Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 219: A Comic Affair

After several very male orientated films I felt it was time to readdress the balance with my next selection - A Touch of Class. The film was nominated for Best Picture at the 1974 ceremony while lead actress Glenda Jackson was nominated for playing divorced seamstress Vicky Allesio. Early on in the film Vicky runs into married American businessman Steve who lives in London along with his wife. Though there is chemistry between Vicky and Steve the pair refuse to act on their sexual attraction due to Steve's wife being local. They instead decide to journey to Spain together, a journey that is complicated from the get-go when Steve runs into a colleague. During their time in Spain, Vicky and Chris continue to row about his driving and her commentary on his love-making. Eventually they decide to end their affair early but, when Steve fails to make a reservation for the next plane home, the two resort to a passionate night in a local hotel. From there they really begin to make a go of things and, when they return to London, Vicky hires a little flat in a seedy part of the country. Here Steve is forced to split his time between his family and Vicky who is beginning to grow incredibly attached to her married lover and is upset whenever he fails to turn up to a planned rendezvous. However, their busy home and work life contributes to them having several arguments and ultimately leads to the end of a brief yet entertaining affair.

As a lot of you have followed my journey through the decades you'll know that I have a particular fondness for the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. I feel that A Touch of Class ushers in the natural progression of that genre as it continues the banter between the male and female protagonists while making the themes a little more risqué. Indeed, in one scene Steve attempts to angrily have sex with Vicky but can't unzip his flies leading her to utter the line 'the one chance I have to get raped and you can't undo your trousers.' Melvin Frank's script is at its peak during the scenes in Spain as both Steve and Vicky snap at each other with some really well-written barbs. But I personally felt that the film descended into melodrama once the pair returned to London to continue their affair in the dingy flat. However, these scenes did allow Glenda Jackson to display her brilliant range as she went from comedy to drama within a couple of minutes. Indeed Jackson's portrayal of Vicky's unhappiness as the other woman was a joy to watch as were her putdowns of the clumsy Steve. George Segal was definitely the weaker performer in the couple and his performance made me struggle to believe why Vicky would be attracted to Steve in the first place. Segal's strength did lie in his delivery and that's what made the knockabout humour so easy to enjoy. While A Touch of Class has its moments, namely Jackson's Oscar-winning performance, I found it to be a film of two halves. By the end I was willing Vicky and Steve to split up and wasn't really moved by their eventual break-up as I really thought she could do a lot better.

Next time we'll look at a biopic of one of America's greatest folk singers.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 207: An All-Star War

Following on from How the West Was Won; we look at another ensemble action film in the form of The Longest Day. Unlike the western though, The Longest Day isn't an all-colour rambling epic but rather it's a focused study on the events that led up to the D-Day Landing. The entire film was the vision of producer Darryl F. Zanuck who employed four directors to tell every side of the story. Employing a documentary style and shot completely in black-and-white, The Longest Day sees the D-Day landings plotted by both the Germans and the Allies. Unusually for the time, the film used German and French actors to speak in their own language, rather than using English actors to put on dodgy accents a la 'Allo 'Allo. It appeared to me as if Zanuck wanted to get events as realistic as possible so had a lot of the events play out in real time. These events included the British glider missions to secure the Pegasus Bridge and the counter attack that was planned by the American paratroopers. The film itself ends with the iconic Normandy Landings as troops on both sides are quickly shot down. For me, this was where the film really got going and I felt that Zanuck had paced the movie well up to this point.

The main problem I had with The Longest Day was there wasn't any major plots, instead this was more of a docu-drama focusing on one specific event. As there were so many characters, it was impossible to keep up with who was who and a lot of famous faces popped up briefly, most-notably Sean Connery, who was just about to become a household name courtesy of a certain spy. While there are indeed some recurring plots, including one involving a card game, it is obviously the battle that takes priority and therefore this comes across as more of a documentary than a fictional piece. What I felt that Zanuck did well was the set-pieces, especially the aforementioned landings themselves, and I'm not surprised that the film won the Best Special Effects Oscar that year. I also felt the majority of the cast played their parts well, however minor they were, and really made me care about the plight of the allies. This however doesn't apply to John Wayne who, as Benjamin Vandervoot, never really convinced and just seemed to playing himself. Overall I found The Longest Day to be a gripping account of a much talked about moment in military history although one that goes on a bit. It also suffers from lack of story and far too many characters, but ultimately it's the film's visual style that's its saving grace.

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.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 178-179: The Further Adventures of Liz and Dick

Those of you who have been following the Big Oscar Challenge since the beginning know that I devote a large part of the 1950s portion of the project to chronicle the career of Elizabeth Taylor. As we all know Taylor's relationship with Richard Burton was almost as famous as her acting career and in the 1960s they starred opposite each other in two very different Oscar-nominated films.

The first of these is quite infamous in itself mainly as it took years to make, almost bankrupt a studio and elicited a negative reaction from its lead actress. That film was Cleopatra an epic that took three years to shoot and whose location had to be moved after Taylor, who ultimately earned a fee of $7 million for her appearance, had had emergency surgery and claimed that the British weather wouldn't help her healing process so all the sets had to be rebuilt in Italy. There were also issues on the direction front as original director Rouben Mamoulain was replaced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz who envisaged his film as a six hour epic. The film was edited down to three hours and then lengthened back to four for the DVD release, which I watched, which separated the film into two very distinct segments. The first told the story of the Egyptian Queen's meeting with Julius Caesar, played by Rex Harrison, who he later marries and has a son with however as we know Caesar's closest allies were planning to kill him off. After Caesar's death his closest ally Anthony, played by Richard Burton, heads over to Egypt and ends up having it off with Cleopatra himself however he then has to battle Caesar's nephew who has been named his heir. As the second half of the film goes on the relationship between deteriorates as they realise that their allies are being killed off. By the end of the film there has been plenty of deaths, fires and costumes however the stories off-screen have somewhat eclipsed what was happening on screen.

Watching the film for the first time I found it to be visually spectacular and deserving of its awards for costume design and special effects, but maybe not for cinematography, and I did find the battle scenes the most stimulating. I also thought Liz Taylor improved as the film went on, perhaps because she was on the mend, really maturing during the second half of the film during Cleopatra's scenes with Anthony. However at the same time I personally believed the first two hours of the film were very slow and Taylor had very little chemistry with Rex Harrison meanwhile some of the dialogue was just laughable. Cleopatra is still in the history books as one of the most expensive films of all time and famously almost bankrupted Fox who eventually clawed back the money after the VHS and DVD releases. Taylor meanwhile wasn't too keen when she saw the film at the London premiere as she actually threw up however it wasn't all bad as she met her next husband in Richard Burton. The two were both married at the time they began their affair on the set of Cleopatra and after they married they began to star in a number of films together one of which would see Taylor pick up her second Best Actress Oscar.


That film was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? an adaptation of Edward Albee's play which stars Taylor and Burton as married couple Martha and George who corrupt a young couple who join them for drinks. Despite it being late George and Martha agree to have Nick, the newest professor at the college where George teaches, and his wife Honey around however the night soon descend into accusations and betrayal. As the quartet down more alcohol Martha and George argue about their son while Nick confides in George about his relationship with Honey and why there were married in the first place. As director Mike Nichols didn't have to work within the confines of a theatre he takes the play outside George and Martha's house as the four end up at a road house diner and its adjoining car park before ending up back in the living room.

Personally I still found Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? an incredibly stagy film but I didn't consider this necessarily a bad thing when the four performers are so good. Taylor became one of the first actresses to change her appearance for a part and then win an Oscar here gaining weight and playing a woman ten years older than she was at the time. The film also became of only one of a handful to get nominations in all four acting categories with Burton and George Segal being nominated and Sandy Dennis rightfully winning a Supporting Actress award for breathing life into the innocent Honey. The Oscar-nominated cinematography was also very well done closing in on the characters at the right moment to add intensity to the more emotional moments of the film. What made the film so great though was the chemistry between Taylor and Burton who actually made you believed that they'd been married for years and that they were as old as the characters they played. Overall I greatly enjoyed this film more than the much more expensive Cleopatra as it felt more intense, more emotional and ultimately a more enjoyable watch. After two marriages Burton and Taylor finally divorced in 1976 however the legacy of their romance lives on in films that have some merit to them whether it be the history of their budget or the brilliance of their performances in them.