Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 195 and 196: Girls in Love

Regular readers of this blog will know how often I like to group two or three films together in one post. Usually, I've planned this in advance but occasionally I'll do a double film post out of the blue. This is one such post as I noticed a link between two that being young women routinely getting their heartbroken. The stories are centuries apart but both centre around young lovers and hurdles put in their way to stop them finding love. 

Of course we all know the hurdles that are put in the way of Romeo and Juliet - family rivalry, mates being killed and ridiculously large balconies. Obviously Shakespeare's play has had many different screen versions however Fraco Zeffirelli's adaptation, which was nominated at the 1969 ceremony, is one of the most famous. In fact at the time the film was the most commercially successful film version of a Shakespeare play ever partly due to its contemporary feel. Another reason for its appeal is that it was the first time that the two actors playing the titular lovers were of a similar age. Teenage viewers saw the film in their droves due to the fact that fifteen year old Olivia Hussey and seventeen year old Leonard Whiting played the lead roles. Indeed their casting caused controversy not least because of Hussey appearing in a very brief nude scene. I personally felt that their casting added a lot to the overall believability of the story and can see why it would appeal to a younger audience. Hussey especially excelled at portraying Juliet's naive qualities and really made you believe that Romeo was her first love. Personally I wasn't as much a fan of Whiting, however he was still compelling in the scenes in which Romeo kills Tybalt and essentially ruins any chance of happiness he had with Juliet. While we're on the subject of the cast I felt that Michael York was perfectly snide as Tybalt while Milo O'Shea was a great choice to play Romeo's confident Friar Lawrence. The whole film was also given a bit of Shakespearian authenticity by the fact that Laurence Olivier provided the voice-over for the film, even though he was never credited. 

Away from the casting, the other reason for the film's success was its use of colour and setting to convey the story. I personally loved the Oscar-winning costume designs which were used to differentiate the two warring families. While the Montagues war drab greys and blues, the Capulets were decked out in brighter colours and were definitely viewed as the richer of the two tribes. The fact that the whole film was shot in Rome added to the authenticity of the film and the exterior shots were particularly impressive. Indeed Pasqualino De Santis' cinematography also won an Oscar and I felt his visuals shone throughout the film. I personally felt that the balcony scene and the duels which saw the deaths of both Mercutio and Tybalt were brilliantly filmed. Even though the style and the casting were spot on, I can't say that I was completely wowed by the film. At well over two hours, I found the film dragged and there were some scenes that still didn't really work on film. Overall though, Zeferelli was the first director to give Romeo and Juliet that cinematic flare that it so richly deserved. The use of colour, setting and age-appropriate actors all added to the original text and I ultimately found this film to be a rewarding watch. 

We now rewind back seven years for the second film in this double bill. The film in question is Fanny, whose titular character is played by Leslie Caron of Gigi fame. In the 1950s we saw Caron star in two musicals, An American in Paris was the other one, however here Fanny is a musical with the songs removed. Caron's Fanny is an eighteen year old fish-seller who is desperately in love with young bartender Marius. Marius has been ear-marked by his bar owning father Caesar to take over the family firm but his son dreams of becoming a sailor. Fanny later receives an offer of marriage from elderly bachelor Panisse but turns him down as she wants to be with her true love Marius. Fanny eventually realises that Marius feels trapped and doesn't want to pressure him into a relationship. The two spend one last night together, but she still encourages him to go abroad and tells him that she's rather marry Panisse for his money. Two months after Marius' departure, Fanny discovers she is pregnant with his child and accepts Panisse's offer of marriage mainly to save face. Even though Panisse realises he'll be raising another man's child, he wants his family name to continue and feels this will be the only way to do so. Marius soon discovers the truth but finds out that Panisse will not let Fanny takes his child away and so she turns down Marius once again. Obviously Fanny is torn between her love for Marius and for her young son, and so will be left heartbroken either way.  

I have to say it took me a while to warm to Fanny, mainly because the first twenty minutes or so all revolved around the characters either selling fish or playing cards. It was only after Marius and Fanny had their first heart-to-heart that I really got into the story and found myself really caring about the characters. Indeed Fanny has at least four stand-out performances not least from Caron who is much improved from her turn in Gigi. It's also interesting to see veteran actors Charles Boyer and Maurice Chevalier appear here as both have featured in films on this list since the early 1930s. Boyer, the only member of the cast to get an acting nomination, anchors the film as the passionate yet lonely Caesar. But it was Chevalier who impressed me most in what was a fairly dramatic role, his Panisse was a man who'd never truly found love and used his money to marry Fanny. However Chevalier played a man who really did care for this young woman and longed for her to love him. Horst Buchholtz was a brilliant Marius and had great chemistry with Caron and Boyer meaning that his relationships with both characters were utterly believable. Jack Cardiff's Oscar nominated cinematography captured the French shipping town well and really added to the overall mood of the film. While Fanny was by no means perfect, I found myself getting rather emotional towards its climax and ultimately found it to be an affecting and well-played romantic drama. 

And as I've revealed my soppier side here, I feel the only way to go next is with an iconic sword and sandals epic. 

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 122: The Bette Quartet Part 3

As I said when I reviewed Dark Victory I feel that I may've misjudge Bette Davis on the three films I have watched her in up to that point. In The Letter and especially in Jezebel and The Little Foxes she played a manipulative woman who would use what she had to get what she wanted and she didn't care who she hurt along the way. But in Dark Victory and the next film on our list All This and Heaven Too she plays the innocent in this case an English woman teaching French in an American Girls School who is victim of gossip from her students after they found out she was in a French prison. To dispel any gossip or rumours, Davis' Henrietta - better known throughout the film as Mademoiselle, tells them the story of her becoming the governess to a Duke and Duchess played by Charles Boyer and Barbara O'Neil who are known throughout the film as Monsieur and Madame. From Mademoiselle's appointment the couple are arguing and the children are reacting to the friction in their parents' marriage luckily she is able to calm them down and quickly she becomes a friend to them. With Monsieur spending a lot of time with his children he quickly strikes up a friendship with Mademoiselle to which Madame reads too much into and becomes extremely jealous when the two attend a concert together along with one of the girls and their appearance gets them into the newspapers. Eventually Madame throws Mademoiselle out of the house and she goes to stay with a friend while she waits for her former employer to write her a letter of recommendation. However the letter never comes and when the Duke confronts his wife she tells him she will never write it and in a fit of rage he kills her. Mademoiselle and Monsieur are both arrested on suspicion of committing the murder together however he poisons himself and without enough evidence to link her to the crime she is let out of prison and thanks to a friendship with the American consulate lands herself the job at the girls school. The film ends with the girls hugging their new teacher probably because they've got out of a two hour French lesson.

In my opinion All This and Heaven Too would've been better if Davis had played the Madame, jealous of her husband's relationship with the new young nanny and then she could've used her influence over the servants and the members of the town to drive the new housekeeper out. However Davis instead chose to take the more personable role of Henrietta and she does excel eventually standing up to the Madame and receiving her marching orders however it is not as commanding a performance as some of her others and it did not get her an Oscar nomination. The only Oscar nomination went o O'Neil who was absolutely superb as the paranoid and uptight Duchess who throws wild accusations all over the place and eventually receives her comeuppance. Boyer again plays one of those characters who you're not quite sure about and in the end he reveals his true colours by killing his wife and then making it look like a robbery. What I probably liked best about the film was its campy nature from the way it tried to convince us that we were really watching 19th Century France to the creepy performances from some of the suspicious servants in the house to the design of the Duke and Duchess' mansion itself. But what spoilt it for me was the performance of all the child actors who had pretty hefty roles and none were really good in them either coming off as precocious, annoying or both. My other criticism would be that it took far too long getting to the point where Boyer and Davis realised their feelings for one another and then the murder scenes and their fallout were rather rushed. Still a good film, All this and Heaven Too would've been much better if it had been slimmed down and if Davis was allowed to play the villainess.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 103: Bergman Goes Bonkers

So we're back with a few updates from my recent delving into the archive for the Big Oscar Challenge. Now when you ask most people which film did Ingrid Bergman win her Best Actress Oscar for they would answer Casablanca. However she was not successful in her quest to be crowned Best Actress that year, Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette triumphed, but one year later she got the prize for the film Gaslight. That film was also nominated for Best Picture and sees Bergman's Paula being sent to Italy following the death of her opera-singing aunt. She returns to the place of the murder years later accompanied by her new husband Gregory Anton. Soon Paula begins to think she is going mad, she hears sounds above her and when she goes out she ends up getting hysterical and mistakenly mislaying items to find them later on. Of course as the audience we know that it is Anton sending her barmy so he can go off and do whatever it is he is doing. Anton also employs a new maid Nancy, an incredibly young and sort of sexy Angela Lansbury, who is very stand offish towards her new mistress and her stubborn nature sends Paula even more nutty. Unbeknownst to Paula help is on its way in the form of Joseph Cotten's Cameron, a policeman who recognises Paula and links her to the crime at the house years before. Cameron enlists the help of Paula's nosy neighbour to try and gain access to the house and also uses junior policeman to try and get information out of Nancy during nightly hanky panky. Things come to a head when Anton finds out what Cameron has been trying to do and Paula discovers the truth about her new love. But, I won't spoil it for you if you haven't guessed.

Gaslight builds very strongly with the first half an hour getting the audience member hooked into the mystery surrounding Paula's aunt's death. Paula's meeting with her soon-to-be neighbour Miss Thwaites, played by the glorious Dame May Robson, is both comic and sinister in tone and sets up the central mystery of the film. However once Paula starts to go mad things feel a bit repetitive with Anton, played by the over-the-top Charles Boyer, blatantly making her feel more ill at ease than she already is. The best parts of the film's second half mainly come from Lansbury, nominated here for Best Supporting Actress, her turn as the young, flirty and obstinate Nancy are very fun to watch. Joseph Cotten also plays his part well even if he once again is playing the gallant hero trying to help the vulnerable Paula out of her life. For her part Bergman is very good but not as strong as she was playing in Ilsa in Casablanca and it's a shame that she won the Oscar here beating Claudette Colbert in Since You Went Away which was arguably a much better performance but Bergman still deserved the Oscar she didn't win the year before. Overall this is an interesting mystery thriller which gets a bit repetitive but is saved by some interesting performances.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 82: An Inconvenient Marriage

An interesting romance film that was nominated at the 1942 ceremony is up next. The majority of the film is narrated by Charles Boyer's character Georges Iscovescu who is pitching the film's story to a Paramount director. As we are told at the opening of the film this meeting between Georges and the director is how the making of the film came about however later it is incorporated as part of the story. Georges has come to America from his native Romania to try and escape the conflict of World War II however when he arrives U.S. immigration inform him that the numbers of Romanian immigrants have already been filled and he will have to stay in Mexico until there is room for him. Georges spends his time in a rundown Mexican hotel just by the border filled with other Europeans also waiting for their chance to become U.S. citizens, the hotel is also visited from time to time by immigration inspector Hammock who checks on the status of the immigrants. Later Georges meets his old dancing partner and lover Anita who has told him that she has married an older American man and that will fast track her over the border. Anita hatches a plan with Georges that he will marry an American woman and when they are both safely in America will both divorce their partners and be together. Georges then comes across naive teacher Emmy whose school bus has broken down trapping her and several pupils on the wrong side of the border. Georges steals a part of the bus thus forcing Emmy to stay in his hotel and for him to charm and later propose to her. Emmy and Georges are soon married however Hammock returns to the hotel and Georges realises that he will start asking her questions so he takes her off on an impromptu honeymoon. Inevitably Georges then starts to fall in love with her as they journey around the coast and stop in at a church to be blessed. They arrive back at the hotel where Anita realises that Georges won't go through with the plan so she reveals all to Emmy however when she is questioned by Hammock she lies and says she and Georges are in love. Georges stays in Mexico to get his papers in order but then he learns that Emmy was in an accident and crosses the border before it is legal for him to do so. He enters the hospital to see her but is soon tracked down by Hammock's men and runs to the studio to talk to the director who he had previously encountered in Mexico. The final part of the story is told by the director, after Hammock arrested Georges he took him back to Mexico, Georges learns that Anita has met another wealthy man who she plans to exploit. Finally, Hammock softens and tells Georges that he has fast-tracked his citizenship because he failed to report the earlier incident of Georges' escape and realises that Georges and Emmy's relationship is genuine.

I have to say one of the things I enjoyed most about Hold Back the Dawn is its narrative structure. By having the story being a narration by Georges we are intrigued to see how his and Emmy's story will end and how it will fit with this meeting at the studio. Although it is a bit soppy at times the romance between Georges and Emmy starts as a hoax but ends up being fairly genuine. As far as the acting goes Olivia De Havilland's performance as Emmy earned her an Oscar nomination and it was just about deserved as Emmy grows as a character throughout the film becoming tougher as she realises the extent of Georges' plans. Paulette Goddard is also enthralling as Anita the manipulative other woman and to some extent the film's villain. But it is Charles Boyer who anchors the whole film with a mix of charm and real emotion he makes Georges one of those characters who does horrible things but still seems likeable however he failed to even get a nomination for his performance. The film also had something to say about the lengths some immigrants will go to to get into America and the setting of the Mexican hotel feels cramped and somewhat unwelcoming. Overall this was a fairly engaging if overly sentimental romantic drama with undertones of social commentary.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 73: Love is in the Air

Back to the 1940 ceremony again where there were still ten films in the running for Best Picture which meant there was still a lot of filler. Although 1940's list of films did have a lot of worthy contenders the next film on my list, Love Affair, just seems to be making up the numbers. The film is directed by Leo McCarey who previously won a Best Director Oscar for The Awful Truth and here is reunited with its female star Irene Dunne. Dunne stars as singer Terry McCay who meets French painter Michelle Marnet while on a liner across the Atlantic Ocean. Both are engaged to be married but after some screwball-comedy like banter they fall for each other and their relationship is blessed by Marnet's grandmother when they visit her while the liner is docked. They agree to meet at The Empire State Building but on the way there Terry is hit by a car and may be crippled. Terry is then tended to by Ken, the man she was engaged to, who knows she is still in love with Manet even though Ken is also love with her. Terry then starts to work at an orphanage teaching the little ones how to sing and helping them out at a Christmas concert. It is around that time that she and Ken got to the theatre and by chance Manet is also there. Manet thinks that Ken and Terry are together so blanks her but later on Christmas Day he goes to see her and in the film's final scene they reunite.

Love Affair is a very odd film, in the first twenty minutes or so it seems like McCarey, who also directed Ruggles of Red Gap, was going for another knockabout romantic comedy but then when Terry is hit by a car the mood dramatically changes. I always associated the meeting at the top of The Empire State Building with An Affair to Remember and later with Sleepless in Seattle, maybe this film isn't mentioned in conjunction with that landmark because the lovers never get there. I thought Dunne and Charles Boyer both did a good job and the McCarey's Oscar nominated original story flowed along fairly nicely but that was about it There was also too much singing for a romantic melodrama this was especially true when Terry starts teaching the annoying orphanage kids to sing. Overall then a fairly average romantic piece which really hasn't stood the test of time.