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 107: Not Watching this for my GCSE Coursework

So if you've been following this haphazard adventure up to this point you do know that I have being using a YouTube channel to watch some of these films and one of my guilty pleasures is reading the comments that others have left under the video. Before starting the viewing of the latest film, the adaptation of Of Mice and Men that was nominated at the 1940 ceremony, I read the comments most of them seemed to be from teenagers copping out from reading the book and watching this movie instead but from what I could garner this adaptation was rather tame and left out some of the more risqué elements of the text. I have to say I have heard of the book and was aware of some elements of the plot but have never seen the story told in any form up to this point. For those of you like me that aren't aware of the plot it sees two friends - the smart and quick-witted George and the somewhat slow and bulking Lenny, go to work on a ranch in Southwest California after being chased out of their previous town thanks to an incident involving Lenny (something that is never fully explained in the film but in the book he has been accused of rape after stroking a girl's hair). George keeps Lenny happy by reciting the story of the ranch that they're going to own together one day in which Lenny can keep an eye on their rabbits and this dream almost becomes a reality when fellow ranch hand  Candy agrees to pitch in some money to help with the project. However Lenny gets them in trouble once again first by punching the boss' son Curly and then for accidentally killing Curly's wife while trying to stroke her hair. I won't spoil the ending but it things don't end well for the twosome and lets just say their dream never quite becomes a reality.

Of Mice and Men is a strange one to review as in the back of my mind I can see it more as a text than a film even though I've never read it and maybe that's because I've been influenced by those YouTube commenters. The story really never sags and there is some good interplay between the ranch-hands with moments of joy juxtaposed with some really sad moments including one with Candy's dog. Of the acting Lon Chaney Jr. does a magnificent job with Lenny coming across a simple man who is picked upon because of his size and his lack of brain power. A pre-Batman pre-Rocky Burgess Meredith gives George a sympathetic edge and a very real quality to him as well and Betty Field as Curly's wife Mae plays the vampy bitch with an air of style. But this is very much a re-telling of a story, there isn't much to say in terms of camera-work or sets which are fairly basic. I wasn't particularly moved by the ending but still thought there was some solid storytelling within the film overall a decent literary adaptation but not really a film that left a major impression on me.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 25:Bullets and Butterflies

As we all know the first time I tried to watch this film at the beginning of my quest the DVD wasn't playing ball but LoveFilm have sent me a much better copy this time around and I was able to watch it. The first thing that struck me was how modern this felt given that it won at the 1930 ceremony the film mainly deals with a group of schoolboys who are convinced into joining the army during World War I by their passionate teacher. After completing a fairly light training practise they are drafted onto the front line and into the trenches with more experienced soldiers who wonder why these boys have joined up. The film sees the boys quickly grow up as they see their friends wounded and occasionally die. A lot of the film also deals with the boredom of war and the horror of the trenches one scene in particular in which rats invade the trench is very effecting. Meanwhile the troops of 2nd company also war over food and are often depicted as very hungry indeed. The final third of the film looks at one member of the troop in particular - Paul Baurner. Paul is injured and taken to the catholic hospital where he encounters an old friend and also sees what happens when soldiers get injured. Paul returns home where he sees that people in his hometown don't realise the horrors of war instead debating it in the pub and he also criticises his old teacher for convincing him to go in the first place. Paul then returns to the front line and ends up dying after trying to rescue a butterfly.

As I said previously when I reviewed Wings its odd to look at the first film that won the Oscar and this year's winner The Hurt Locker which both look at how war effect men. All Quiet on The Western Front does this as well but seems to have had a bigger influence on most war films released since from Apocalypse Now to Saving Private Ryan to The Hurt Locker there are elements of this film in all of them. I was also taken aback by the massive difference between this and Wings despite only being separated by only three years. The battle scenes in particular look at lot less staged and go for a lot longer and therefore give more of an impression to the audience of what the war was like. As well as Best Picture the film also won Best Director Oscar for Lewis Milestone and was nominated for both writing and cinematography the latter of which it should've won. When this film won there were only four other nominees so it didn't have as much competition but I can't see it being beaten by anything in my mind certainly not The Divorcee, the only other film I've watched from this year so far. Its a shame that this film presumes that war is long gone because as we all know World War II was just around the corner.