpenter and Cameron show us ordinary women being stalked by hulking killers who feel out of place in the normal world. Tension is created through this unease and question of when they'll strike at the main character. Cameron's original conception of the Terminator was that of a normal looking guy who could come up to you in a crowd and kill you. But when he met Arnold Schwarzenegger, he rein-visioned it as what we see in the film. This is one of rare instances of Schwarzenegger playing a villain. The image we have of him is the goofy cartoon come to life but here Schwarzenegger is actually quite intimidating, a real beast. We see him kill a couple of innocent women point-blank. Before he kills the first Sarah Connor (he only knows the name of the woman he's after), there's that striking shot of him in the door frame, emotionless. Arguably, one can't call the Terminator evil. Rather, it's just a machine with a program.  

At first we don't know why the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) wants to Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), a waitress who's barely making it by. All we know is there's some future war between humans and machines and, as the opening text crawl tells, the final battle will be fought in the present day- with the Terminator , as well as another guy, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), coming from the future. We eventually learn that in the future her son John Connor will lead the human resistance against the machines and winning the war. In a last ditch effort the machines have sent back the Terminator back to kill John before he's even born. 

The key to good exposition is to make the audience forget they're hearing an info dump. Cameron does this creating a sense of urgency during these scenes.  When Reese tells Sarah about her son and the future war, they're on the run from the Terminator, hiding in a car and then attempting to get to another. Cameron also avoids using flashbacks during this scenes so we're allowed to imagine Connor leading the humans against the machines. And when Reese is being interrogated at the police station, talking about the time displacement field, he's talking to a psychologist who clearly doesn't believe him. We're sharing in Reese's frustration with Silberman (Earl Boen), since we know the Terminator is going to arrive at any moment. Reese is captive and Sarah is isolated.  

A more routinely structured film would've given us all this information via Reese being told his mission at he film's beginning Reese would be this version's main character and the story would be that of a cool time-travelling action hero. Instead, Cameron takes a more subversive path, withholding the information regarding Sarah's significance from the audience until she learns it. Cameron wants this to be Sarah's story, a human story rather than just merely a time-travelling action movie.

Cameron also subverts the typical male action hero archetype of the time. Physically, Biehn is not a big guy but pretty skinny. And Biehn plays the character in the early parts of the film as very sketchy individual, possibly as dangerous to Sarah as the Terminator. He doesn't scresm "heroic" but makes Sarah nervous when she first sees him, thinking he's the ma who killed the other Sarah Connors (the Terminator doesn't know what Sarah looks like). It's only when Reese saves Sarah from the Terminator at the "Tech Noir" club that it becomes clear he's there to protect her. Cameron slows everything down as the Terminator approaches Sarah. In one of my favourite shots in the film- it points a laser target at Sarah. The suspense builds as Kyle takes out his shotgun and then everything goes back to normal speed as Kyle fires, almost as if the action has brought everything up to speed.

Biehn's performance is all raw, gritted teeth, sweaty, fried out energy. It's the type of character the franchise never revisited, even when they brought back Reese in later sequels. With the sequels, it's always Schwarzenegger as the robotic protector who fight another Terminator. Here, it's two humans against a unstoppable killing machine. It makes things more intimate, especially when Sarah and Reese do have sex. It's implied that Reese is a virgin before this and I can't think of another action movie of this kind that infers this about the main guy. 

Even barring the "mother of the future" thing, Sarah is understandably skeptical of Reese telling her there's a robot from the future trying to kill her. It's only when the Terminator mows down the police station that she truly and fully believes Reese is telling the truth. My favourite moment from the film is when Sarah thinks the Terminator is coming through the door but it's Reese. She's relieved it's him and the two share a brief moment before escaping. It's at this moment that the two are completely together, and will be for the rest of the film

Cameron knew he wouldn't have the budget to do a story set in the future so he wrote this smaller story which has big implications. The fate of the human race depends on the outcome of this chase thriller, and by the end we realize what has occurred is even more monumental and mind-bending, which is that Kyle is John's father. We can also  put 2 and 2 together and realize Sarah trained John because she knew about the future. The whole thing is a time loop and this chase thriller takes on a more mythic quality. 

Unlike most of the sequels, we never see John on screen. I prefer this because I believe John works better as off-screen presence, a symbol. "I'd die for John Connor," Reese tells Sarah, and I don't know if any of the actors who've played John have conveyed what we get from Reese talking about the guy. It also puts the focus on Sarah. She's the hero of the story, not John John can only become the man he is because of his mother's training and being told the truth about his father, the man Sarah loved. At the end she questions whether she should tell John this, if it'll influence his choice to send Kyle back. I believe it's because John Kyle is his father that he sends him back. "No fate but what we make" becomes the philosophy of Terminator 2 but the original implies there can only be one path. Could Sarah ever have done anything different than tell John the truth. I don't know. 

While the film concerns a future war, it's one of the great time capsule films of the 1980s. Sarah's hair is one of the most memorable images and the Tech Noir club, the music, the dancing, its just all drenched in 80sness. The film is also one of the great unsung L.A movies, especially L.A. at night. Cinematographer Adam Greenberg's shooting of the city at night has a Michael Mann-esque quality. I love the shot of the Terminator looking over the L.A cityscape, a city full of people who don't know of the coming apocalypse. And Brad Fiedel's score, that throbbing sound that's like the Terminator's mechanical heart, the mournful and metallic main theme, it's so good.  

The biggest challenge Cameron when writing, casting and direction, was how to convincingly take Sarah from this timid waitress to a survivor who drives off in to a storm at the end, symbolizing, not subtly. the coming apocalypse and the dark days ahead. Even when Sarah accepts there's a terminator after her, she still can't see herself as the actual person it's after. I think we as the audience are also supposed to wonder how this person could ever train a child to become the leader of the human race. But by the end, when Sarah drives off, it feels like we've been on an epic journey with Sarah. Again, Cameron took a small story and makes it feel bigger through its implication. Hamilton is convincing as both the afraid young woman but also the woman at the end who says "You're terminated, fucker." Cameron puts Sarah through so much, and has her bond with so Reese so deeply, that it's completely believable she would harden and be able to save herself, as well as taking on the responsibility of training John. And as I argued earlier, the film is fatalistic. There's only one path for Sarah to take. 

What brings back me to the movie is Sarah and Reese's relationship, as short-lived as it is. This feels like the most intimate of the Terminator films because, as I said earlier, it's two humans up against a machine rather a machine against a machine as in the sequels. Reese dies tragically while destroying  the Terminator's legs, a brutal hit to the audience but necessary for Sarah to eventually survive. That The Terminator ends up as a tragic but also triumphant love story is what makes this film stand out amongst other 80s action movies. While the Terminator is cold without feeling, the film itself, like the Tin Man has a real heart.

The Essential Films: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

A Series of Writings on Films that I feel are essential for film lovers, coupled with films that are personal to me. Spoilers for those you haven't seen the film

Director John Huston needed Humphrey Bogart, and Humphrey Bogart needed John Huston. By writing High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon (both 1941-he directed the latter, while Raoul Walsh directed the former), Huston took Bogart from supporting player to movie star. And Bogart would provide Huston (who was making his film debut with The Maltese Falcon) provided Huston with the perfect new kind of (anti) hero. Bogart and Huston would collaborate on four more movies, Across the Pacific (1942, directed first by Huston and then Vincent Sherman when Huston joined the United States Army Signal Corps), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo (both 1948), The African Queen (1951, for which Bogart won his Best Actor Oscar) and Beat the Devil (1953). Of these, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is perhaps their greatest collaboration, and maybe Huston's finest film overall. It won Huston two Oscars for writing and direction- and he directed his father Walter Huston to a Best Supporting Actor Oscar (he also directed Claire Trevor in Key Largo to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar). Bogart was not nominated (Laurence Olivier won Best Actor for Hamlet, which also won Best Picture.) 

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre sets itself up as an adventure film but eventually becomes a cautionary tale, a psychological horror film about the almost supernatural quality gold has to lead men in to madness and violence. This is one of the darkest films to come out of the Hollywood studio system, one that subverted the image of its star and in which he gives his greatest performances. It's also one of the first Hollywood films to shoot outside the USA (in in Tampico and Durango), providing a rugged authenticity to the story. This is the kind of film where you can smell the sweat and feel the dirt. 

The opening shots quickly establish the film's themes of desperation. The first image is that of a poster with winning lottery numbers, the camera panning to a man's hand ripping up a losing ticket. We cut to Fred C. Dobbs' (Bogart) grizzled face.. Dobbs is in Tampico where he meets another American, Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), both of whom are hired by a man named Pat McCormick (Barton MacLane) to do some labor. When the job's done, McCormick flees without paying them. Dobbs and Curtin go to a flophouse for a night, where they meet prospector Howard (Walter Huston). The next day Dobbs and Curtin encounter McCormick, who pretends he's going to pay them later and then tries to escape. Dobbs and Curtin beat him up (in an effectively staged brawl) and they take what's owed them. They get the idea to prospect for gold, so they decide to get Howard to go along with them. At first, they don't have enough money to buy supplies but then Dobbs is told by a child from whom he bought a lottery ticket that he has the winning number. A great example of the script setting up something early and paying it off after you've forgotten about it. When Dobbs and Cody shake hands, solidifying their partnership, the camera shows their hand with Howard in the background, looking unsure, reminding us of what he said in when we first met him: "....the noble brotherhood will last but when the piles of gold begin to grow...that's when the trouble starts." 

Dobbs doesn't believe gold inherently changes a man- he feels it all depends on the man. And he's right. but it will be Curtin who retain his sanity, while Dobbs quickly becomes paranoid and angry towards Curtin and Howard. But even Curtin has to make a hard choice when a fourth man named James Cody (Bruce Bennett) follows Curtin after he came to town for provisions. The other three have to decide whether to kill Cody or let him join. Curtin makes the call, reluctantly, to kill Cody. But all three are going to do it so the other two won'thave anything to use against the third man. Cody then alerts them to Mexican bandits, led by Gold Hat (Alfonso Bendoya) and during a shootout Cody is killed. The three find a letter on Cody from his widow,  and it's the most painful part of the film, re-contexualizing how we may have felt about Cody, and reminding us these guys were going to make his wife a widow. These three men had the capability to kill another because he jeoparized their exploit. Gold can be pure but men can't.

Now, let's talk a little bit more about Bogart. He's one of the greatest of movie stars, one with an incredibly strong filmography. Throw a dart and you'll hit a classic. James Stewart and Cary Grant are the same. All three are in movies I just really like and they're amongst the first classic movie actors to which I was introduced. I'll also say they were underrated as actors. I think in general people underrate and undervalue movie star acting, not considering it "real acting" and an actor "playing themself." What many consider great acting is often the more showy, "give me an Oscar" kind of acting, which has its place, but the more effortless movie star acting that Bogart exemplified is arguably just as, or more effective. Yes, he was always Bogart, with the unmistakable nasally voice and wolfish grin- but watch him in The Maltese Falcon. Watch how he glides through that film, completely in control of what's happening, only pretending to lose his temper, only pretending to be corrupt. Now watch him here, quick to paranoia, desperate, and eventually psychotic. He starts out as Bogart but his image of a cool, collected person who will ultimately do the right thing is subverted. Along with Nicholas Ray's In A Lonely Place, this is the darkest Bogart goes psychologically. 

Of course, it's not just a subversion but coincidentally a return to when Bogart was the villain in films. Bogart was perhaps the first character actor turned movie star, and is the are leading man who can genuinely look sinister. That wolfish grin never looked more, well wolfish, or more terrifying than here, with his dirty beard and face giving him a an animalistic look.  Cinematographer Ted McCord (who also photographed The Sound of Music and East of Eden) makes Bogart look like the Wolf Man in shots that wouldn't be out of place in a horror film. The film does become a psychological horror film in one of the last stretches of the movie where Dobbs and Curtin are alone without Howard, who had previously saved an ill Mexican child and is now being called back to the village to be honored. 

Walter Huston's  Best Actor Supporting Oscar, a deserved win for his portrayal of Howard, giving him a slightly eccentric but wizened quality. He's a little bit weird you can tell he knows what's he doing. Huston was a Canadian actor who started on stage before appearing in movies when "talkies" took over. One of his earliest roles was the sinister, self-righteous missionary in the pre-code film Rain (1932), starring Joan Crawford. The Treasure of Sierra Madre would be one of Huston's final films, with his last being The Furies with Barbara Stanwyck (1950). Huston would die in 1950 at the age of 67, of an aortic aneurysm. 

Tim Holt is the film's unsung performance, probably because Curtin is the blandest of the three main characters. But Holt right kind of likability and sincerity befitting of the character who's the heart of the film. We fear for him when he's alone with Dobbs but we remember how he made the call to kill Cody. Bogart is clearly no longer our hero, and the whole movie has set us up for this confrontation. 

When Dobbs believes he has killed Curtin, he runs off and eventually runs in to the bandits. They kill him and mistake the bag of gold he had for sand. It is scattered, with the bandits taking the burros and s supplies. When Howard and Curtin find the empty bags and the gold scattered, all Howard can do is laugh, with Curtin eventually joining in. The whole movie has been a set up for a punchline to a cosmic joke- but it's not a bleak ending. Curtin sums up the situation pretty nicely when he remarks 

"You know, the worst ain't so bad when it finally happens. Not half as bad as you figure it will be before it's happened. I'm no worse off than I was in Tampico. All I'm out is a couple hundred bucks when you come right down to it. Not very much compared to what Dobbsie lost." 

Howard reminds Curtin of what he mentioned earlier in the film, of buying land and growing fruit. And he also tells Curtin to visit Cody's widow. So there's still a dream, and there's still decency in this world. And for Howard, who is has been invited to stary in the village, there's a home. And getting to live another day, perhaps that it is something, perhaps that's everything. 

The Essential Films: "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" (1965)

 

A Series of Writings on Films that I feel are essential for film lovers, coupled with films that are personal to me. Spoilers for people who haven't seen the film.

At the height of the James Bond craze, as well as amongst shows like The Avengers and Get Smart, 1960s audiences were offered a bleaker, chillier alternative: Martin Ritt's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, based on John Le Carre's third novel, his breakthrough success, which Graham Greene called the best spy story he ever read. Nearly 60 years after the book was published and the film was released the story still holds up- due to the cynical brilliance of its plot. This may be the best representation of the government agent's life- the loneliness, the unglamorous lifestyle, the realization you're a pawn in a larger scheme that you can't help but bitterly admire. The film is ultimately a tragedy, but not of the Shakespearean kind. The tragedy here feels more mundane, but still inevitable. 

At the film's beginning one of British agent Alec Leamas' (Richard Burton) operatives is killed at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. Leamas is called back to London by agency chief Control (Cyril Cusack), where he is supposedly dismissed from the service. Leamas gets a job at a library where he meets Nan Perry (Claire Bloom), with whom he begins a relationship. One day Leamas drunkenly assaults a grocer (Bernard Lee, funnily enough the original James Bond "M") and briefly goes to jail. When he is released, he's approached as a possible defector by East Germany. 

It's revealed this is all been set up by control so Leamas can implicate an East German agent- Mundt (Peter van Eyck)- as a British spy and have him killed. That we do not learn of this mission until after spending time establishing Leamas' relationship with Nan and seeing him approached to be a defector, makes the revelation more satisfying. The audience get to say "Oh, I get it," which is always very rewarding. It also establishes that the story requires patience. And by film's end I think everything pays off brilliantly. Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper's screenplay also has these events play out in a naturalistic way, giving you the feeling of a real spy story unfolding before you.

Leamas is no Bond. He's not a fun character to be around and doesn't seem to being having a lot of fun himself, unless he's being sardonic. His relationship with Nan doesn't have the sexual excitement of the Bond films- it feels more paternal Burton was never the warmest of actors, which makes him perfect for the role of a standoffish, burnt-out spy. In a performance that's as bitter as a cyanide pill, Burton makes you feel that weariness from years of service in your own bones, playing a part that's not really much of a part. It feels there's a very thin line between the role Leamas is playing and the man he is. As Michael Sragrow says in his essay for the Criterion Collection release of the film, pertaining to when Leamas is first sent on his mission,

    "...those who haven't read the book must wonder whether Leamas becomes a drunken has-been or             is merely playing one...it's hard to know when Leamas is putting everyone, or where the put-on              ends and the real Leamas begins."

When Leamas tells Fielder, Mundt's second-in-command, and who's suspicious of Mundt, that becoming a spy was just about the money, I don't think Leamas is lying. It's easy to pretend to be a defector when you are genuinely fed up with the job. Fielder stands in contrast to him, he believes in the communist cause, and feels Leamas should believe in something. Leamas says he holds the right to be ignorant, the "Western way of life," as he calls it. 

This isn't the first time in the film Leamas is confronted with a person whose passion clashes with his dispassion. Nan is also a communist, which Leamas takes as Nan being naive. He says that when it comes to things like communism and capitalism, it's the "innocents who get slaughtered. This calls forward to the conversation with Fielder where Fielder states he would kill innocent people to achieve his goals- but that if innocent people are to die, if should be for something.Maybe Leamas did believe in something once- perhaps all cynics are reformed optimists- but even if he did, it wouldn't stop the events of the story. Leamas is ultimately a pawn in a larger game, one in which he unknowingly dooms both Nan and Fielder. 

Fielder puts Mundt on trial for being a double agent, but when Nan is brought to the tribunal and admits to having received payments by British Intelligence, Leamas had to admit he's a British agent. Fielder is arrested and will probably be killed. Mundt frees Leamas and Nan, which leads to Leamas explaining what just happened. Mundt actually is a double agent and Leamas' mission was ultimately to discredit Fielder, with Nan being part of that plot. And it all comes back to philosophy, with Leamas answering Nan's question of who this operation helped, stating

"What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, henpecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong? Yesterday I would have killed Mundt because I thought him evil and an enemy. But not today. Today he is evil and my friend. London needs him. They need him so that the great, moronic masses you admire so much can sleep soundly in their flea-bitten beds again. They need him for the safety of ordinary, crummy people like you and me."

Leamas could have believed in philosophy he wanted throughout this story, but he still would've come to the same conclusion he comes here. All that's changed for Leamas is, as he says, Mundt is now his "friend." 

Leamas is, by design, a difficult character to work with because he's blase about things and not necessary the most exciting guy to be around. He's not traditionally and his lack of belief system (which maybe in itself is a belief system) doesn't really change over the course of the film but is rather confirmed. When Nan gets killed by one of Mundt's henchmen while she and Leamas are attempting to climb the Berlin Wall, it calls back to what Leamas said about innocents get slaughtered. 

If Nan is the innocent victim than Fielder is arguably the closest thing the story has to a hero (though there are no true heroes in this world). He wants to expose a traitor in the Communist party, and Werner makes Fielder surprisingly likable and charming. And the fact that he's right about Mundt means he has to be killed. "London made us kill him, Kill the Jew," Leamas tells Nan. Mundt is a former Hitler Youth, which is a big reason Fielder doesn't like Mundt. This makes Fielder a more sympathetic character than Leamas, whose final statement about him, as complimentary as Leamas gets, is he was a "clever Jew." 

Now, I want to talk a little about the film's director, Martin Ritt. Ritt, like Fielder, was Jewish, born in Manhattan, and who started out as an actor in the theatre, where he eventually met Elia Kazan. Ritt worked as playwright and director of plays before turning to television.  He became a victim of the Hollywood blacklist in 1952, after which he returned to the theatre. When things died down, he made his film debut with Edge of the City (1957), starring Sidney Poiter and John Cassavetes. It based on a true story about corruption on the docks, similar to On the Waterfront. (1954). It was Ritt's experiences playing football in North Carolina, seeing the contrast between the deep south and his Manhattan upbringing that made him to do socially conscious films. He would direct Poitier again, alongside Paul Newman, in Paris Blues (1961) Newman and Ritt would collaborate again on Hud (1963), The Outrage (1964, a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon) and Hombre (1967). Ritt received a Best Director nomination for Hud. 

He won the BAFTA for Best British Film for Spy but would not receive an Oscar nomination for his elegant direction. Neither did Oswald Morris for his beautifully stark black and white cinematography, which provides much of the film's aptly chilly atmosphere. The film would only receive two Oscar nominations, Burton for Best Actor, and Best Art Direction- Black and White (Hal Periera, Tambi Larsen, Ted Marshall, Josie McAvin). Burton is my pick for Best Actor (though I haven't seen Lee Marvin's winning performance for Cat Ballou). Werner got a Golden Gloe nomination for Best Supporting Actor and I feel he should've been nominated for the Oscar (he actually was up against Burton in Best Actor for Ship of Fools). The Sound of Music was the Best Picture winner that year. That's no doubt a beloved and remembered film, and it's not a surprise the stark reality of Spy wasn't embraced by the academy. However, Spy has only grown in esteem and still feels like an uncommonly austere portrait of a spy's life.

The Essential Films: "Jaws" (1975)

A Series of Writings on Films that I feel are essential for film lovers, coupled with films that are personal to me. Spoilers for people who haven't seen the film.

Jaws is a masterclass in filmmaking. It ranks amongst films like Die Hard, The Exorcist, and the original Star Wars, as one of those films which started out as popular entertainment but can be seen as a masterpiece of its genre. This was only Spielberg's third film; he had done the TV movie Duel and then his first theatrically released feature, The Sugarland Express-starring Goldie Hawn. Duel and The Sugarland Express are impressive films bur Jaws was a huge step forward for Spielberg in terms of his filmmaking abilities. While the film was a difficult- to say the least- shoot, Spielberg's filmmaking is so assured that when I'm watching it I'm hardly thinking of the behind the scene issues. Of course, credit has to go to Bill Butler's gorgeous and warm cinematography (he still with us at 101 years old) as well as Verna Fields' Oscar winning editing, which contributes mightily to the film's fluid pacing.  Spielberg took that assuredness in to his next film Close Encounters of the Third Kind and later Raiders of the Lost Ark, becoming the king of blockbuster movie making. Much like Jaws itself, Spielberg has grown in my estimation as a filmmaker over the last several films. I always liked/loved his films but I guess I took him for granted, didn't realize just how good he is. Now I rank him in my top ten filmmakers.

All you need to do is watch the first scene of Jaws, where Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie) is screaming for life before disappearing under water and everything going silent, to know the film still kills. There's a reason this movie still makes people afraid to go in the water. John Williams' theme- which opens the movie, was originally thought by Spielberg to be a joke, and I get why. It's hard not to find it a little amusing, but like Bernard Herrmann's screeching violins from Psycho are synonymous with "psycho killer," Williams "Duh Duh" is inseparable from "a shark is coming to get you."

After the first shark attack we're introduced to the first of the film's main trio, Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) who has moved to Amity Island recently with his family.  I think he's an underrated actor, good at being the lead or supporting player. He was never the intense Pacino/DeNiro kind of actor but he had a physical presence and the ability to be a regular guy, which works well for Brody, who isn't a tough action hero type. 

Brody begins the investigation in to Chrissy's death and has the beaches shut down. However, the Mayor of the town, Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), convinces him to keep them open due to the summer season being the biggest money-earner of the year for the community. Brody reluctantly agrees but then a boy, Alex Kitner (Jeffrey Voorhees), gets eaten and Brody brings in Oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) to investigate. Meanwhile Alex's mother (Lee Fierro) puts out ads promising a reward for killing the shark, bringing in a lot of amateur shark hunters. The only professional on the island, Quint (Robert Shaw), promises to kill the shark for a much larger reward. While at first the shark is thought to be caught, another shark attack brings Brody, Hooper and Quint together to hunt the shark.

Jaws is actually two films in one. The first film is a damning critique of capitalism and political leadership, the second is an almost Moby Dick-esque adventure at sea, with Quint being a kind of Captain Ahab. I know some may find the film too slow and talky getting to the shark-hunting stuff but I believe it's crucial to this movie's success that we spend the time we do on the island and with the community before going off to sea. The transition from island to sea feels more significant and weighty because of what's happened- Alex's death, Brody's guilt, his dynamic with Hooper and the injection of Quint in to that dynamic. Then there's the three shark attacks. The first one is ignored, the second is addressed and supposedly resolved, then the third is the breaking point where we see some humanity from the Vaughn, who mentions his kids were on that beach. We don't like Vaughn anymore than we did before, but Hamilton plays his revelation beautifully. The way Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley (who wrote the novel) structure the three shark attacks and Vaughn's arc is the kind of good screenwriting that seems too rare these days.

I do love the subtle bromance between Brody and Hooper.  Instead of the screenplay creating a forced antagonism between them Brody and Hooper are friendly with each other from the outset. However, Hooper gets angry with Brody when he's examining Chrissy and  finds out this was never reported to the coast guard. Brody is a little naive and thinks the captured and killed shark is the shark who who Chrissy and Alex. Hooper calls him out on his naivete but when he comes to Brody's house that night, he shows that he respects Brody's rationality compared to everyone else. He also knows Brody had a rough day after Mrs. Kitner slapped because she found out he didn't close the beaches earlier. Hooper tells Brody he's out to tell his superiors that there's still a shark problem, leading him and Brody to cut open the dead shark to see what it's ate. The dinner scene is the real beginning of Brody and Hooper's partnership. When they're both trying to convince Vaughn to close the beach and talking over each other, Brody is  telling Hooper to tell the mayor about shark stuff, and it's organically funny, indicative of Brody's earnestness as a man. He obviously respects and is excited by Hooper's knowledge and authority.   

The more I've watched Jaws the more apparent it's become how the characters really make the movie. Not just our main trio but all the islanders as well- Vaughn, Bad Hat Harry, Mrs Taft. Similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark or the original Star Wars trilogy, you remember these supporting and minor characters, and they make the world feel lived in. I'd argue the best scene in the film doesn't feature the shark- it's is the scene where Hooper and Quint are bonding over scars, which leads in to one of the great film monologues - Quint talking about the sinking of the USS Annapolis and the death of most the crew from sharks. Shaw's delivery of the monologue and the vivid imagery it creates in the audiences' minds is perhaps more horrifying than anything we see on screen. It tells us so much about Quint and makes his death even more cruelly ironic- it's one of the most painful deaths I've ever seen in a film. Shaw should've gotten an Oscar nomination just for this monologue. 

I also love how each of the three men relate to the other two. Hooper is the nerdy scientist compared to the more masculine cop and hunter. Brody is the one most uncomfortable at sea next to Hooper and Quint, and Quint is the loner figure, the outsider. It creates an uneasy dynamic between the three and the point of the bonding/monologue is that this is first and last time all three will be at peace with each other. It's right before the final stretch of the film, which doesn't let up until that shark is blown up. 

I saw Jaws on IMAX just a few days ago and seeing it with a audience highlights just what a funny film this is, largely due to Dreyfuss, whose laugh alone is hilarious. I think this where Dreyfuss first established his persona as the intellectual smart-aleck. Some of his best lines- "They're all going to die"- after he's been mocked by the fishermen going out to hunt the shark-, referring to the mayor as wanting to be a "hot lunch," and "That makes a lot of sense" when water-fearing Brody says Amityville is only an island if you look at it from the water.   

But it's not that big of a surprise that the film has plenty of humour. It wouldn't have become what many consider the first summer blockbuster if it was without the levity to contrast with the horror. It's an incredibly entertaining film but the fun never undermines the horror of the film, never makes those moments of terror less impactful. While Spielberg went too far with the darkness with Indiana and the Temple of Doom, Jaws perhaps best shows Spielberg managing both the light and dark. Spielberg has often gotten flak for being too sentimental but I feel he's much darker than the image people have. He's capable of  being incredibly nasty and remorseless when he wants to. I don't think anyone forgets seeing those Nazis' faces being burnt off for the first time. 

Spielberg is also able to do some technically impressive stuff without you really thinking about it. The Aforementioned scene with Brody and Hooper attempting to the convince Vaughn to close the beaches is one shot, with Spielberg moving the actors and reframing the shot effortlessly. The first scene between Brody and Vaughn is similarly one shot that has the actors move in a way that changes the focus of the show.. But you're not thinking of these scenes too much on a technical level, you're just watching the story. Spielberg is able to use his technique to draw you in to a scene without noticing the technique -very hard to do. But then he can also emphasize his shots, as with the "vertigo" shot on Brody on the beach. He employs  it better than Hitchcock and there's no doubt Spielberg is a student of Hitchcock. Hitchcock always believed in the concept of "pure cinema," where the visuals did most of the storytelling, and Spielberg takes that approach here, making sure you can understand what's happening, even if the sound was off. 

In a piece on Spielberg's War Horse (2011), critic Michael Phillips recounts Hitchcock's quote on Spielberg: "Young Spielberg is the first one us who doesn't see the proscenium arch." Phillips explains that Hitchcock is describing Spielberg's filmmaking as "fluidity cinematic," adding he has "Old style craftsmanship with a new spontaneity." Hitchcock's last decade of films can seem behind the times, with the possible exception of Frenzy (1972), especially compared with what Spielberg is doing here. . As much as Spielberg, along with George Lucas, are blamed for destroying what many see as the adult driven nature of 70s films, Jaws did raise the bar for filmmakers, and even Spielberg himself had to attempt to top himself. While he arguably did with Close Encounters and even his latest, West Side Story, blows away all modern movie musicals, Jaws may remain as close to perfect as anything Spielberg's done.  Jaws is the first true Spielberg film, where his specific sensibilities feel pretty much fully formed, contradictory as they may seem. He takes the lessons of Hitchcock and perhaps surpasses his master, changing pop culture forever.                                                                                                                                                                                           

The Essential Films: "Signs" (2002)

A Series of Writings on Films that I feel are essential for film lovers, coupled with films that are personal to me. Spoilers for those you haven't seen the film

20 years ago the cover of Newsweek proclaimed writer/director M. Night Shyamalan "The Next Spielberg," ahead of his latest film, the alien invasion drama Signs. While many laugh at this proclamation now, considering the rough road Shyamalan's career went down, if you rewind your mind back to 2002 it's not a surprise he gained this moniker. Like Spielberg, Shyamalan was a filmmaker with an seemingly innate understanding of filmmaking language whose made genre films  about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, imbued with the kind of sentiment often seen in Spielberg's work. Re-watching Signs, I found it's Shyamalan's most Spielbergian film, the closest to a modern day Close Encounters of the Third Kind in that both are intimate family dramas in disguise as alien arrival stories. While I'd argue Unbreakable is his best film, Signs is the one closest to my heart. This may sound funny but Signs was an important film for me on my journey as a cinephile. I think this was the first film I analyzed on a filmmaking level, where I started to think about shot composition and framing. I know you're laughing but hey, I was 13. 

Signs centers around the Hess family: Graham (Mel Gibson), a former priest who left the church after his wife was killed after being hit by a car, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), a failed Minor League baseball player, and Graham's two children, Bo (Abigail Breslin) and Morgan (Rory Culkin). They all live on a farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and one morning they wake up to discover a crop circle in their corn field. Things get stranger when an intruder is seen on the property and lights appear in the sky over Mexico. While there are several other characters present in the film, including police officer Caroline Paski (Cherry Jones) and Ray Reddy (Shyamalan), the man who killed Graham's wife Colleen (Patricia Calmeber), the story is told through the eyes of the Hesses. Shyamalan eventually leaves behind the other characters, isolating the Hesses. This is similar to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, where Hitchcock also isolates Melanie Daniels and The Brenner family by the film's end. Also, when the Hesses board up their house is a direct reference to The Birds' climax.

As I mentioned earlier, Shyamalan as innate filmmaking sense. There's a preciseness to his compositions and camera movement. There's a Kubrickian feel to this shot:

 

And the way the camera pans to the knife, foregrounding it, is funny and tense in exactly the right way.

I also love the reveal of the alien still being in the house at the end through the TV screen

Coming back to Spielberg, the scene where the Hesses are using a walkie-talkie to hear the aliens talking is perhaps the most Spielbergian in the film:

The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were films about coming to accept the incredible, whether it be the ability of a young boy being able to see ghosts, or that you're a superhero. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), at first doubts that Cole Seer (Haley Joel Osment) can see ghosts, realizes he's telling the truth after discovering his former patient had the same ability. David Dunn (Willis again), comes to accept he has superhuman powers. In Signs, Graham eventually can't deny there are aliens ready to invade. These films are about faith and belief, as well as accepting your purpose- Cole as the helper of the deceased, David as a superhero vigilante. Shyamalan takes these themes further in Signs by having Graham not just realize these aliens are real but there's a greater design to the universe, something he may have once believed in but turned his back on after his wife was killed. In perhaps Signs' best scene, Graham tells Merrill that there are two groups of people: people who see those lights in the sky and think they're seeing a miracle; the other believe that whether good or bad, there's no higher power looking out for them. 

I think Gibson gives what may be the best performance of his career in this film. Like with Willis, Shyamalan casts Gibson against type as a non-confrontational former priest who can't swear convincingly. When Graham and Merrill are attempting to scare off the intruder Graham awkwardly says "I'm losing my mind." It's hard not to imagine Gibson having fun playing a guy *pretending* to lose his mind rather than genuine loose cannons like Martin Riggs and Mad Max. This role also allows Gibson to be the most emotionally vulnerable he's been since the first two Lethal Weapon movies. There's a scene where Graham encounters Ray, whose trapped an alien in his house and leaving for a safer place, in which her tells Graham he's sorry for the pain he caused him. Gibson's reaction to that-the pain, the anger, but the acceptance of Ray's apology, displays how stronh he can be as actor. Overall it's a great movie star performance and perhaps the last time Gibson was without baggage as an actor/star.

Instead of casting another huge movie star as Merrill Shyamalan went for a more offbeat choice with Phoenix. Phoenix was coming off his first Oscar nomination for Gladiator and Walk the Line was a few years down the road. This was the film that turned me in to a Phoenix fan. He's so funny here. His reaction to the alien walking across the TV screen and the image of him sitting with the children, all of them wearing tinfoil hats, is likely the funniest thing Shyamalan has put on screen. Merrill is sort of a loser but he's got a good heart and is pretty endearing. I love that when Graham asks Merrill if he believes in miracles Merrill tells of the time he avoided being vomited on a girl he wanted to kiss because he had to take a piece of gum out. This is the same scene where Graham outlines the two groups of people and Shyamalan really gives us a good sense of how these two guys approach life. Gibson and Phoenix don't look a thing like brothers but I really enjoy their chemistry.

Coming back to the themes of faith and belief, Shyamalan's twist ending her- along with the Village- is his most audacious conceptually and thematically. I remember when I first the saw Signs I was expecting a twist along the lines of The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, more of an "Oh my God!" than a slow realization of what has been set up over the course of the film. Shyamalan is going less for shock than for quiet realization. Bo's leaving glasses of water around for various reasons (supposed contamination, tastes funny), Morgan's asthma, Merrill's bat hanging in the living room, and Colleen's final words to Graham about telling Merrill to swing away, are all part of a grand design, calling back to Graham's question, "What if there are no coincidences?" Morgan's asthma protects him from the aliens' poisons and the glasses of water kill the aliens. Graham's faith is restored and the final shot shows him months later getting ready to go to church. He's found his purpose again. I find the ending I find little too pat. If Shyamalan had made things more ambiguous regarding whether certain things were coincidental or not it would've provided some great discussion. Instead, there's not much room for questioning these things. If we're going to continue the Spielberg comparisons, it's the kind of  easy ending for which, Spielberg often gets criticized. 

Ultimately, I don't think Signs is a particularly deep movie but I still think the movie overall works on an emotional and technical level. After using Eduardo Serra on Unbreakable as his cinematographer, Shyamalan brought back his The Sixth Sense cinematographer Tak Fujimoto (who photographed no less than Terrence Malick's debut feature Badlands as well as The Silence of the Lambs) for Signs. Fujimoto bring an eerily cozy feel to the film, the same way he did with The Sixth Sense. There's a paradoxical cold and warmth to these early Shyamalan films. James Newton Howard's elegant and elegiac scores also bring a beautiful autumnal melancholy this film and Shyamalan's other work. There's a little bit of Danny Elfman too in Howard's main theme for Signs. If not for Shyamalan's name you'd be forgiven if you thought maybe you were about to watch a Tim Burton alien invasion film. 

Like H.G.Wells' War of the Worlds and its cinematic interpretations, the aliens are defeated pretty easily at the end of story, which I'm okay with because the story isn't really about a war against aliens. It's a home invasion thriller which just happens to be set against a backdrop of a world invasion. The Birds, which I referenced earlier is also a smaller, almost apocalyptic story that's focused on this small town and its inhabitants. Shyamalan goes even smaller than Hitchcock, creating an almost chamber drama feel to the certain parts of the film. I almost wish there no other characters in the film other than the Hesses. 

The next Spielberg moniker obviously didn't stick, with The Village getting mostly negative reviews and Shyamalan getting worse and worse reviews over the next several films, though he's made a comeback or the last several years. However,  I don't think Shyamalan has ever recaptured what made people deem him the heir to Spielberg. The specific atmosphere of his early work has never completely returned for me unfortunately. Still, Shyamalan has always stayed true to his own particular sensibilities, similar to George Lucas, who's also gone through a reappraisal regarding his specific quirks. Maybe because we're at a place where pop culture lacks vision and spark it's easier to appreciate people like Shyamalan more now. Signs, along with The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and yes, The Village, represent a filmmaker unafraid of being laughed at for his earnestness, whose pretentiousness oddly feels like genuine sincerity. 

It's weird to think of Signs as a 20 year old film but it makes sense- it does feel like a film from another era, a star and director driven blockbuster, the kind that would feel like a throwback if released now. I never know how to end these things so I'll say that despite it losing some of its luster for me over the years, I still think Signs is a beautiful, if somewhat reductive, film, which represents a filmmaker who at the time seemed unstoppable as a pop culture force, even if calling him the next Spielberg ended up being a curse. So, what are your thoughts on Signs and M. Night Shyamalan's career. Comment and let me know. 

The Essential Films: "Paper Moon:" (1973)

A Series of Writings on Films that I feel are essential for film lovers, coupled with films that are personal to me. Spoilers for those you haven't seen the film.

Paper Moon is a gem of a film, one of the under-sung great films of the 1970s, made by a great director in his prime. With the recent passing of Peter Bogdonovich  I decided to look back on his fourth film, a poignant but unsentimental road trip featuring a real-life father/daughter pair playing a pair who may or not be father and  daughter. Paper Moon begins in 1935 with the funeral of Addie Loggins' (Tatum O'Neal) mother and the arrival of "family friend" Moses Pray, who may be Addie's father. Moses is asked to take Addie to her aunt's, to which he reluctantly obliges. It's soon revealed that Moses is a conman, selling bibles to widows under the pretense that their late husband bought it and had their name inscribed in it. Addie catches on pretty quickly and becomes Moses' unlikely partner. 

Paper Moon is based on the novel Addie Pray by Joe David Brown. Bogdonovich didn't like the title and came up with the title Paper Moon after seeing the title of the song "It's only a Paper Moon" on a list of songs that were popular during the 1930s. When Bogdonovich asked Orson Welles what he thought of the title Welles told him just to be release the title instead of the film. 

Bogdonovich had just done What's Up Doc? with [Ryan] O'Neal and wanted to do another film with him, which is how he met Tatum and got her on board. Casting a real life father and daughter could've easily been a gimmick but the two O'Neals have a whip-smart chemistry. Supposedly, Roberts Evans, the head of Paramount at the time, suggested Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson for Moses. It's hard to imagine what Nicholson could've brought to the role but I think O'Neal, while never being one of the "heavyweight" actors of the time- compared to Nicholson, De Niro or Pacino- has the right amount of sleaziness without becoming outright unlikable. And it's no wonder Tatum won an Academy Award for her performance. It's almost fifty years later and she's still wonderful in the film. She makes Addie a lived in child of the 1930s rather than 70s and Bogdonovich trusts that opening the film with a close-up of her face will establish the whole tone of the film. And it does. Addie's look is somber and mature beyond her years. This will not be a sentimental kid's film but a film about a particular place and time that was full of despair for the United States.  

The film has a lived in quality but also feels like a memory, a vision of the past rather the real thing. This is due to Laszlo Kovacs's black and white cinematography. There's something about black and white which puts a film outside of reality. It was Welles who suggested shooting the film in black and white through a red filter, to give the images high contrast. The film is visually rich, a real treat. There's a section in the film where Moses picks up a dancer named Trixie Delight (Madeleine Kahn) and her maid Eugenie (PJ Johnson). Addie becomes jealous, showing the audience the growing bond between her and Moses. After they've stopped for lunch on a hill, Addie stays under a single tree, not wanting to sit in back of the car with Trixie in front. This shot, and the shots of Trixie attempting to persuade Addie to come along, are magnificent. 

The film's visual storytelling is impeccable. Going back a little, when Addie first discovers Moses' con with the bibles, visually we see it through Addie's perspective- she sees the bibles and what Moses uses to print the names on the bibles. It reminds us that Addie is the main character and we're seeing much of the story through a child's perspective. While she won Supporting Actress, O'Neal should've won Best Actress. Even Khan, who was nominated in Best Supporting Actress with O'Neal, said O'Neal was the Best Actress and she the Best Supporting Actress. I agree O'Neal is the lead actress and Addie is the character who propels the story forward. She makes Moses her partner, breaks up him and Trixie and gets herself and Moses out of going to jail during the bootlegger segment. 

 But having a child lead the film doesn't make it too cutesy or sentimental. Paper Moon's lack of sentiment is a big part of why it's so great. The film looks at Addie and Moses' relationship matter-of-factly. They're two people who belong together, whether or not they're actually father and daughter. The fact its never confirmed Moses and Addie are father and daughter contributes to the film's unsentimental approach. That they are most likely biologically related remains a unspoken truth rather than an easy way to pull on the heart strings. Moses eventually brings Addie to her aunt's but Addie leaves, telling Moses he still owes her money. Again, no sentiment. These two characters are above that. It doesn't have to be spoken out loud that they love each other. And the film ends with them on the back of a truck, driving in to an unknown future. But as I said, these two belong together, for better or for worse. 

The Essential Films: "On the Town" (1949)

A Series of Writings on Films that I feel are essential for film lovers, coupled with films that are personal to me. Spoilers for people who haven't seen the film.

On the Town is a lovely and very funny movie musical, a encapsulation of that one day where you meet the guy or girl of our dreams. You don't know when you'll see each other again but at least you were together for a moment. Directed by Stanley Donen and star Gene Kelly, On the Town is a precursor to their ultimate triumph, Singin' in the Rain (1952), but it stands up pretty well aside that film. When people say "They don't make 'em like they used to," this is the kind of film they're talking about, a film filled with joy and is absent of cynicism, as well as a snap-shot of performers like Kelly and Frank Sinatra in their prime, forever young.

On the Town began life as a ballet called Fancy-Free (1944)- choreographed by Jerome Robbins, who also choreographed the original production of West Side Story- with music by Leonard Bernstein .Stage designer Oliver Smith and his business partner Paul Feigay convinced Robbins and Bernstein to turn the ballet in to a musical. Leonard Bernstein wrote the music while Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the book and lyrics. Comden and Green's long running partnership would involve writing the screenplays for Singin in the Rain and Vincente Minnelli's The Band Wagon (1953), starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, the latter gaining them an Oscar nomination. They would also write Auntie Mame (1958) starring Rosalind Russell.

On the Town premiered on December 28, 1944, at the Aldephi Theatre, directed by George Abbott, who also directed the original stage productions of Damn Yankees, Pal Joey (starring Kelly) and The Pajama Game (co-directed by Robbins with choreography by Bob Fosse). On the Town ran for 462 performances and is noted for its racially diverse cast, which the film unfortunately does not replicate. 

MGM head Louis B. Mayer didn't like the stage show and producer Arthur Freed had to convince him to buy the film rights. I believe this is why the film version does away with all but four of Bernstein's songs, with new songs by producer Roger Edens, with lyrics by Comden and Green. This led Bernstein to boycott the film. Abbott almost directed the film but Donen and Kelly were eventually assigned directing duties.

On the Town chronicles 24 hours in the life of three sailors, Gabey (Kelly), Chip (Sinatra) and Ozzie (Jules Munshin) get shore leave for a day. While on the subway Gabey sees a picture of "Miss Turnstiles," Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen). The three fantasize about her in a one of the film's signature set-pieces, which was the sequence which really got be on board with the film- due to its humor and visual storytelling via choreography and cinematography (the film's cinematographer was Harold Rosson, who also did the cinematography for The Wizard of Oz, Singin in the Rain, The Asphalt Jungle and The Bad Seed.). Gabey encounters Ivy when they get off the subway but she leaves before Gabey gets to know her. He gets Chip and Ozzie to go help him search for her. On their quest they meet cab driver Brunhilde "Hildy" Esterhazy (Betty Garrett) and anthropologist Claire Huddesen (Ann Miller), who take a interest in Chip and Ozzie, respectively. To cover more ground Gabey goes off alone while Chip and Ozzie become closer to Hildy and Claire. Gabey eventually finds Ivy but doesn't realize she's not actually that big of a celebrity 

And yeah, that's basically the plot. It's simple but it works perfectly for what this film is, what Quentin Tarantino would maybe call a "hangout movie." Most of the film is spending time with fun characters. There's not even much conflict-  Ivy not being exactly who Gabey thinks she is doesn't really matter all that much Essentially, three guys and three girls fall in love, party a little, then have to say goodbye. But isn't that everything?   

The film is also a great time-capsule of New York in the 1940s. On the Town was the first movie musical to be shot on location. The on-location shooting provides a cinematic quality to the story which is important when jumping from stage to screen. The location shooting also allows the film to be fantastical and realistic simultaneously. The emotions are heightened but being in an actual environment helps keep it grounded. And there's something romantic about New York which makes it the perfect setting for the story. 

Let's talk about the actors. Kelly, as both a actor and dancer, combined masculinity with tenderness and vulnerability. He was graceful but a little bit rugged. Sinatra is boyish but kind of rough-around-the-edges. Munshin is the most comedic of the three, reminding  me a bit of Donald O'Connor in Singin in the Rain. However, I find the women were the most interesting of the six main characters. I particularly loved Hildy, whose "I want to have sex with you" energy towards Chip feels progressive for the time and is just plain funny. And Hildy and Chip's duet, "You're Awful," is maybe my favourite song of the film. It has so much intimacy and wry charm it's hard not to smile.  I also like how Donen and editor Ralph E. Winters (who won Oscars for Ben-Hur and King Solomon's Mines) allow it to play out in only a few shots. For me, seeing actors play out a scene in longer takes it always more pleasurable than constantly cutting.

Ellen has to be both the ideal woman but also down-to-earth which she pulls off very well. Miller is a dynamo in the "Prehistoric Man" number, her tap-dancing forceful but smooth. I also liked Alice Pearce (the only actor from the Broadway production to reprise her role) as Hildy's roommate Lucy Schmeeler, Lucy has a cold the others set her up with Gabey when Ivy has to leave for a burlesque show. The movie is a little mean to Lucy during this part, with Gabey not wanting some other sailors to mistake her for Ellen. However, I think it pays off well when when Gabey takes Lucy home, giving her a kiss on the cheek. He also tells her there is a guy for her. It made me feel better the whole set-up in general and adds to Gabey's likability. Pearce is probably best known for her role on the tv show Bewitched as the nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz.

The film is book-ended by three new sailors getting shore leave, singing the exact same song- "New York, New York" that Gabey, Chip and Ozzie sang at the film's opening. This is reminding us this isn't the first or last time someone will fall in love in New York or have an adventure. Gabey tells Ivy he believes they'll see each other again. And I hope they do. On the Town has become one of my favourite movie musicals, a film with which I'm very glad I caught up. So, what are your thoughts on On the Town. Where does it rank among your favourite musicals. Comment and let me know.    

  

The Essential Films: "Creature From the Black Lagoon" (1954)

A Series of Writings on Films that I feel are essential for film lovers, coupled with films that are personal to me. Spoilers for people who haven't seen the film.

If you were to guess what movie director Ingmar Bergman reportedly watched every year on his birthday the answer may not be Creature From The Black Lagoon but it shows the far-reach and lasting impact of this film, an impact its makers probably could've never expected. But why does Creature endure? I would argue it's due to its odd elegance and beauty as well as the subtle tragic pathos of its titular character, who despite being a "monster" is actually a sympathetic figure. He's in love with a woman with whom can never be and is trying to protect his home from interlopers. He winds up being more alluring and interesting than the human characters.  

Before I get to the film's plot I want to talk about the film's fascinating and strange origin. Actor and future producer William Alland-who was part of Welles' Mercury Theater and played the reporter in Citizen Kane- was at a dinner party with Welles, actress Dolores del Rio and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa during Citizen Kane's production. Figueroa told stories of  part-fish, part-human creatures that lived in the Amazon. These stories inspired Alland to write down notes that a decade later would be developed in to the script for Creature.

Jack Arnold, who directed It Came From Outer Space, was hired on to direct. Before he became a feature film director Arnold was an actor on Broadway. When WWII began he was placed in the Signal Corps where he took a course on cinematography. He then became a cameraman, working on military documentaries as an assistant to famed documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North). After the war he formed a production company with his air squadron friend Lee Goodman named Promotional Films, which made fund-raising films for non-profit organizations. He would eventually direct an Oscar-nominated documentary entitled With These Hands, about working conditions in the early 20th Century.  

The underwater sequences were directed by James C. Havens and photographed by Scotty Welbourne. Ricou Browning played "Gill-man" in the underwater scenes while Ben Chapman played him in the land scenes. Browning started out as a diver in underwater shows but after being in Creature and its two sequels he would go on to have a career in the film business as a producer, director and second unit director. He was the second unit director on the James Bond film Thunderball, which is funny because when I was watching the film I couldn't help but think of Thunderball's underwater scenes.   

The design for "Gill-man" came from Milicent Patrick, born Mildred Elizabeth Fulvia di Rossi, and who some claim to have been an Italian baroness. Her father C.C. Rossi helped design William Randolph Hearst's castle estate (another Citizen Kane connection.) She worked as animator for Walt Disney before becoming a model. When she became an actress she met Bud Westmore, head of Universal Studios' make-up department, showing him her sketches.

She created Gill-man's design but was let go from Universal due to Westmore's jealousy over her creating the design. Westmore got the credit for Gill-Man until research reclaimed Patrick's contribution to the film. Patrick is the most fascinating figure associated with this film, with a recent book about her life and career by Mallory O'Meara entitled The Lady From The Black Lagoon being published in 2019.

I've talked quite a bit about the behind the scenes players  so now it's time to discuss the actual  story. The film begins with the discovery of a a skeletal hand which links man and sea animal. Dr. Carl Maia (Antonio Moreno) seeks out friend and former student Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson) to help with an expedition. David, Carl, Dr. Mark Williams (Richard Denning), Dr. Edwin Thompson (Whit Bissel), and David's colleague and lover Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams), go back to the amazon to find the rest of the skeleton. This leads to them encountering the Gill-man, who takes a liking to Kay, ala King Kong. 

The characters are archetypes- you have the good scientist who doesn't want to kill the creature (David), the scientist who acts like a big game hunter (Mark), the bookish scientist (Edwin), the older doctor (Carl), the girl (Kay), and the foreign riverboat captain, Lucas (Nestor Paiva). But the simplicity of the characters just makes Gill-man all the more interesting. Chapman and Browning both give Gill-Man a personality despite never speaking, a certain "character" if you will. Chapman was directed by Arnold to not lift his feet when walking on the boat. Arnold conceived that since Gill-Man glided underwater he would glide on surface. It's easy to forget its two actors playing the part because it feels like a consistent character.

Coming back to King Kong, If that film's plot is repurposed for Creature, then Creature's DNA can be found in everything that came after, including Jaws and Alien. The sequence where Kay is swimming in the lagoon, mirrored by Gil-man underwater, can't help but bring to mind Stevem Spielberg's classic. When we see Kay from the creature's perspective it's hard not imagine Spielberg having seen the film when he was a boy. In the opening where we see Chrissie (Susan Backline) from the shark's perspective underwater it feels like a clear homage. Welbourne's cinematography gives this scene a dream/nightmare-like quality. The underwater sequences all have a lyrical and visceral quality. And since this film was released in 3-D, audiences in 1954 were immersed in the watery world along with the characters. 

Adams describes Kay and Gill-Man swimming together- unbeknownst to Kay- as a "love dance," which I think is a great description. There's always  an odd romanticism in this kind of film, with the creature in love with a human. On the DVD documentary historian and science fiction illustrator Vincent Di Fate suggests that thinking too much about the logic of sexual intercourse between Gill-man and Kay would ruin the story. He say what matters is the subtext of this scene connecting with an audience.  

The lagoon becomes the thin dividing line between humanity and Gill-man, where humanity is the intruder on his terrain. In the documentary film historian Paul M. Jensen sees an environmental message in the film. When Kay dumps a cigarette in the water it pans down to Gill-man. While Gill-man is actually looking at Kay rather than the cigarette Jensen says the camera movement links the cigarette to Gill-man. This makes it seem like Gill-man is watching his home being polluted. This for makes his actions understandable, and I would argue sympathetic. As Chapman puts it in the documentary, if you came home and people were partying in your house, how would you react? 

Continuing on with the film's themes regarding the underwater world, there's a particular emphasis put on the underwater world's mystery and danger. In one scene David tells Mark:

We've just begun to learn about the water and its secrets, just as we've only touched on outer space. We don't entirely rule out the possibility that there might be some form of life on another planet, and why some entirely different form of life in a world we already know is inhabited by millions of living creatures?

I like the comparison to space, how it and the water are both mysterious worlds still in many ways unknown to man, though we know for certain the water is inhabited. Even if Gill-man is scary he's also an incredible discovery. The film's opening narration is dedicated to how life started underwater, placing the Gill-man as a mythic figure who's been around for ages and is a missing link between man and amphibian. The point of the story is how man will react violently to such a creature. They would want to destroy it instead of trying to make peaceful contact or leaving it alone. Gill-man, after kidnapping Kay is shot down at the end, though the ending was made to be ambiguous so as to leave room for a sequel, which I as made reference to earlier did happen- twice. 

On the DVD commentary, Tom Weaver quotes from an interview Arnold gave where he said he always set out to explore man's inhumanity towards man and those who are different- as well and how humanity hadn't evolved beyond focusing on what was superficial- in his science-fiction films. However he wanted to do so in a way audiences would accept. Arnold said he didn't think audiences would sit for a polemic. He also knew the House Unamerican Activities Committee or other societies would come after him. Arnold wanted to entertain but also hoped audiences would pick up on the deeper themes. Arnold strikes me as a thoughtful filmmaker even if certain critics didn't see anything deeper in Creature. I feel he was able to make an entertaining film without falling in to camp. I think its because it takes its premise seriously without being too serious.  

A discussion of Creature wouldn't be complete mentioning its score and the iconic "Bah Bah Baaahh" theme for Gill-man (created by Herman Stein), which is played every time he appears,. The score is an composite of different composers' contributions, including Henry Mancini (Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Pink Panther), as well as tracks from other Universal Studios' films. 

So, that's Creature From The Black Lagoon. Where does it rank for you amongst the Universal horror films? And why do you think it has endured over the years. Comment and let me know.

 

The Essential Films: "The Gunfighter" (1950)

 

A series of Writings on Films that I feel are essential for film lovers, coupled with films that are personal to me. Spoilers for those who haven’t seem the film.

Henry King's western The Gunfighter is one of the quietist films about violence I've ever seen. The Gunfighter could've been the title of a hundred different traditional action-driven westerns but King’s film concerns a man who doesn't want to be a gunfighter and is burdened by his own legend, which gives the title a melancholic and tragic quality. I would argue the film is an anti-western in how it refuses to fulfill the audiences' desire for violence and when it does there's no glamour, triumph or thrilling-ness to it. The film is largely about trying to outrun your own reputation.

Jimmy Ringo (Gregory Peck) is known as the fastest gun in the west. After he kills a young man named Eddie (Richard Jaeckel)- who wanted to become the man who killed Ringo- in self-defence, Ringo heads to the town of Cayenne. He waits to speak to his wife Peggy (Helen Westcott), with whom he has a son he's never met, while Eddie's brothers are in pursuit. Ringo's arrival also brings unwanted attention. Like High Noon (1952) the film takes place in a short amount of time and has a sense of intimacy in regards to the town. We become acquainted with several members of the town, most importantly the town's Marshal, Mark Strett (Millard Mitchell), an old friend of Ringo's and whom was in a gang with Ringo. In Strett we see a man who never became cursed by legend and was able to start over as a lawman. And Peggy has changed her surname, to conceal her marriage to Ringo. 

I said the film was an anti-western but it's also a film-noir in its themes and visual style. Many noir films deal with men and women wanting to escape their past but are caught in the web of fate. I also mentioned High Noon, which sees Gary Cooper's Marshal Will Kane walk around town in an attempt to gather people to help him fight outlaws who have targeted Will for revenge. In The Gunfighter Ringo is in a saloon for long stretches of the film. He has no interest in fighting Eddie's brothers. High Noon, despite being an unconventional western, still has the hero facing down the villains at the climax. There is no climatic showdown in this film. And Ringo isn’t portrayed as a hero. Like many film noir protagonists,  he’s morally grey. 

 John Bowers and Andre De Toth originally wrote the story for John Wayne. Wayne loved the story and offered Bowers 10,000 for it. Bowers thought it was worth more and eventually sold it to to Columbia for 70,000. Wayne refused to work for Columbia's President Harry Cohn, who had treated Wayne poorly earlier in his career. 20th Century Fox ultimately bought the story and Peck was cast. Peck wasn't associated with westerns the way Wayne obviously was. On the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray/DVD, filmmaker Gina Telaroli remarks how the film visually changes Peck's onscreen image, giving him a period accurate mustache and clothes that don't completely fit, also a period accurate detail. 

Telaroli adds that Peck was considered too intellectual an actor for the part but argues- and I agree- Peck's intellectualism suits the more psychological quality the film has. I feel the humility and pragmatism Peck radiates as an actor is perfect for Ringo's approach to his own legend and to killing. For Ringo killing is a matter or "him or me." He doesn't view it as glamorous or exciting. When Ringo kills Eddie at the beginning the film's editor Barbara McLean doesn't show Ringo fire the shot. We see Eddi gunned down and then a shot of Ringo with his gun drawn, punctuating Eddie's death. By not showing Ringo fire, cutting the scene in a more matter of fact matter, the audience is made to look at the situation more objectively, the way Ringo does.

I mentioned the film's noir inspired visual style earlier and never got around to talking about it.  Cinematographer Arthur C. Miller's use of shadows is obviously very noir-ish. Keeping the story indoors allows Miller to create a claustrophobic atmosphere in regards to the framing. The film keeps Ringo very isolated at his table, with Miller's deep-focus photography allowing us to see the other people in the saloon watching Ringo. This emphasizes the separation between Ringo and the townspeople. Despite its minimalist plot, King and Miller make the film visually interesting striking. 

At the end of the film it's not Eddie's brothers who get Ringo. It’s Hunt Bromley (Skit Homeier), another young man like Eddie who wants to be Ringo’s killer. Ringo says he drew first, saving Bromley from hanging. Ringo does this in order to have Bromley live the rest of his life with the reputation Ringo had, the curse which will bring challengers against Bromley. The curse of reputation and myth is passed down, and will continue to be passed down from killer to killer. 

The Gunfighter is a gem of a film. It's not always the first film mentioned when talking about the great westerns but it deserves more consideration. It sets itself apart from other westerns in its intimacy and seemingly anti-drama elements. But in its simplicity it harbors complex ideas concerning the challenge in separating yourself from your reputation, and the question you are vs. what you've been built up to be. And ultimately I believe Jimmy Ringo doesn't want to be more than his reputation; he just wants to be less.