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 186: Northern Charm

In the last post I looked at three Peter O'Toole films which obviously all demonstrated one side of British cinema of the period. The lavish costume drama was all the rage and the likes of O'Toole's historical epics stole a lot of nominations during the 1960s. However British Realism was also well-represented during this period as we've already seen with Alfie and also my latest entry Room at the Top. The film stars then unknown Lawrence Harvey as Joe Lampton a small town boy who travels to the Metropolitan Yorkshire town of Warley to secure a fairly well-paid job. Joe immediately falls for the charming Susan however he is stopped in his quest by Susan's father who is one of the area's wealthiest gents. Susan also has a fairly domineering boyfriend who talks down to the more common Joe and undermines him wherever possible. To be close to Susan, Joe joins the local amateur dramatics society where he also attracts the attention of the older foreign beauty Alice. When Susan's father realises how close his daughter is getting to the unsuitable Joe, he sends her away which in turn sees Joe seek solace in the arms of Alice. Joe and Alice enjoy a happy relationship however the fact that they are both fiery characters means that they also have many fights. It is during one of these fights that Susan returns to Warley and when she reunites with Joe he is finally able to seduce her. Though Joe returns to Alice after his dalliance with Susan it later transpires that he has got Susan pregnant and may well be forced into a marriage with the mother of his child. However Alice won't let her new man go that easy and Joe is torn between duty and love.

Room at the Top is a very interesting film that looks at class and status while also exploring an age-gap romance. The character of Joe is an intriguing one as he always feels slightly inadequate due to his humble beginnings and therefore is fairly defensive. I believe this is why he finds solace in the arms of Alice who is also afraid of growing old. Room at the Top is a very believable film and I can really feel that I'm in a thriving Yorkshire community of the 1950s. In fact while watching the film I was surprised that The Academy actually gave as many nominations to Room at the Top as it did. I think one of the major factors of its awards success was its only star name - leading lady Simone Signoret. In fact Signoret actually won the Best Actress award at the 1960 ceremony for her tender portrayal of this aging beauty. Personally I still think Signoret was incredibly attractive at the time and it was easy to see why Joe fell in love with her. Lawerence Harvey, who was also Oscar-nominated, gave a star-making performance as the flawed Joe who you could easily describe as the anti-hero of the film. The lack of any sort of happy ending was a refreshing change from a lot of the Oscar-films of today and added to the realistic feel of the film. Overall I thought Room at the Top was a decent example of British Realism cinema and one that utterly deserved its Best Picture nomination.