Birdman of Alcatraz

The word Alcatraz evokes images of prison bars, riots and some of the most notorious criminals of the twentieth century.  Among those imprisoned there were Al Capone and Baby Face Nelson, but in 1962 no one was more infamous than Robert Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz.

Robert Stroud was first sent to prison in 1909 for manslaughter.  Sources say he knocked a man unconscious then shot him at point-blank range for not paying a lady for certain services Stroud was managing.  John Frankenheimer’s film glosses this over, sending us straight into his prison days in his first home behind bars, McNeil Island.  Stroud (Burt Lancaster) doesn’t bend to authority easily, bringing him time in the hole with no light and no communication.  When a minor slip up is about to cost him a visit with his mother (Thelma Ritter), Stroud confronts the guard and ends up killing him.  This second murder on his record nearly sends him to the gallows, his mother pulling strings and saving his neck.  Instead, Stroud is put in solitary confinement, where it seems that he will just waste away in with no purpose in his life.

One day in the exercise yard, a storm brings a tree branch down, complete with a helpless baby bird in a nest.  Stroud brings the bird into his cell, painstakingly nurses it and even teaches it to fly.  The images of him mushing up bits of his food in his tin cup and gently feeding the bird are beautifully uncommon for a murderer.  With Stroud’s bird chirping, the other prisoners want birds too.  Soon the whole solitary block is chirping with pet canaries.  As birds get sick, or their owners lose interest, they give them to Stroud.  Before you know it, baby birds are hatching and Stroud’s tiny cell is full of bird cages.  When disease strikes the birds, stroud begins experimenting with medicines and studying the birds more closely.  Over the years, he makes discoveries that help bird farmers and eventually writes an extensive book about his findings.

Regular readers know that I am a big fan of Burt Lancaster and his performance as Robert Stroud did not disappoint.  Accept for the fact that his hair was thinned as Stroud grew older, but that’s just me.  We understand Stroud to be quiet, brooding and calculating.  Early in the film, we see him kill a guard, but it comes about as part wanting to see his mother and self defense.  For a full grown man in prison, we get the feeling that he’s a mama’s boy; for awhile she’s the only one who visits him.  His redeeming qualities grow as he works with the birds, we suddenly see him as gentle and caring.  However, the reality of Stroud’s character has been described more as demented and cruel, along with scientifically brilliant.

While “Birdman of Alcatraz” has a great ring to it, it isn’t exactly true.  You see, Stroud only worked with birds in Leavenworth prison.  He was transported to Alcatraz in 1942 and they did not permit any pets there.  However, his reputation followed him, even through the riot of 1946, where the film portrays Stroud as a peaceful hero.

Birdman of Alcatraz found itself nominated for four Oscars, three of them acting awards.  Burt Lancaster was up for lead actor, Telly Savalas for supporting actor and Thelma Ritter for supporting actress.  The film’s other nomination was for black and white cinematography, very worthy considering all they did with so many cramped shots in a jail cell full of bird cages.

I think Birdman of Alcatraz is a fascinating and great film, but I can understand some finding a bit meandering.  The film’s focus becomes a balancing act between Stroud as a character, the less than perfect prison system and Stroud’s work with birds; some may want more focus on one thing or less on another.  However, anyone interested in a Robert Stroud, his work or Alcatraz should definitely check this out.  And of course, this is a must see for Lancaster or Frankenheimer fans.

“Fly my avian friends, I give you the illusion of freedom.”

The Train

I love Burt Lancaster and I love French art, but even more, I love old trains.  As a kid, I remember a train exhibit where you could climb up into the locomotive, pretend you’re moving the levers and blow the horn.  I remember being disappointed that we couldn’t watch the wheels move, in their distinctive chugging motion.  My excitement over first riding a train to Chicago probably embarrassed my friends in college.  A couple years ago, I wandered around the Chattanooga Choo Choo and tried to not look more fascinated than the little boy calling every train Thomas; not easy.  I look at trains much like I do dinosaur fossils, with wonder, awe and looking at all the pieces trying to imagine just how they moved.  John Frankenheimer’s The Train is like pure catnip to me.  The visual focus is on trains and they provide a lot of drama and action. Burt Lancaster is the starring hero who needs to save priceless French paintings from Nazi Colonel von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) who is trying to transport them to Germany…of course on a train.

Let me re-organize my thoughts for those of you who couldn’t what mode of transportation was used here.  The events of the film are based on a true and historic accounts.  The setting is Paris in August of 1944. Germany has successfully invaded and decides to take the national treasures of France, their paintings.  As the opening credits roll, we see the paintings go into crates and labeled by artist names, Picasso, Van Gogh, Degas and Cezanne to name just a few.  For any art lover, it’s like watching each artist being arrested and locked away.

Looking for help, the museum curator, Miss Villard (Suzanne Flon), seeks out what is left of the French resistance.  What started with 18 is down to 3 men, Labiche (Lancaster) being their leader.  She begs them to somehow stop the train from entering Germany and most importantly, keep the paintings safe.  Easier said than done, considering how Labiche would rather just blow it up and save men, rather than paintings.

The French people go to great lengths to save the paintings and keep the train on French territory.  One of my favorite moments was when the train changes direction and every station ahead has to change their signs to correspond with what the Nazi on board in the locomotive believes the next city should be.  It shows how so many people, all around Paris are helping to preserve their rightful national treasures, and how much they mean to them.

There is a stark realism to the dangers presented throughout the film.  The Nazis execute men for the slightest defiance, and everyone working to stop or slow the train does so knowing their punishment for getting caught.  Dangers of working with big clunky trains are a focus too.  The big train crash scene was done in one shot and used real trains.  It’s a spectacular blow and you just know that guy in the caboose didn’t make it out.  Something about a beautiful black and white film in the 1960s always seems more real and gritty to me.

At the Oscars, The Train received one nomination, for best screenplay.  To me, it feels like this film should be more decorated than that.  It’s just as good a film as Best Picture nominations that year like Darling or Ship of Fools.  But where The Train really shines is in the visual effects department, which only had two nominations that year.  It feel like it got gypped.

Maybe The Train isn’t for everyone.  It has a good amount of classic suspenseful action, but it’s not all flash and explosions like action films today.  The hero is a bit dark and reluctant, with no cheesy catchphrases.  There is a lot of focus on the train, rather than bulging muscles and blood splatter.  And it’s not like the Nazis are stealing diamonds, pirate treasure or the ark of the covenant, it’s just French artwork.  Maybe it’s too realistic for some, but to me, that’s what makes it great.

“Beauty belongs to the man who can appreciate it.”

Field of Dreams

Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) has an interesting, baseball-laced background.  His father had a brief career as a minor league baseball player and tried to pass down the traditional American love of baseball down to Ray, but as a rebellious teen about to throw himself completely into the hippie lifestyle of the sixties, Ray wanted nothing to do with his father or baseball.  Now, at age thirty-six, Ray is a pretty normal guy with a wife, Annie (Amy Madigan) and a little girl, Karin (Gaby Hoffmann).  He decides to become a farmer in Iowa and soon, starts hearing a voice in his cornfield.

“If you build it, he will come.”  The voice is vague, mysterious and rather haunting, Ray can’t find a way to shake it.  Through a vision, he figures out that the ‘it’ he should build is a baseball diamond and the ‘he’ will be Shoeless Joe Jackson, an expelled baseball player his father used to tell him stories about.  To build this field would mean destroying some of his crop, a huge financial risk.  To not build is more logical and safe, but would only leave Ray with a huge what-if.  He realizes a part of him that fears aging, turning into his father and never doing anything great.  What if his father ignored voices?  It’s a huge leap of faith, but building this diamond could be his only chance.

So Ray and Annie decide to go for it and build a beautiful baseball diamond right next to their corn and house.  Now everyone in this little Iowa farm town thinks they’re crazy.  It takes a long time, and just when the financial issues are rising up, Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) shows up to play ball.  Soon, more dead ball players come out of the field, but only the people who believe can see them.

As the financial issues become more serious, the voice returns, with Ray and Annie interpreting that it wants Ray to take Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones), a controversial author of the sixties, to a baseball game.  When you’ve done this much at the whim of a disembodied voice, you’ve got to see it through to the end.

Now, I know that some people look at Field of Dreams as just a baseball movie, it’s not.  Baseball just happens to be the physical theme that can be passed down from generations, with stories and action that can make anyone feel in their prime.  It works well to bring out a simple past-time.  The film does recognize that baseball is not the most important thing a man can do in his life, even if it is his dream.  When we meet Dr. Archibald “Moonlight” Graham (Burt Lancaster), we understand how close he was to his dream of becoming a baseball star.  He only played for five minutes in the majors and went on to become a doctor.  For Ray, he finds this to be a tragedy, to come so close to a dream and back down to a normal vocation.  Graham puts a larger perspective on his decision, saying, “Son, if I’d only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes… now that would have been a tragedy.”  Baseball is a dream life, those five minutes on the field should be cherished, but the world does not revolve around it.

While this idea is mystical, intriguing and wonderful one thing really irks me…does this idea only apply to baseball?  Could there be another person somewhere hearing voices and having visions to build a giant greenhouse where dead gardeners will show up and his/her dead and estranged parent will show up and they’ll bond by watering some flowers together?  I don’t mean that to sound condescending, but rather hopeful.  Why should there only be a personal heaven built for baseball players?  How many people have ignored the voices and left the rest of us hanging in the non-exclusive parts of heaven?  If you ever hear a voice telling you to build an outdoor theater showing Raider of the Lost Ark with a never ending supply of beer and chicken wings, don’t ignore it and let me say thank you in advance.

“Iowa?  I could have sworn this was heaven.”

From Here to Eternity

After requesting a transfer, Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) is stationed at an army base in Hawaii 1941.   There, Officer Dana Holmes (Philip Ober) hears of his boxing reputation and wants him to represent his unit.  Robert refuses and tries to hide his haunting past about his time in the ring.  In order to break him into boxing again, Holmes makes Robert’s life a living hell and puts him on the most grueling details.

Robert’s friend, free spirited Private Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra), helps him blow off some steam in their free time by taking him to a social club where Robert falls in love with one of the employees (Donna Reed).  While there, Angelo gets in fights with  ‘Fatso’ Judson (Ernest Borgnine), the stockade Sergeant.  When Angelo goes AWOL, Fatso makes sure he’s severely punished, but things go too far.

Behind all of this, Sergeant Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster) starts a romantic relationship with Officer Holmes’ wife, Karen (Deborah Kerr).  We learn of her strained marriage filled with tragedy and begin to approve of this affair.  As the two become deeper in love, Karen hatches a plan for Milton to become an Officer and be stationed back in the states where she’ll follow after divorcing.  It all seems so perfect, until the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.

The film is based on the novel by James Jones, who witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor.  From Here to Eternity is considered the first of his life’s war experience trilogy, The Thin Red Line and Whistle complete it.

The most memorable scene of this film is when Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr are in the throws of romance in the Hawaiian surf.  There is swelling music and the sounds of waves crashing over the two as they embrace.  It really pushed to the limit of romantic scenes in the 1950’s.   The way Deborah suddenly runs, throws herself on her back in the sand, I feel like today that quick burst of passionate energy and motion would only be replaced with a cheap boob-shot.   Burt’s naturally awesome hair is dripping all over, he’s got nothing but those tight little trunks on and he just falls to his knees beside her, surely some prudent mothers urged their daughters to avert their eyes.  To this day, the scene still holds it’s merit in sex appeal, simply because it is so iconic and classy.

While From Here to Eternity is not the sort of Oscar winning picture that I personally found in the realm of greatness, it is very good and, in my opinion, the best of the 1953 nominations.  The film won the Oscars for screenplay, sound, cinematography, editing, director and picture.  Donna Reed and Frank Sinatra also picked up Supportive Acting Oscars.  Next time you feel the itch to watch Pearl Harbor, let me suggest From Here to Eternity instead.  There’s less mush and more compelling story, even with lines like this:

“Nobody ever kissed me the way you do.”

Elmer Gantry

Based on the 1927 novel by Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry tells the story of a fast talking, womanizing traveling salesman who becomes the main preacher in a traveling revivalist church.  Both the novel and film were very controversial in their time.  In the twenties, the novel was banned in many cities and denounced in churches the world over.  Director Richard Brooks beings the film with a statement to explain the message and warn audiences of the controversial content:

“We believe that certain aspects of Revivalism can bear examination- that the conduct of some revivalists makes a mockery of the traditional beliefs and practices of organized Christianity!

We believe that everyone has a right to worship according to his conscience, but- Freedom of Religion is not license to abuse the faith of the people!

However, due to the highly controversial nature of this film, we strongly urge you to prevent impressionable children from seeing it!”

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting anything so gutsy from the year 1960.  For those worried about that statement above, the film does not make a mockery of religion, but rather examines characters that abuse the faith of the public and turn it into a circus.  The film offers some great food for thought and should not be immediately dismissed by religious communities.

Burt Lancaster drives the film and earned an Oscar for his performance as Elmer Gantry.  In his first scene, we see Gantry’s amazing talent from telling dirty stories in a speakeasy, to selling Christmas spirit comparing Jesus to a regular All-American football star.  Gantry seems to rely on the kindness of strangers by putting on a wholesome choirboy attitude, scoring him trusting smiles and places to sleep, sometimes with a female companion.

When he happens upon a Revivalist tent with the beautiful Sister Sharon (Jean Simmons), Gantry works his charm, and hops on their train, to become part of the traveling church group.  His energetic sales pitches, I mean sermons, can range from mocking Darwinism with a cute chimp to ranting and sweating with proclamations of brimstone and hellfire.  He gains the church so much attention and converts that they are invited by Mr. Babbitt (Edward Andrews) to the big city ofZenith, where there’s a lot of sinners to be saved and Gantry’s racy past could ruin his new reputation.

It’s obvious to us that Gantry is a no-account drifter only using this revivalist church to his own gain.  He tries to hide his exploits with booze and women as he becomes a more public figure.  To help further his image, Gantry takes it upon himself to lead the people of Zenith to destroy the local speakeasies and other sinful establishments.  They’re like a mob, complete with torches and chopping down doors with an ax.  Then Gantry happens upon Lulu (Shirley Jones), a one night stand he once had, while overturning the prostitution ring.  Lulu has told her coworkers all about Gantry and how “he rammed the fear of God into me so fast I never heard my old man’s footsteps!”  With the whore house destroyed, Lulu decides to blackmail Gantry and expose his unholy side.

Through all this unwholesome drama and turmoil, Sister Sharon is the one true believer in the story.  From her humble beginnings and no training, she started this revivalist church on her own to spread the word of Jesus.  She has nearly reached her ultimate goal of having a permanent church.  Along the way, she falls for Gantry, which seems nearly scandalous for woman trying to be a pillar of moral fiber.  The real problem Sharon has is that she can trust God too much.  No matter how religious you are, always get out of a burning building.  Or Darwinism will always win.

“The mob don’t like their Gods to be human.”

Atlantic City

In the film, Atlantic City looks like a stubborn floater in the toilet.  There’s graffiti everywhere and buildings being demolished left and right.  A build board on a rundown apartment building pokes fun at the city’s embarrassing decline, reading, “Atlantic City, you’re on the map again.”  If it were not for the people who are too old go anywhere new, the city would be a ghost town.  They keep the casinos in business and gives the younger people, who must have steered wrong at some point to land in Atlantic City, jobs in those casinos.

Sally (Susan Sarandon) works in the oyster bar of a casino, but she’s training to become a dealer.  When her bohemian looking husband, Dave (Robert Joy) and sister, Chrissie (Hollis McLaren) (who is pregnant by Dave) arrive unexpectedly, Sally is less than welcoming to them.  They’ve traveled a long way, and though the back story is never fully revealed, it seems that Sally owes Dave for helping her leave their hometown in Saskatchewan, Canada.  Along the journey to Atlantic City, Dave has found some drugs he plans to sell.  Problem is, Atlantic City seems to have some standards about how drug dealers should dress for success and Dave looks like a hitchhiking hippie.

Enter Lou (Burt Lancaster), an aging man who lives in the apartment next to Sally’s and considers himself a big time gangster, though he only occasionally pulls some small deals.  He’s a kind old man, who takes care of the elderly lady downstairs, Grace (Kate Reid).  Dave strikes up a little friendship with Lou, and has Chrissie take care of Grace for a while so Lou can sell the drugs for him.  But while Lou is making the deal, Dave is murdered.  Now that Lou is making wads of cash thanks to Dave, his odd sense of chivalry tells him that he is obligated to help Sally.

In the beginning of the film, we see Lou watching Sally through her kitchen window as she does an odd routine.  She rubs fresh lemon juice all over her neck and chest while listening to opera music.  At first, we assume Lou is an old creepy man watching for kicks.  In a scene later, after the relationship between Lou and Sally has grown and see understand Lou’s need to protect beautiful young women, he confesses to watching Sally.  What he says, and the way he says it is not creepy, he has a real sense of admiration.  The way he describes what she does in detail shows that he watches her in this private moment in an attempt to understand her in a soulful way.  The fact that Lancaster can pull that conversation off perfectly and convince me that he’s not a creepy old man watching from his window, deserves his Oscar nomination.

In the end, Atlantic City is a well written tale of small time crime and passion.  The characters are likable and the situations don’t get too far fetched for our imaginations.  Best of all, the film shows us how people can get stuck in the crumbling world of Atlantic City and how fitting it is for them.

“You should have seen the Atlantic Ocean back then.”

Separate Tables

I must say, that I have had such amazing luck lately with the films not available on Netflix.  Just Friday morning I was able to catch Separate Tables playing on TCM, what perfect timing with my own schedule.  So, if there is a man behind the curtain pulling levers for TCM and picking the most obscure Oscar nominated films to air, I say thank you.

During the off-season at the seaside Beauregard Hotel, it seems that everyone had their own secrets and tries to keep to their separate tables.  At the small potatoes end of the drama, there is a young unmarried couple, Jean (Audrey Dalton) is an artist while Charles (Rod Taylor) is a medical student.  She doesn’t want to be weighted down by the conventional life of marriage and children, but they have to sneak around the glaring looks of the old women in the hotel.  Then there is alcoholic John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster) who is secretly engaged to the hotel owner, Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller).  When his ex-wife, Ann (Rita Hayworth), arrives, looking to get back together with John, it only brings up painful memories of their relationship and John is afraid of falling into old habits.  Finally, there is Major Pollock (David Niven), a kind old gentleman who enjoys telling stories of his war days and forms a friendly bond with young, innocent Sibyl (Deborah Kerr).  But Sibyl’s mother, Mrs. Railton-Bell (Gladys Cooper), is a domineering old woman who warns her daughter to stay away from the Major.  When Mrs. Railton-Bell reads in the paper that the Major has been accused of lewd conduct in a movie theater, she gathers the other hotel guests to decide whether they should allow the Major to stay or kick him out of the hotel.

In the beginning of the film, our curiosity is provoked by small actions that go unexplained for a little while.  Sibyl and the Major having a polite friendly conversation, then Mrs. Railton-Bell scolding the girl with no real reason.  The Major looking at the paper, then suddenly looking very worried.  These details are like any you might run across in real life, just as poignant, none of our business, but in film we will get the answers.

There is quite a gap between the Major that is told to us and what we see in him.  While the newspaper paints the Major to be a sexually deviant old man, we see only see his gentle kindness and understanding.  Even later when he confesses to his acts, he keeps them politely vague in ambiguity and takes the moment to reach out and try to help Sibyl.  It’s old Mrs. Railton-Bell who turns what she has read into a makeshift trial, and the judgemental old bat simply pleads her side of any case as decent values and Christian virtues, automatically pinning her opposition, the poor Major, as a bad person.

As the film progressed, I became worried, wondering what the relationship was like between Sibyl and Mrs. Railton-Bell behind closed doors.  Mrs. Railton-Bell seems to have Sibyl tightly under her thumb and we get clues pointing to Sibyl having a history of nervous breakdowns.  And as Sibyl reads about the Major in the paper, she squeezes her fist so tight she breaks a pair of glasses, cutting her hand without even noticing.  She seems to be the product of abuse, mental or otherwise.

Between the Major’s issues and the relationship between John and his ex-wife, the topics of sex, lack there of, and deviancy made Separate Tables one of the most racy films of its time.   I was surprised at how much sexual content could be alluded to in the conversations.  I’m sure that whole scene on the patio between was very racy for the times and applaud the film’s bravery in that area.

Separate Tables is one of those films that feels fueled by gossip and human curiosity into private lives, but turns out to be much smarter than that.  Each character has their part in condemnation or redemption, the whole cast is full of great acting and the ensemble really resonates when they’re all together.  Niven won the Oscar for lead actor and Hiller for her supporting performance.  Unfortunately, I don’t know when this wonderful film will be airing again.  Separate Tables seems like a very hard film to find, I was lucky to catch it and I suggest it for everyone.  If I see it scheduled on TCM again, I will let my readers know.

“-Are you on the side of Mr. Malcolm and his defense advice or are you on the side of the Christian virtues — like Mr. Fowler and myself?
–Never in my life have I heard a question so disgracefully begged.  You should be in politics, Mrs. Railton-Bell.”

The Rose Tattoo

The Rose Tattoo is a compelling story, by Tennessee Williams shot in such beautiful black and white that all the color of 1955 cannot compare.  This was Anna Magnani first English speaking role and ended up winning the Oscar for Best Actress.  If you want to see some real acting in the 1950’s, Magnani makes this a must see film.

Serefina Delle Rose (Magnani) runs a small neighborhood sewing business in her home and clings to the love of her husband.  When he is killed in a police chase and his reputation soiled by smuggling, Serefina spirals into a deep depression and becomes recluse in her home.  Throughout the Italian-roots neighborhood, the ladies gossip about Serefina, secrets of her husband and only see her when they need her to sew something.

Three years later Serefina has only gotten worse.  She never leaves the house, never seems dressed enough for public and has fallen behind in her sewing with the ladies constantly complaining.  Her daughter, Rosa (Marisa Pavan) is a blossoming young woman, but her mother tries to impose her stagnant lifestyle on Rosa by not even making her any formal wear for a dance, while all the girls in the neighborhood are wearing dresses made by Serefina.   Nonetheless, she falls in love with Jack (Ben Cooper),  a young sailor. Of course, Serefina does not approve, the relationship seems to be a threat to the way things were before her husband died.

One day, a couple of crass young ladies ask Serefina to sew a blouse and their filthy talk and hollering out the window to drunk men infuriate Serefina so much that she throws them out of her house.  When she tells the ladies she wants her house to remain pure for the memory of her husband, one lady tells Serefina about the affair her husband had.

Now poor Serefina is worse than ever, but somehow has a revelation to warm up, just slightly, to Jack.  But just as we think she’s taken a step forward, she’s tearing through the church bazaar looking like a crazy woman asking the priest if what the woman said about her husband is true.  By the end of the scene, she’s so upset that a young truck driver, (Burt Lancaster) takes her home, an unlikely friendship starts up and they have a night they’ll never forget.

Anna Magnani is undoubtedly the best actress of 1955.  From that first scene where Serefina is caressing her husband, we see her passion and ultimate need for him.  When she is first told of his death, the scene feels so naturally tragic because of Magnani.  Throughout the film, she doesn’t have to make grief look noble or pretty like I get so sick of seeing in the 1950’s.  The broken hearted near madness she portrays is refreshing and amazing.

“He should’ve stuck to haulin’ bananas.”