Matt's Big Oscar Challenge 203: So Good They Named Her Twice

It's no secret that I haven't particularly enjoyed the last couple of films that I've watched as part of this quest, mainly due to the fact that they've been all-action war films. So, for my next choice, I've decided to watch something with less guns and more character. The film I'm talking about is Rachel, Rachel, the directorial debut of Paul Newman, which also starred his wife Joanne Woodward as the film's titular heroine. I say heroine, but Rachel is much more of an ordinary woman who most would describe as a bit of a wallflower. Rachel has lived in the same house all her life, while she is now teaching to the same school she attended. While her siblings have all moved on, she has been left behind to care for their widowed mother. Rachel doesn't like to socialise with anyone and the closest relationship she has is with fellow teacher Calla. However, after the two attend a revival meeting together, Calla reveals that she is in love with Rachel and clumsily makes a move on her. After rebuffing her friend's advances, Rachel meets an old acquaintance in the form of the charming Nick Kazlik. Nick attempts to secure a date with Rachel, but once again she tries to blow him off. Eventually he wears her down and Rachel has her first sexual experience with him. She immediately plans a future for herself and Nick, but when he reveals he was only looking for something physical Rachel is distraught. Her pain worsens when she realises she might be pregnant, and resolves to move away in order to raise her child in a more comfortable environment.

Released in 1968, Rachel, Rachel is definitely one of the new breed of films which shy away from convention. Throughout the film, Newman visualises Rachel's fantasises and flashbacks, as she imagines several scenarios that never occur. In addition we hear her inner-monologue a lot of the time, which I felt became annoying towards the end. What I did like was the film's depiction of how small-town life can drag you down and how seeing the same faces every day can drive you insane. Rachel was an intriguing central character whose daydreams and flights of fancy were all in keeping with the dreary setting. One criticism I have of the film is that it seemed awfully episodic and I don't feel that the narrative flowed as much as it should've done. However, I would still recommend the film, mainly because of the brilliant central performance from Joanne Woodward. Woodward held my attention throughout the film and totally brought Rachel to life, perfecting every single little mannerism. I was shocked that Woodward didn't win the Best Actress Oscar but then saw that this way the year in which both Katharine Hepburn and Barbara Streisand won the award. Also worth a mention is Estelle Parsons as the closeted lesbian Calla, Parsons proves how great an actress she is as her performance here is a million miles away from her turn in Bonnie and Clyde. While I can't say Rachel, Rachel is perfect, it is a lovingly crafted film with a great central performance. I also enjoyed the fact that I didn't have to sit through endless scenes of gun battles and instead got to spend time with the characters, which I found to be a refreshing change.

Next time, though there won't be many battle scenes, I will be returning to a film set during wartime.

 

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 202: Much More War

In my last post I complained about the amount of war films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in the 1960s. I reckon that my feelings about war films come from the fact that I was forced to watch so much of them as a kid. Though all of these films have their plus points, I find myself switching off every time a massive action scene occurs. The Guns of Navarone definitely fits into the category of war film that I was forced into watching on weekend afternoons in my youth. The story concerns a group of men who are sent to destroy a number of massive radar-guns that have been aimed at the Greek island of Navarone by the German army. These guns are aimed at the island in order to threaten Turkey into joining the Axis Powers during World War 2. The group of men sent on the mission include mountaineer Keith Mallory, explosives expert John Miller, Greek army captain Anthony Stavrou and their leader Major Roy Franklin. The group disguise themselves as Greek fishermen but encounter peril from the get-go when their boat is hit by a storm and the majority of their possessions are destroyed. Meanwhile Franklin is injured during a climb and Mallory ends up taking control of the unit as they meet up with some of the island's local resistance fighters. Eventually the team are captured by the Germans but, thanks to a diversion from Stavrou, they are able to overpower their captors and disguise themselves as German officers. However, Miller later discovers his explosives have been tampered with and realises that there is a mole within their midst. So it remains to be seen if the guns of Navarone will be destroyed or if our heroes will fail their mission. Which one do you think is more likely?

I'm going to try and be a little positive in this review and say there were some things I liked about The Guns of Navarone. The lead performances from Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn all had something to offer even it all three have done a lot better. As Mallory, Peck was a natural leader but was full of regret about what he'd done in the war up to this point. Mallory's blood feud with Stavrou was also an interesting theme running throughout the film as I found it utterly intriguing that the latter had promised to kill the former after the war was over. I did enjoy Quinn's turn, even if it was a slightly more aggressive version of his Zorba the Greek character that he would play several years later. Meanwhile Niven acted almost as the light relief of the film but then turned towards the end as he found out who the saboteur was in their group. My main issue with the film is that I just wasn't invested enough in any of the characters and therefore I didn't really care when they started dying in the final scenes. I do have to admit though that the action scenes were fairly spectacular for the time and that the film did deserve to win its Special Effects Oscar. I feel like I'm repeating myself when I'm saying the film is far too long but I don't feel that the story needed two and a half hours devoted to it. Overall The Guns of Navarone was a well-acted war film with some great set pieces but I never really found myself immersed in the action in the way I feel I should've been.

Next time I take a step away from the action with something a little more sedate.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 201: How to keep your Coolies

As I move onto the last ten or so films of this decade I can't help but notice how many war films I have left to watch. In fact I'm surprised by the number of war epics and westerns in these ceremonies, but I suppose these were simpler times before the notion of the 'Oscar film' was ever created. Anyway, the next war film on my list, The Sand Pebbles, stars everybody's favourite action hero Steve McQueen as naval machinist Jake Holman. The film follows Holman as he becomes a member of the crew of gunboat 'The San Paolo', nicknamed the 'Sand Pebble' by the men who serve on it. When Holman arrives he discovers that the crew do very little and instead leave all of the work to the Chinese labourers known as Coolies. Holman isn't a fan of the current situation and wants to work in the engine room, but the majority of the crew see him as a threat to their cushy lifestyle and refuse to help him out. Holman's only friend aboard the ship is the sensitive Frenchy who strikes up a relationship with educated local girl Maily, after he stopped her from being bought by another crew member. However, Maily and Frenchy's relationship is stalled when the rebellious natives refuse to let the San Paolo leave until they free all of their Chinese coolies. This stalemate eventually results in a gun battle between the two which leaves many of the San Paolo crew members dead. Meanwhile Holman and Captain Collins lead a team whose mission it is to rescue two American teachers who are stranded in the country. But it seems that this mission may be their last as the Chinese begin to close in on them.

I have to say that, during this Oscar challenge, the films that feature prolonged battle segments are the ones that probably interest me the least. Thankfully, when The Sand Pebbles wasn't full of macho posturing, there were some things to like. Steve McQueen gives a balanced performance as Holman, a man who is always trying to do the right thing but always seems to get people killed in the process. In fact I quite agreed with the crew of the San Paolo as life was a lot easier before he came along. But his presence at least brings up some interesting themes about the exploitation of immigrant workers and racial tensions between the two. Richard Crenna was also great as the matter-of-fact captain who was just trying to do the best for his crew and I felt his scenes were some of the more compelling. But the film was definitely stolen by Richard Attenborough whose was brilliant as the likeable yet naive Frenchy. Even though I couldn't tell what accent Attenborough was attempting, I found Frenchy's relationship with Maily the most interesting and engaging story in the whole film. At just over three hours, The Sand Pebbles was far too long and I thought that, if it had been trimmed down by at least thirty minutes, it would've been a lot better. I also didn't much care for the central love story betwen Holman and Candice Bergen's teacher Shirley as there was never any chemistry between the two. Interestingly, The Sand Pebbles was nominated for eight Oscars but went home with none, something I'm not surprised about as I found it to be a completely forgettable film, if not one that did have a few standout moments.

Next time more shooting and macho posturing with another all-action war film.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 199 and 200: All at Sea

So here we are, back again with another post featuring two films bound together by a common theme. This time I'm taking it to incredibly tenuous levels by focusing on two movies that are both set on boats. One is a remake of a previous Oscar winner, the other is a periodic drama focusing on a number of characters aboard a German ocean liner.

And we'll start with the latter film, Ship of Fools, which is based on a novel but feels like it's been adapted from a play. The film focuses on a plethora of characters aboard a liner that has departed from Mexico and is on the way to Germany. Several to camera monologues are performed by a dwarf named Glocken, who is regularly ostracised on the ship and spends his dinner times eating with the Jewish passengers. The majority of the film is seen through the eyes of the ship's Doctor Schumann, who is about depart the vessel as he has found out he is dying from a heart condition. Schumann is drawn to one of the latest passengers - a drug-addicted countessa from Spain who is bound for a Mexican jail. Schumann and La Contessa fall in love but both realise that their courtship cannot last. Aging divorcee Mary Treadwell is attempting to glam herself up but she discovers she isn't as young as she used to be, something former baseball player Bill Denny is also learning. Meanwhile younger couple Jenny and David are having issues as he feels like she doesn't appreciate his art and doesn't have as many ideas and beliefs as him. Finally we meet Rieber, a bigoted businessman who is a member of the Nazi Party and perfectly represents the feeling of some Germans in 1933.

I personally found Ship of Fools to be a mixed bag of stories, some that I liked more than others. I felt the relationship between Schumman and the countessa was perfectly played by Oskar Werner and Simone Signoret. This sort of tragic love story was at the heart of the film and I would've preferred to have seen the film focus on just that. Vivien Leigh, in her final film role, is brilliant as Mary a former beauty who is losing her looks, and I really liked the scene in which she put on make-up in front of the mirror while talking to herself. But I found other stories to be less engaging especially the one focusing on Jose Ferrer's Rieber and his ostracising of several of his fellow passengers. One of the better performances from me came from Michael Dunn who, as Glocken, has to narrate the story straight to the audience. The film certainly looked impressive, with the flamenco scene in particular catching my eye, but there's only so much you can do with a film set almost completely on a boat. Given the cast, I would've thought that Ship of Fools could've been better but there was just far too much going on. While I'm not surprised that it received a ton of Oscar nominations, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I also found myself comparing it to previous Best Picture Winner Grand Hotel which this bore more than a striking resemblance to.

Talking of Best Picture winners from the 1930s, we have our first remake of one in the form of Mutiny on the Bounty. This version, director by Lewis Milestone, sees Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian return but this time both characters seem slightly different. The story is the same, namely that a crew of men set off to Tahiti but on the way their Captain starts to act in a tyrannical fashion. As Captain Bligh wants to keep the water rations low, he starts to deprive his men of their basic rations and raises the ire of Fletcher. But in this version of Mutiny on the Bounty, Fletcher is presented as more of a fop who is influence into mutiny by his fellow shipmates. One seaman in particular, Mills, gets in Fletcher's ear and provokes him into fighting against his captain. One other big change is that Fletcher ultimately regrets his decision and tries to return to England but his plans our sabotaged by other mutineers. This version of the story also introduced a narrator in the form of horticulturist William Brown whose job it was to identify the breadfruit plants when the crew got to Tahiti. However, I didn't believe Brown would've been part of the mutiny and felt the only reason for his betrayal was so that he could recall the story on camera.

I personally wasn't much of a fan of this version of Mutiny on the Bounty than I was of the Oscar-winning 1935 original. Part of the reason for that is that a lot of the performances lacked the passion that was present in the previous cast. A case in point is Trevor Howard, who played Bligh, as he is a lot less menacing and therefore comes across as less of a brute than Charles Laughton. Indeed, Bligh was fairly friendly at times and most of his dastardly acts were at least explainable to an extent. I get the feeling that Fletcher Christian's change of character was due to the fact that Marlon Brando played him. Brando, who allegedly held up the production, obviously wanted to play more of a hero so in this version Fletcher literally goes down in flames. I fact I found the most compelling member of the cast to be Richard Harris as idealistic Seaman Mills. At almost three hours, the film is way too long and I honestly didn't really get into it until the second act. The film really gets going during and after the mutiny with all the cast excelling in their various roles. There's no denying that this version of Mutiny on the Bounty is more visually spectacular than its original but other than that there's nothing new here. I especially wasn't a fan of Brando here, and I feel that he's lost something since I last saw him in On the Waterfront and Sayonara.

Next time we continue on the sea - this time with Steve McQueen.