The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is loosely based of Francis Yeats-Brown’s memoir about British soldiers protecting the boarders of India from rebellious natives.  In the Northwest Frontier, Colonel Stone (Guy Standing) runs a cold and efficient camp, allowing little ceremony or grieving for those lost in battles.  Lieutenant Alan McGregor (Gary Cooper) does not mind speaking his mind to Stone, making him look insubordinate.

When Lieutenant Forsythe (Franchot Tone) and Lieutenant Donald Stone (Richard Cromwell), the Colonel’s son, arrive they are befriended and taken under the wing of the experienced McGregor.  Colonel Stone treats his son coldly for the sake of business and avoiding any favoritism.  This causes the young Stone to act out and he becomes captured by the notorious Mohammed Khan (Douglass Dumbrille).  Colonel Stone decides not to send any men after his son, realizing that it is probably a trap.  This infuriates McGregor, so he and Forsythe disguise themselves as Indian peddlers in an attempt to rescue young Stone.

Honestly, this film is kinda boring.  It feels like the plot just jumps to little misadventures that don’t really matter in the main plot for a while, before it settles far too close to the end.  It was almost fun to see the guys fight over the only pretty girl within miles, but she had no purpose as a character.  Of course there has to be a snake charming gag, but it carries no merit.  Most of this film just feels like filler material that does not really drive the plot or develop these characters.

All day, I’ve been trying to put a finger on why I just did not like this film.  Perhaps it was too cold.  Had I turned the sound off, there would be hardly any way to tell any friendship between the men, much less any affection between the father and son.  Maybe there was just too much military business going on without much explanation as to the relationships between India and England.  Then I opened up this film’s Trivia page on IMDB and saw this right at the top: Reported to be Adolf Hitler’s favorite film.  Whatever he saw in this, I did not.  And I find that very reassuring for my morality and sanity.

“We have ways to make men talk.”

Sergeant York

I hate to make this comparison, but you know that film within Inglorious Basterds, Nation’s Pride?  Today, this seems like the friendlier, American version, only instead of two hours of just patriotic shooting, we get the true story of a young man from rural Tennessee reformed by hard work and religion.  Then it turns to the shooting and glory of being a war hero.

The film starts with Alvin C. York (Gary Cooper) being a wild young man who rides his horse up to the state line to get his fill of liquor and rides back to drunkenly shoot his initials in a tree outside the little church with the whole town inside.  Even when he is about to fall off his horse, he shoots well enough for that A and Y to be straight and legible on the tree.  Poor old Mother York (Margaret Wycherly) is tired of being ashamed of her oldest son and sends her younger son George (Dickie Moore) to bring him home.  After a long ride to sober up and a meal with the folks, Alvin starts straightening out, but still has no belief in God.

While hunting with George one day, Alvin runs across Gracie Williams (Joan Leslie), “all growed up” and looking pretty.  Gracie has more than Alvin checking her out, but she doesn’t approve of fighting, so Alvin decides he needs some land to prove his worth to Gracie.  He sets his sights on a fertile piece of farmland and starts marking on a calendar how much he has saved up every day.  Alvin works hard, but when someone buys the land just to screw Alvin over, it sends him to the border on another binge.  On his way home, in a drunken rage, something miraculous happens that makes Alvin believe in God.  Next thing we know, he’s leading a Sunday school class and quoting the bible at every turn.

When WWI starts up, Alvin wants to be exempt from fighting because of his new-found religious beliefs.  Unfortunately, the draft board does not recognize his little church in the Tennessee valley and he is recruited against his will.  Training is a big experience for Alvin, he meets new people like Pusher (George Tobias) from New York who teaches him about thing he has never even heard about, like the subway.  When Alvin is discovered to be a terrific shooter and a man who refuses to fight, his officers give him a book on the history of the United States to help him reconsider.  Based on the movie poster and his decorated history, you already know Alvin’s decision.

I don’t want to belittle Alvin C. York, the most decorated WWI veteran, but this film would not go over as well with most audiences today.  While I enjoy the story of his redemption and renewed work ethic, by the end of the film it can seem like a two hour recruitment poster for the most isolated people in the bible belt.  At points in the film, Alvin is even compared to Daniel Boone. You mix all those messages with a story of Alvin turn his life around in attempts to get a pretty girl and soon you have throngs of choir boys signing up for war, gun in one hand, bible in the other.

Despite my distaste for the pro-war message aimed at the south, Gary Cooper pulls off an Oscar winning performance as Alvin.  Simply put, we like him, just like I hope we would like the real Alvin.  He’s just an aw-shucks Tennessee country boy who is trying to please his mother and work hard to earn the affections of prettiest girl in town.  He pulls off that earnest southern drawl and phrases like “I ain’t a-goin’ to war.  War’s killin’, and the book’s agin’ killin!  So war is agin’ the book!” with enough conviction that I could take it more serious than what it looks like written out.  Cooper makes Alvin perfectly humble and sweet, he just so happens to be a hell of a shooter.  Though I applaud his Oscar win for best actor here, my heart always feels a little pain knowing how I’ve wanted that to go to Orson Welles for Citizen Kane.

Wings

Beginning the long tradition of excellence in film, this high flying story of friendship, love and war Wings was the very first winner of the Best Picture Oscar.  Directed by William A. Wellman, Wings is about two young men, middle class Jack (Charles Rogers) and rich boy David (Richard Arlen).  Jack has eyes for David’s girl, Sylvia (Jobyna Ralston), who doesn’t have the heart to plainly shoot the boy down.  The girl next door, Mary (twenties It-girl Clara Bow), is good friends with Jack, helping him work on a car they dub The Shooting Star.  Mary drops huge hints about her affection for Jack, but he doesn’t catch on at all.  Many times throughout the film, Jack is too focused on one thing to see the big picture.

When war breaks out, the boys are off to flight school.  We’re shown some fun footage of antique flight simulators and men stumbling dizzily away from them.  But soon we’re shown the real dangers of flight.  You may notice a very young Gary Cooper in a quick scene, but it seems that too soon he’s been in a crash.  He’s just a small role to give a face to the dangers of flight.

Soon, the boys are on dangerous missions and epic dogfights fill the screen.  We’re shown from far away, tiny planes performing death defying stunts among the clouds and up-close images of the actor-pilots flying and acting simultaneously.  It’s quite a feat really, considering each pilot actor had to fly and then turn on the camera mounted on the front of the plane, then continue to play out the scene while flying.  Today, our actors just sit in a fake cockpit next to a green screen.

In the dogfight scenes, the title cards become especially important.  Without them, it would just be planes flying around aimlessly, the narrating cards explain the situation and turn it into a story.  And they’re timed very well, they never seem to hinder the action, but further it.   I especially love how they are written with elegant prose, at times it’s downright poetic.  Some of my favorite clips of text I wanted to share from the dogfight scenes are: “there was chivalry in the knights in the air,” “zooming into the belly of the monster” and “earthward, twisting and doubling though the clouds.”  It’s all quite beautiful and fitting for this film of flight and war, I sure wouldn’t describe Top Gun that way.

There are more effects than capturing flight on film.  In a scene where Jack is on leave in Paris, he gets drunk on champagne and starts to see little bubbles around him.  It’s really such a fun little bit of old movie magic that is done so well, but the gag runs for quite a while.  Soon there’s bubbles fluttering out of flutes, tubas and a bedpost.  With Jack intoxicated, there can also be a great bit with his vision extremely blurred.  This is also pulled off very well.

If you’re reading this, enjoy classic film and need a brush-up on the silent era, there’s no excuse for you to not watch Wings.  Right now, you can watch Wings for free on YouTube and no copyright laws are being broken.  The picture quality is of surprisingly good quality for both being over eighty years old and on YouTube.   It’s the very first Best Picture winner, quite an enjoyable film and broken up into fourteen ten minute videos.  Guilt free, you can take breaks and grab a snacks and check your social networks between the buffering.  I bet Wellman never imagined that to happen to his film.

“Jack, don’t you know me?”

Friendly Persuasion

This is the story of a Quaker family in southern Indiana during the Civil War.  You already want to skip it, don’t you?  Believe me, it’s better than you expect.

The family consists of parents Jess (Gary Cooper) and Eliza (Dorothy McGuire), oldest son Josh (Anthony Perkins), teenage daughter Mattie (Phyllis Love) and Little Jess (Richard Eyer). They all have their traditional Quaker clothing, but all but Eliza have some sort of temptations that stray them away from their strict faith.  Jess starts to take an interest in music, Mattie is starting to get romantic notions about dancing with boys and the sons are curious about the war they keep hearing about.  Little Jess also has an enemy that tempts him toward violence; Samantha the goose has become a pest to Little Jess and a pet to Eliza, but I think anyone watching the film will absolutely love her.

A good portion of the film makes sure we understand how Quakers live.  It seems there is more don’ts than dos.  No music, dancing, violence, gambling, drinking, smoking, the list goes on and on.  Of course, everyone but Eliza, who is a pastor at their church, has their vices and it’s Eliza’s job to constantly keep them on track.  We hear a Methodist church singing on Sunday morning and the we see the Quakers, solemn and silent.  They sit men on one side of the little church, women on the other, all facing the middle and simply bow their heads in silent prayer or read their bibles.  The silence is only broken when a member has something they want to proclaim, usually a confession or a praise to God.  The kids look so bored at these meetings.

One day, a man from the Union army comes to the Quaker’s meeting to ask if any men would volunteer to fight.  He’s told right out that it is against their religion to fight.  This gets the idea into Josh’s mind that perhaps he should fight, if he doesn’t defend his family who will?  And of course devout Eliza cannot bear to see her son do something so against their beliefs.  This moral dilemma is mostly in the second half of the film, but is the climax of the drama.

This film is a fun wholesome family-pleaser, it has the same kind of values and charm of films like Old Yeller and Disney’s Davey Crockett.  A good amount of the film is fun, showing the family at the county fair with all sorts of games and activities to tempt them.  There’s even a part where Jess and Josh are traveling and meet a house full of women who go gaga over Josh.  Believe me, watching Anthony Perkins politely try to get away from the girls is hilarious.

If you’re looking for something edgy, this is not it.  But if you’re looking for a good film to watch with your kids, show them a new perspective with the Quaker lifestyle or a very small lesson on the Civil War, Friendly Persuasion is perfect.

“I hope nobody saw us.  I want to come to meeting with nothing in my heart but peace and love.”

A Farewell to Arms

A while back, I had a conversation with a friend about movies.  She talked excitedly about how some of her favorite films starred Gary Cooper, but unfortunately went to see The Back-Up Plan with Jennifer Lopez and shook her head saying, “They don’t make them as well as they used to.”  I had to agree.

Which brings me to A Farewell to Arms, a romanticized adaptation of Hemingway’s novel.  Don’t avoid films from the ’30’s, you’ll find less holes in their plots than you will with today’s.  When it ended, I realized I was completely invested in the story and genuinly concerned about both lead characters.  My usual stance is to find faults and groan at how trivial the plot is, but there was something more to this film.  There’s an honest sincerity that comes out when these two people are separated by war, a plot that can be overused, but has never been as wonderful as this.

Gary Cooper plays Lt. Frederic Henry, a ambulance driver in WWI who falls in love with Catherine (Helen Hayes), a nurse.  Catherine has already suffered heartbreak through the war when her old boyfriend was “blown to bits.”  She decided to become a nurse hoping to take care of him with a minor picturesque wound, so she’s pretty disenchanted.  There’s an odd sense of female duty Catherine feels about being with Henry, she says, “We must give ourselves for these men,” even though she doubts that she’ll see him again.  When Henry returns to Milan after being injured in a blitz, Catherine is overjoyed and with a priests blessing, they consider themselves married.  Henry’s recovery is full of celebration and Catherine ducking around her work to be with him.  When bottles of booze are discovered in his room, the head nurse orders him back to the front lines.  Catherine bears a brave face and doesn’t tell him that she is pregnant, another side of her duty.  She decides to move to Switzerland to have the child.  Soon, Henry realizes the war means nothing to him and all he wants is to run away with Catherine, so he deserts the war and runs back to Milan in search of Catherine.

The title obviously comes from Henry’s desertion, which is not a theme I expected in the era between wars.  There are so many war films filled with patriotic duty, honor and love just postponed that sometimes we forget the other perspective.  Not everyone was a proud willing soldier, sometimes it feels like they were told to keep quiet and only let the patriotic ones speak.  Had this film been put off for a few years, we might have never known it.

This film is very good at talking so delicately about sex.  It’s always kept romantic and when terms start to deviate or become invasive, the conversation is stopped.   Catherine asks, “How many women have you, you know, loved?” and we understand that pause.  What’s even better is that Henry says none, an obvious lie to Catherine, but she doesn’t care and even takes it as a compliment to protect her.  This whole watered down, careful conversation might be so foreign or dull to us, but that’s how it was done back then.  Your grandpa might have been a player, but he ain’t gonna tell your grandma that.

When you think about it, the anti war message, topics of sex and an unwed mother are all pretty daring subjects for the early thirties.  I would recommend A Farewell to Arms to anyone, and in the twenty-first century these topics are still very relevant.

High Noon

High Noon is described as “a western for people who don’t like westerns.”  That’s pretty accurate considering I loved it.

Minutes after Marshall Will Kane (Gary Cooper) gets married to Amy (Grace Kelly), a young Quaker, the town gets news that a gang of bandits are waiting at the train station for the noon train to arrive.  On that train is Frank Miller, a criminal with a grudge against Kane and his town, just let out of jail.  Once that train arrives, they plan on killing Kane.  He’s urged by everyone to leave town with his new wife to think of, but he realizes that the new marshal won’t arrive until the next day and feels that it is his duty to stay and protect the town.  No one is willing to help him.

The bulk of the film feels like it takes place in real time, constantly checking the clock and counting down the minutes until the train arrives.  Like that shot of the red sand flowing out of the hourglass in The Wizard of Oz, the ticking clock becomes a morbid symbol of how much time Kane has to live.  The odds are against him, four against one, and that guy building something behind the barbershop might be the coroner getting a coffin ready.  We never find out, but that’s my bet.

The whole film is filled with tensions.  Time is running out, no one will help Kane, which makes Deputy Harvey (Lloyd Bridges) look like a coward.  Smart maybe, but still yellow.   Amy is morally against the violence Kane is about to bring so she plans on catching the noon train to St. Louis.  On top of that, she discovers an old friend (and possible flame) of her husband’s, Helen Ramírez (Katy Jurado).

One of my favorite scenes is when Kane walks into the church in the middle of service looking for men to stand with him.  Before he can even explain his intrusion, the pastor burns him since he hardly attends church and didn’t get married there.  Way to preach compassion.  Then the congregation seem to hold an impromptu town meeting debating whether to help Kane or not.  The few men willing at first are shut down realizing the social and economical impact a brawl with bandits will cause.

The ending action is perfect and stretches the anticipation to the brink.  There were points where I found myself yelling to Cooper where the bandits where and what to do, that’s how I know I’m enjoying the film.

The only thing that bothered me is the relationship between Kane and Amy.  For starters, he’s got to be about thirty years older than her, and what does she see in him?  She’s a Quaker and completely against violence, yet she knows he’s a law man and probably shot a few guys in his time.  But of course, this is the old west and if she gets taken care of he can have his young bride and everyone’s happy.  Still, if the romance was more convincing, made more sense to their personalities and wasn’t such a creepy age gap, I would’ve been on board, no problem.

Besides that, I loved this movie.  The anticipation to the climax wonderful, Cooper is an actor I can always enjoy and it’s no wonder he won Best Actor for this role.  The message about standing up and finishing what you started is wonderful and doesn’t feel preachy (even though it was a slap in the face to some people in Hollywood at the time.)  If you don’t like westerns, you’ll probably like this one; if you do like westerns, I’d like to know what you think.  John Wayne hated High Noon, but don’t let him influence your decision.

“Kane will be a dead man in half an hour and nobody’s gonna do anything about it. And when he dies, this town dies too.”

Pride of the Yankees

The story of Lou Gerhig has been an inspiration for generations now, athletes or not.  As a boy, he aspired to become an engineer, just like his German immigrant mother wanted.  He grew older, went to Columbia and worked toward that goal, but baseball was always an option.  He turned down the Yankees on a number off occasions knowing it would break his mother’s heart to abandon engineering, but when she turned ill and needed money to get care, Lou signed up with the Yankees, opening up more opportunities than he could as an engineer.

Anyone familiar with classic baseball can tell you the rest of the story, major league, never missed any of his 2130 games in a row and struck in his prime with a mysterious debilitating disease.  It was in mid 1938 that Gerhig noticed something was physically wrong, and from there his performance began to diminish.  It’s heartbreaking to see such a good person struggle.  A modern day tragedy, but that shouldn’t be what is taken away from this film.  Gerhig never lets illness get him down and that’s what makes a man great, not his batting average.

Gary Cooper plays Lou Gerhig in all the wonderful ways fans love to remember him by.  He’s modest, soft spoken, kind and does everything his mom says.  In the scene where Gerhig’s teammate, Babe Ruth, is signing ball for sick boy in the hospital, everyone snaps pictures of little Billy and Babe like it will be on page one.  When the press has left, little Billy asks Lou to sign ball too.  The request is an honor, and he proceeds to share some inspirational words with the boy, saying that if he tries hard enough he’ll be able to walk again.  It’s a sweet and a bittersweet moment and foreshadow to his own future.

The film’s only Oscar win was for best editing.  It becomes instrumental to portray a fast paced baseball career.  At some points, superimposed images are edited into a montage to tell the story of traveling around to diferent cities all season.  Shots are edited together to show different people all over listening and reacting to the game.  The players on field, men in press box, announcers, Billy in hospital, Lou’s family at home and random people on the street are suddenly all together rooting on their Yankees.  The best thing is it brings a great feeling of anticipation and when victory strikes it is seen all over with so many happy faces united by one player.

Now, I’m not sure what exactly the formula is that makes a great sports film.  There’s this mentality that needs to be present for a sports film to be great and remembered.  It’s all about the honest virtues, your main character’s heart has to be even bigger than his swing.  But there’s only so far you can take that before it gets too mushy, cause sports stars need to appeal to little boys and make them great men.  Pride of the Yankees hits this hidden formula square center field, Gerhig is a perfect role model for all of us, on or off the field.  His integrity and strong spirit in the face of adversity is why he’s still remembered to this day and why I recommend this film.  Before you show your little slugger sports films like The Sandlot, Rookie of the Year or Angels in the Outfield (so many baseball films from my childhood) I suggest finding Pride of the Yankees.  They’ll take away more important things from Gerhig than they will from Squints and Yeah-Yeah.

“Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) is a small town man who writes postcard poetry and plays the tuba.  When his distant uncle dies and leaves him twenty million dollars, he heads to New York.  Assuming that he’s an ignorant sap, lawyers and business men instantly flock around him to swindle him out of his money.  Mr. Deeds’ isn’t so daft, but when he stumbles upon a lady in distress he falls for her immediately, not realizing that she’s a newspaper reporter.  Babe (Jean Arthur), the reporter, sticks to Deeds’ side to expose and exaggerate all the wonderfully odd things about Deeds.  She doesn’t realize it, but she’s falling in love with him and the more she writes about him the worse she feels.  When Deeds decides to do something honorable with his new money, the articles are used against him to claim that he’s insane and not fit to handle such a grand amount of money.

If anyone read that and said, “Hey, didn’t that movie have Adam Sandler in it?” …shame on you.  Alright, I’ll try to take that back, but still, Sandler can’t hold a candle to the great Gary Cooper.  Also, Sandler is good at portraying a dope.  You know, he makes funny voices, sings The Hanukkah Song and he was the freakin’ water boy for heaven’s sake!   Sigh, I guess it’s alright today, since Mr. Deeds is supposed to be a kinda dopey guy, but in the good-hearted fun way, not the over-the-top goofy ‘but-mama-says’ Sandler way.

I’ve only seen parts of the Sandler Deeds (the urge to vomit was too extreme).  The original Deeds never even caused a hiccup.  The story is sweet without stupidity, Cooper inspires genuine laughter (and does the little echo scene so well).  If this film seems interesting to you, please see the original.  If you really are a diehard Sandler fan, see both.

Sadly, I can imagine this film being remade again with an even goofier guy.  Just imagine the crap Justin Bieber will be cranking out in fifteen years.

“That guy is either the dumbest, stupidest, most imbecilic idiot in the world, or else he’s the grandest thing alive. I can’t make him out.”

For Whom the Bell Tolls

“No man is an island, entire of itself… any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”  – John Donne

These immortal words begin the film as a bell rings, setting a solemn tone.  Then the excitement starts with a bang as Robert Jones (Gary Cooper) blows up a train in the middle of the night.  He and his comrades flee from gunfire and into a cave, where they meet with more revolutionists fighting for the republic.

The story is based off the great Ernest Hemingway novel and the setting is Spain, 1937, in the heat of the Spanish Civil War.  Robert (Roberto or Inglés to some) was a college professor teaching Spanish and a fierce idealist, therefore traveling to fight in Spain.  He and his comrades (a mixed up troop of displaced Spaniards and Gypsies) decide their next target is to demolish a nearby bridge as troops are moving into battle.  They have three nights to prepare for this and need to find enough horses so that everyone can retreat quicker after the explosion.  That’s also enough time to turn on each other a bit, have to deal with adverse weather and find love.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is so full of great acting it had four acting nominations, one of them winning.  Of them are Gary Cooper and Ingred Bergman, where rumor has it that Hemmingway had these two actors in mind as he wrote the novel.  Bergman filmed this just after completing Casablanca and willingly cut her hair down to short blonde curls.  She plays Maria, the love interest who’s been raped, had her head shaved and her family killed by the troops.

Supporting is Akim Tamiroff who plays Pablo, a big brute of a coward who flip-flops on whether to help with the bridge mission or run and switch sides to rat them all out.  His shining scene is where he’s drunk at the table in their cave hideout.  With his glassy eyes, menacing grin he becomes more threatening by the minute, like a bear growling in his sleep.  Lastly, Katina Paxinou won the Oscar for supporting actress in her fierce portrayal as Pilar, the clever Gypsy woman who fearlessly commands the band, stands up to Pablo at his most volatile state, foresees the future and makes sure Robert and Maria have a magical night under the stars before the big mission.  In one of her best scenes she says, “I would have made a good man, but I’m all woman and all ugly,” as she takes a cigarette Robert offers her.  She expertly portrays an old woman’s wisdom and her earned dignity.

Unfortunately, I was a lazy literature student and have yet to read Hemmingway’s novel, so I cannot accurately compare the two works.  Perhaps that’s best, since I usually despise the film version when I’ve read the book beforehand, (The Da Vinci Code, for example).  I encourage all who enjoy Ingred Bergman, Gary Cooper, Hemmingway or have an interest in the Spanish Civil War to see this film.