Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 141: A Double Bill of Biblical Proportions

During the 1950s we saw the dawn of big pictures being made in Cinescope and Techincolor. To this effect some of the old sword and sandals epics from the early period of cinema started to be updated using these new techniques two of which are the biblical epics we will cover in this blog post.

We start with The Robe which was nominated for Best Picture at the 1954 ceremony adapted from the novel by Lloyd C Douglas it tries to tell the story of what happened to the Roman soldier who won Jesus' robe. The soldier turns out to be Tribune Marcellus Gallio, played here by Richard Burton, a well-liked man who at the beginning of the film takes on a slave Demetrius. Gallio treats Demetrius well but then one day the latter glances upon Jesus and starts to believe in him so refuses to take orders from one of the men who is overseeing the crucifixion. After winning the robe Marcellus starts to get fits and egged on by his love interest Diana and the Emperor Tiberius he starts to discover Jesus' works and his miracle and himself becomes a Christian. However when Tiberius dies and Caligula takes his place Marcellus is forced into taking trial as a conspirator against the empire as Caligula and Marcellus are enemies after Diana left the former for the latter. At the end of the film Marcellus is sentenced to his death and Diana walks with him as the screen fades out they are both walking into clouds with angelic music playing behind them. That final scene displays all you really need to know about The Robe in that its main motive is pro-Jesus and even if you die you'll find happiness in the next life. There's no denying that the film is well made and well shot and fully takes advantage of the Technicolor aspect of the picture. The opening scene in which Marcellus walks through the market just before meeting Demetrius is the film's most spectacular taking in all manner of animals and people later on however the film loses its epic feel as it becomes a lot of people talking in rooms but mind you they are well furnished rooms and all the people in them are well-costumed. Richard Burton was nominated for Best Actor here however I feel the best performances come from Victor Mature as Demetrius and Jean Simmons as Diana. Overall a good example of the 1950s swords and sandals epic that peters out towards the end of its run as its religious message really begins to kick in.

Three years after The Robe and four years after he won Best Picture, Cecil B DeMile presented his final picture The Ten Commandments a nominee in 1957. As you can probably garner from the film's title it deals with the story of Moses and how The Ten Commandments came to be. However that part of the story takes part in the film's final half hour, before that there are three and a half hours explaining Moses' entire life and his need to let his people go. As I really feel there's no need to go over the story of Moses in detail I instead want to focus on how visually spectacular this film is. From Moses discovering the Burning Bush, to the various plagues of Egypt and the famous scene in which Moses parts the water every effect is delivered perfectly which at that time was quite hard to do. In addition there was a 'cast of thousands' involved in the film as a lot of The Ten Commandments see the Egyptians whipping the Hebrews into shape in order to get their cities built. Of the main cast members Charlton Heston ages and grows hair superbly here to play Moses he has much more personality than he did in The Greatest Show on Earth and is able to carry the film although I did think Yul Brynner did a good job as Ramses making him both a forceful and later sympathetic character. However some of the supporting roles, especially Edward G Robinson's Dathan did lapse into pantomime at points as did the part of the film in which the Hebrew people are corrupted and start to worship false idols. Of course the big problem here is that the film does not need to be four hours long and there's easily an hour or so, most of it around the point where Moses meets his wife, that could be cut out to make the film flow a lot more steadily. But at the end of the day this is a visual spectacle that definitely deserves its Oscar nomination and its place in history and indeed both this and The Robe are still in the top 100 grossing films of all time including inflation adjustment. So it just goes to show that there is big money to be made from Bible-based movies so I'll have to grab my copy of The Great Book and start adapting now!

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 139: Oh What a Circus

Some critics are so harsh because I recently came over several lists which ranked the worst Oscar winners of all time and in the Top 5 of most of these lists was the latest film I watched - The Greatest Show on Earth. To give you a little background the film is Cecile B De Mille's circus-set extravaganza and is based around the Bingling Bros., Barnum and Bailey Circus. Charlton Heston plays circus manager Brad Braden who is trying to convince his bosses to give the circus another full season and to entice them he has hired famous acrobat and well known lothario The Great Sebastian. After agreeing to hiring Sebastian and getting a full season Brad has to deal with the fact that his acrobat girlfriend Holly will be bumped from the centre stage although she claims she will one-up Sebastian so the audience focuses on them. Throughout the film  a love triangle develops with Sebastian enchanting Holly with his risky attitude and his competitive spirit while Brad is more focused on getting the circus working. After Sebastian and Holly get together another performer Ginger goes after Brad but this infuriates her lover Klauss who vows to get revenge. James Stewart also appears in the film as Buttons the Clown, Buttons has an intriguing story where he never takes off his make-up clues throughout the story lead us to believe that he was a surgeon who mercy killed his own lover and is on the run from the police. During one of the journeys on the circus train a disgraced former employee along with the jealous Klauss plan to rob the train but Klauss has a change of heart when he realises he may hurt Ginger and there is a massive train crash. Brad is injured and with the Doctor unconscious Buttons operates on him but is caught by an FBI investigator who knows his suspect is somewhere in the circus after saving Brad's live Buttons is carted off to jail while Holly realises she loves Brad and Ginger and Sebastian decide to be together.

I have to say of the Best Pictures I have watched so far The Greatest Show on Earth is definitely not the worst but at the same time not the best. It does have some good points for one it is incredibly realistic with 1,400 members of the actual circus troupe starring alongside the actors accompanied by the whole ring set-up crew and a menagerie of animals. The film also lapses into documentary at times with De Mille providing a voiceover at various points to illustrate how hard it is to deconstruct and erect the tent each day and how hard the travel is on the performers. Heston provides a great leading man while the James Stewart story is very compelling and I wish I'd seen more of it while the camerawork for the most part is done well especially when focusing on the audience reactions. However at the same time it is far too long and there is no reason at all that we needed to see entire parts of some of the acts. While the acrobatics acts are pivotal to the plot everything else could be just viewed in clip form and this is one of De Mille's main problems. In addition Betty Hutton is a bit of a damp squib as Holly and Cornel Wilde is almost too much as the exotic lover Sebastian. I also didn't really get the motivation for Klaus' momentary change of heart which caused the train crash. The theory is that this film won the Oscar because of De Mille's Hollywood pull and the fact that this would be his last chance to win a Best Picture Statuette. Overall the film is spectacular but it needs about 45 minutes cut from it to make it truly memorable film.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 128: Faded Stars and Small Pictures

By the 1950s film-makers and screenwriters were playing around with new ways to drive the action and one way this was done was by focusing on Hollywood itself and 1951 nominee Sunset Boulevard does just that. Narrated by its lead character, William Holden's struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis, it tells the story of how he came to be living with former star of silent pictures Norma Desmond. Gillis while trying to escape from people who owes money to has a flat tyre and drives into the garage of what he believes to be a deserted mansion. It is only when he is confronted by the only member of staff, Erich Von Stroheim's Max, that he finds out that the house actually belongs to Desmond. Gillis, who owes money all over town, agrees to help Desmond edit her screenplay about Salome and bit by bit he finds himself living in the house and eventually in the room in which all of Desmond's former husbands have lived in. Although a satire the film almost becomes a horror picture with Joe feeling trapped in the house, which in itself becomes a character, and by Desmond who buys Joe expensive clothes and accessories to make him stick around. Meanwhile Joe is secretly sneaking out to Paramount Studios to work on one of his own screenplays alongside the beautiful Betty Schaefer who just happens to be engaged to one of his best friends. These nightly rendevouzes quickly turn into something more and when Desmond discovers what he's been up to she goes into a fit of hysterics. She also discovers that she is no longer wanted by any director, Cecile B De Mille pops up at one point as himself as one of Desmond's former friends and has to do something drastic for the cameras to focus on her.

Sunset Boulevard was partly successful at the 1951 Ceremony winning three awards including a very deserved prize for Best Screenplay and Story. One thing that drives Sunset forward is its narrative provided by Gillis now looking back on all the mistakes he had made throughout the course of the film. The Art Direction of the daunting house and Franz Waxman's haunting score also picked up wins. I believe though had the film not come up against the juggernaut that was All About Eve it would've triumphed even more. It is one of only a handful of films to have someone nominated in all four acting categories and I was especially surprised to see that Swanson lost to Judy Holliday rather than one of Eve's two principal actresses. Swanson is definitely the best thing about the film her Norma Desmond sticks in the mind long after you've finished watching from her manic eyes to her raspy commanding voice everything about her strikes fear in the viewer. Holden is brilliant as the down-on-his-luck everyman who thinks he spots an opportunity to exploit Desmond before seeing that it is the other way around. Von Stroheim, also nominated, adds something more to the film as Max's true identity is revealed later in the film we find out why he is devoted to Norma in the way he is. Finally the beautiful Nancy Olson as Betty was also nominated for bringing a strong presence to a character who could've just become the token love interest. I'm so glad I re-watched this film as I'd forgotten just how good it was and just how brilliant the writing is. I've not got a problem with the fact that it lost but as long as people still remember the film and still watch it then I'll be happy with that. And I think I agree with Desmond one aspect the pictures now have gotten smaller than they were when Sunset was released.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 62: Claudette is Queen

Although it was one of my favourite films from a couple of years ago, Clint Eastwood's Changeling also let me know that at the time of the 1935 Oscar ceremony everybody thought that Cecile B DeMille's Cleopatra was going to clean up and win big at that year's ceremony, apart from Angelina Jolie's character who reckoned that It Happened One Night would triumph. Of course Ange was right and Frank Capra's film became only one of three films ever to win the Big Five (Picture, Actor, Actress, Screenplay, Director) while Cleopatra only went home with the cinematography statuette. Not that Claudette Colbert was that arsed as she was the lead female in both films, plus a third nominated film - Imitation of Life. Indeed Colbert was probably the perfect choice to play Cleopatra - not too young, not too old and beautiful without being over-the-top. Indeed Colbert's Cleopatra is very flirty and sexy but never that dominant instead she is always waiting to find out what her man is going to do. The first third of the film essentially steals from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar as we follow Cleopatra from Egypt to Rome with J.C. where he is betrayed by Brutus. She is then able to seduce Marc Anthony who has come to deal with Caesar's killers but instead finds himself caught up in a battle of wits with the Egyptian queen in a relationship where they both try and kill each other. The final third of the film sees Caesar's only living relative, Octavian try and overthrow Marc Anthony as leader of Rome and get rid of Cleo once and for all. And in the final scene the Romans barge into Cleopatra's bedroom obviously to arrest her.

But the plot doesn't really seem to be that important to DeMille, instead he seems to want to concentrate on the detail and the extravagance that surrounded Cleo, Julius and Marc during their days in Egypt and Rome. So there are plenty of half-naked servant girls, large dance numbers and any number of animals lying around. Indeed the film opens with a naked servant girl who has been lit for purposes of modesty, this was just before censorship hit cinemas so this was DeMille's chance to get away with a bit more raunchy material than he would in later pictures. Claudette Colbert was great in the lead and she is fast becoming one of my favourite actresses however I still prefer her performance in Imitation of Life. Meanwhile Warren William makes a fine Caesar and Henry Wilcoxon was perfectly adequate as Marc Antony. However as a whole the film was style over substance and, even though I enjoyed a few of the later battle scenes, overall I thought if you took away all the detail you were left with a pretty flimsy film.