Roman Holiday

Princess Anne (Audrey Hepburn) is on a tour of the European capitals, with the public reading about her every step.  Her days are fully scheduled with proper meetings and wholesome activities where she is always sheltered by her servants.  One night in Rome, after a slight emotional breakdown, a doctor gives her a sedative and Anne boldly decides to escape into the city to find some fun for herself.

As an American newsman, Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) is heading back to his apartment, he finds Anne snoozing along the sidewalk and ancient ruins.  The girl has no identification or money and says she lives at the Colosseum, so he assumes she is drunk and takes her back to his place, where she’ll be safer.

The next morning, Joe has accidentally slept in and missed his interview with Princess Anne, but finds out she is sick and has canceled all appointments for the day.  At least that’s the story that the public is given.  But when Joe sees a picture of the princess, he realizes it’s the girl back at his little apartment sleeping on his uncomfortable couch.  He makes a bet that he can get an exclusive interview with the princess and takes Anne on a day trip through Rome, never letting her know that he knows she’s the princess.

Audrey Hepburn won the Oscar for best actress in her fun and endearing portrayal of Princess Anne.  From the very beginning, she puts a wonderfully imperfect spin on royalty.  We realize this will be a fun film when she’s trying to remain poised and dignified while under her large dress we know she’s trying to scratch her tired legs and loses a shoe.  Her spoiled girl antics don’t make us dislike her, instead we feel her stress and sympathize with the cooped up princess.  As she explores Rome, it’s like watching a flower bloom.  At first, she is timid and unsure of what to do and where to go.  After a new haircut, to help conceal her royal identity more, and making new friends, she really starts to come out of her shell and we see a new, confident young woman.

Some of my favorite laughs come when Anne is half asleep and being led around by Joe.  We know the sedative is to blame for her disgraceful sleeping in public and the wild idea of living at the Colosseum, and Hepburn delivers this act in such a funny and endearing way.  When Joe tries to lead her up the spiral stairs, Anne naturally goes around them like a sleep walker.  After Joe tells Anne she’ll sleep on the couch, comes back to see her curled up on his bed, the way he flips her onto the couch is hilarious and shows just how powerfully sedated Anne is.  Even funnier is when Joe realizes the next day that he’s flopped a princess out of his bed and made her sleep on the couch, and then picks up to place her back in the bed before she wakes up.

The meat of the film is Anne’s adventures exploring Rome.  These chapters are fun and funny, but can feel like a tourism aid at times.  The film starts showing us things to see and do in Rome and always do so on a little Vespa scooter.  Of all these scenes shot all over Rome, the Mouth of God scene pays off the most and I’d rather not spoil the gag.  It was a surprise for Hepburn too.

All and all, Roman Holiday a fun mix of a romantic comedy and Roman tourism ideas.  If anyone is planning a vacation to Rome, I’d suggest seeing this for fun ideas on where to go.

“Joe, we can’t go running around town with a hot princess!”

Twelve O’Clock High

In the early days of WWII, an American bomber unit has been having some tough luck lately, if you believe in luck.  The men are losing their will to fly and fight, so General Frank Savage (Gregory Peck) is sent to lead them and turn things around.  Right away, he starts whipping the men into shape, yelling at the guard at the gate to check people more thoroughly and demoting a young man back down to private for not wearing his jacket on a hot day while he is typing in a stuffy office. He even orders that the bar be closed down for the night, once he has ordered himself a quick beer of course.

In his first time addressing the unit, he spells it out perfectly, “Consider yourselves already dead.”  Big changes are coming, not only to focus on their discipline, but also to emphasize better training, tougher leadership and smooth teamwork.  Savage even creates the Leper Colony, a team where the disorderly and belligerent men will be assigned.  This will create a stigma, a place you don’t want to find yourself, and the men who do might have to work extra hard to make sure they make it through their mission considering the screw-ups on their team.

We soon see that the way Savage is pushing these men is paying off in the statistics.  They are completing more missions successfully and losing less men.  But as Savage grows closer to the men, he begins to see them as more than another boy to send up in a plane, possibly for the last time.  It is easy to walk in on a group of strangers and order them into battle, but do to do it over and over to men you are growing to know is another thing.  Savage does his best to repress the stress he is under, but how long can he hold out?

In the beginning of the film, we are told that real footage taken from combat will be featured.  Exciting.  Unfortunately, they wait until nearly two hours into the film to get to a real dogfight and show us the footage.  It is edited very well, between shots of Savage in the cockpit and his men at the guns.  Some of the footage may be intense for some viewers, especially if they realize they’re seeing the real thing.  We don’t just see heroic flying skills, but carnage.  There is a wing being shot off, men bailing out, gunfire all over, another plane exploding in midair, planes spiraling downward and hundreds of bombs dropping on the land below.  It was more intense than I expected, but one of those rare moments of priceless film.

I can understand some people thinking it is in bad taste to use this footage in a film, but the characters are based off real people as well, and the film was careful to focus only on the military themes for the sake of glorifying the men who fought.  A romantic plot was deliberately cut so that there could be more focus on the men, their battles and the theme of leadership.  There is not much fluff here, just like General Savage, this film tries to be tough as nails.

“I believe that to a certain degree, a man makes his own luck.”

The Yearling

The iconic image of this film is the little blond haired boy holding the real-life embodiment of baby Bambi.  This makes you think that the whole film will be centered around this tiny baby deer and there will be plenty of moments that could replace a trip to the petting zoo.  Spoiler Alert: If you have little kids who just want to coo over baby animals, you are better off springing for the petting zoo than dealing with the tears after the Old Yeller style ending.

The film, based on the book by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, is about the Baxter family who live in the wild woods of the south after the Civil War.  While making their land their home, Penny (Gregory Peck) and Orry (Jane Wyman) have faced the hardships of losing all but one of their children.  Jody (Claude Jarman Jr.) is about eleven years old and has a strong love for the animals around him.  He’s constantly asking his parents to let him keep a baby raccoon or other critters as a pet.

He’s just a lonely single child, his only other friend is a boy who broke his leg by jumping off the cabin in an attempt to fly, Fodderwing (Donn Gift).  While Fodderwing hobbles around on a crutch, he has a whole slew full of white rabbits, a raccoon and a tree house.  When he starts talking dreamily about how he will fly one day, it’s best to realize the euphemism and get the first batch of tissues ready for your little ones.  A boy on a crutch isn’t likely to last long in the old wild south anyway.

One day, as Jody and his Pa are out hunting, his Pa is bitten by a rattlesnake.  With luck and quick thinking, Penny tells Jody to shoot a nearby deer, cut out its heart and liver so that he can use them to pull out the poison.  After they have killed the deer, they see that it had a baby, only days old.  As Penny is recovering, Jody reasons that the fawn left with no mother will die on it’s own, and since that deer died to save him, they should take care of the orphaned fawn.  Now Jody’s got the cutest little baby deer in the world and we get to squeal with delight.

Unfortunately, that squealing only lasts for about five minutes before the deer turns from ultra cute baby fawn into young, but not so cute fawn.  Soon, he’s destroying crops and making life very hard for the Baxter family.  Over and over, Jody defends his fawn, but eventually it is going to have to go.

There seems to be a theme of using deer to explain death to children in the forties.  Some kids can handle these ideas with no problem.  My dad showed me a dead deer in the back of a pickup truck when I was only six and told me it was Bambi.  My mom had a fit, but from then on, Old Yeller was no problem.  But if you are one of those parents who fast forwards through the part in Bambi when his mom dies, your kids might not be ready for The Yearling.

“Walkin’ ain’t easy for me since I tried to fly.”

Spellbound

Alfred Hitchcock called this film, “just another manhunt wrapped up in pseudo-psychoanalysis.”  While that sums it up pretty well, adding in fun details like a murder-mystery, a love story to cloud judgement and a Salvador Dali inspired dream sequence sets Spellbound apart from Hitchcock’s other manhunt or psychoanalysis inspired films.

At Green Meadows mental institute, Dr. Edwards has just arrived to replace Dr. Murchinson (Leo G. Carroll).  Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) falls in love with the charming new arrival, but realizes inconsistencies in his present self and what she has read about him professionally.  She is the first to realize that this man, only known as JB (Gregory Peck), is an impostor suffering from paranoia and amnesia.  Constance takes it upon herself to treat him and attempt to outrun the authorities looking to charge him with the murder of the real Dr. Edwards.

Along the way, Constance and JB seek refuge in the house of her old mentor, Dr. Alexander Brulov (Michael Chekhov).  By this point in the story, Alex is the only person with a level head on his shoulders able to see the situation without getting personally involved.  He’s a quick thinking man, welcoming his old pupil with a fathering attitude, but sees through her lies and keeps the situation under control.  What I loved most about Alex is his ability to see the bitter truth and tell Constance that her judgement is clouded by her affections for JB.  “We both know that the mind of a woman in love is operating on the lowest level of the intellect,” he tells her.  Viewers who have been swept up in the love story have been brought back to Earth by Alex, who holds some important elements in understanding JB’s condition.  It’s this ability to be kind, charismatic and clear up the lovey-dovey nonsense that will only hinder their progress, that earned Michael Chekhov a supporting actor nomination.

One of the most unforgettable parts of the film is the dream sequence.  At Alex’s request, JB describes a dream he just awoke from, in an attempt to analyze it and see if they can uncover any clues to his true identity.  The images inspired from Dali’s work are stirring, surreal and very creepy.  There are curtains of eyes being cut with giant scissors, a card game won with blank cards and a man with no face dropping an odd shaped wheel.  Alex attempts to put these strange pieces of information together, but it isn’t until the end we find their true meaning.

Spellbound is one of the many Hitchcock movies every film fan should see.  It was one of the first films to deal with psychoanalysis, a theme Hitchcock would later work with often and the Dali dream sequence was ground breaking in film art direction.  With a stars like Bergman and Peck fueling a stirring plot with surprises until the very end, Spellbound is a film any classic film lover needs to see.

“Women make the best psychoanalysts until they fall in love. After that they make the best patients.”

To Kill a Mockingbird

Most American high schools require their students to read Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, at some point.  Unfortunately, forcing literature onto a teenager doesn’t always encourage them to open their mind to it’s ideas.  Thankfully, I had Mrs. Essex that semester.  She led us into eye opening discussions about the novel and it’s fragile themes.  It was probably the first time I was within an honest and intelligent conversation about racism, sexual violence or childhood influences.  Of all the literature I was exposed to in my teens, this became one of my favorites and the most thought provoking.

The story takes place in an Alabama town during the depression.  Atticus (Gregory Peck) is the town’s lawyer, he’ll take any honest case and will accept payment in simple ways for people who are poor.  He’s a widower and father of two children, ten-year-old Jem (Phillip Alford) and six-year-old tomboy Scout (Mary Badham).  Jem, Scout and their friend Dill (John Megna) keep themselves busy just being curious kids around the neighborhood and fueling their imaginations with discoveries about the legendary Radley house.  When Atticus defends a local black man who has been accused of raping a white woman, Jem and Scout have many hard questions to ask and they witness their father stand against the crowd and do what is right.

In the film, we see that kids are just kids, but it’s what the adults around them do and say that form their senses and understanding of the world.  Perhaps it’s the lack of a strong female presence in Scout’s life that influences her tomboy ways, but Atticus is the perfect role model for her and Jem.  They’re lucky to have him, on the other end of the parental spectrum is the town drunk, Mr. Ewell (James Anderson).  He claims that his eighteen year old daughter, Mayella (Collin Wilcox), was raped and beaten by Tom Robinson (Brock Peters).  After the courtroom scene, it’s obvious who the real culprit is and how much Mr. Ewell has wronged his daughter throughout her life.

One of the greatest scenes is when Atticus is protecting Tom from the lynch mob.  Atticus is on the porch of the jail prepared to stand his ground, but hopes to do so peacefully.  When the mob arrives, mostly made up of poor, chubby farmers, Scout and Jem rush through the crowd to their father.  These men aren’t going to get violent with children around, right?  Then Scout takes her innocence to a new level and tries to have a friendly conversation with Mr. Cunningham, whom Atticus has helped in court before.  The shame on his face, from being picked out as a good man by a little girl when he has the intentions of killing a man is amazing and so moving.

I cannot go on enough about Gregory Peck’s Oscar winning performance as Atticus Finch.  He upholds the feelings the character evokes in the novel perfectly.  Atticus is the father everyone wants to have in some way.  He’s smart, never raises his voice, teaches his children well, both educationally and morally.  When Jem or Scout ask him tough questions, Atticus always knows what to say without sugarcoating the truth.  He’s as respectful to children as his is to adults, and in return earns their respect.  The AFI named Peck’s Atticus as the top screen hero in past hundred years.  That’s quite an honor for a character who might sum himself up as simply a father and a lawyer.

Everyone, especially parents, should see (and read) To Kill a Mockingbird.  Kids will be intrigued by Jem and Scouts adventures, but should have an adult on hand for tough questions about a certain word.  If you ever need a coach to help you explain things to little ones, just remember that Atticus is a role model for every child to look up to and all parents to emulate.

“There just didn’t seem to be anyone or anything Atticus couldn’t explain. Though it wasn’t a talent that would arouse the admiration of any of our friends, Jem and I had to admit he was very good at that – but that was all he was good at… we thought.”

Gentleman’s Agreement

Phillip Green (Gregory Peck) seems to be trying to carry the whole world on his shoulders.  He’s a widower raising a young son, taking care of his sick mother, wooing a beautiful woman and works as a respected reporter.  His assignment is to write an article about anti-Semitism, an especially touchy subject just after the full disclosure on the horrors within Nazi concentration camps.  After gathering dry facts and evidence he decides that the best way to understand and write a passionate article about the Jewish plight is to pretend to be Jewish.

This sounds very daring way to open a can of worms.  I was excited to see this film, it sounded like it would be a Jewish Black Like Me.  The problem is, the whole film is all talk and no action.  Even the parts that are supposed to be dramatic, where it seems that Green might finally try to take action, is just talk.

These are good conversations though.  In an early scene where Green is trying to explain to his son about his assignment and why there is so much prejudice in the world against Jews, it seems like a conversation the whole world might need some help on in 1947.  Later, Green talks with a lady who changed her name to one that sounded less Jewish.  She talks about how she sent two resumes for the same job, the only difference being the last names and how she got hired under her new name.  She reveals a great deal of self loathing and lack of pride in her heritage.  While it’s an eye opening point, it would have been more touching if we could see this in action, rather than in reflected conversation.

The action we see is spontaneous and muddled in more talking.  There’s a punch thrown in a restaurant when one man uses a derogatory term.  Green’s son comes home shaken and roughed up after a group of boys thought he was Jewish.  We don’t see the scuffle (the boys just yelled hurtful things and ran), simply Tommy a little shaken and asking tough questions.  When Green seems like he’s finally going to take a stand and goes to a resort to ask if they cater to his people, the owners just leave him standing at the front desk.  His question to the management is all the action he can take.

Though Eliza Kazan won for his direction, he later admitted that he didn’t really care for his film.  He said that he felt it lacked passion and that the romance was too forced.  I completely agree with him, but commend his effort for trying to bring the ugly truth about anti-Semitism into American conversation in a time where these dark questions were surfacing.

“Because the world still makes it an advantage not to be one. Thus it becomes a matter of pride to go on calling ourselves Jews.”