Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)

The music world lost an iconic rock legend in 2016 when singer David Bowie died at the age of 69. But people may forget that Bowie was also an accomplished actor who appeared in an eclectic array of films, both in lead and supporting roles and sometimes in fun or bizarre cameos (see David Lynch's 1992 TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME for the bizarre cameo). Rock stars in a way are already movie actors. Every night on stage in a music hall or packed football stadium, they give a performance, each one unique and different. Bowie first hit the big screen in Nicolas Roeg's sci-fi THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976).  He would go on to appear in Tony Scott's vampire film THE HUNGER (1983) with Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon; LABYRINTH (1986) directed by Muppets creator Jim Henson; Julien Temple's ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS (1986); as Andy Warhol in Julian Schnabel's BASQUIAT (1996); and in one of his last big screen appearances as inventor Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan's THE PRESTIGE (2006). 

But Bowie would also pop up in small roles or cameos like John Landis's INTO THE NIGHT (1985) as a sleazy hit man or as Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988) or as himself in ZOOLANDER (2001) with Ben Stiller. Bowie would also appear in countless music videos during the MTV craze and beyond, promoting and singing his songs, playing characters like Ziggy Stardust, a medium he was well equipped for with his sense of visuals to go with his music.

One of  Bowie's films that stands out from the horror, sci-fi and music genre films he made is a World War II prison camp drama called MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE (1983). I have chosen it as my Christmas film this year even though there's nothing Christmas-y about the film except the title. It seems like an odd choice for Bowie yet what better challenge for a rock singer seeking recognition as an actor then to try a role that's out of his comfort zone.

Directed by Japanese director Nagisa Oshima with a screenplay by Oshima with Paul Meyersberg and based on the novel The Seed and the Sower by Sir Laurens van der Post (based on his experiences as a POW), MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE is set in a Japanese POW camp in 1942 Java (now Indonesia) during World War II. The film opens (and ends) on the face of Sergeant Gengo Hara (Takeshi "Beat" Kitano), a brutal but pragmatic prison guard.  He wakes up British Colonel John Lawrence (Tom Conti) from the barracks to show him a scandal he's uncovered.  Hara has caught a Korean prison guard Kanemoto (Johnny Ohkura) raping a Dutch prisoner De Jong (Alistair Browning). Hara is about to execute Kanemoto when the camp's commandant Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto) shows up wanting answers. Yonoi is a rising star in the Japanese military. Hara's explanation will have to wait as Yonoi heads off to a military trial run by the President of the Court (Ryunosute Kaneda) and Lieutenant Iwata (Takashi Naito).  The defendant is Major Jack "Straffer" Celliers (David Bowie), a captured Brit who surrendered after a series of raids on the Japanese.  Jack is found guilty of crimes against Japan but something about Jack fascinates Yonoi. About to face a firing squad, Yonoi intervenes, finding a technicality to save the Brit, whisking Jack to the POW camp instead. 

Jack arrives at the camp only to faint from beatings by his previous captors and the heat. Yonoi inquires about Jack's past but Lawrence only knows him casually. Yonoi wants to make Jack POW Commander much to the chagrin of the current, old school Group Captain Hicksley (Jack Thompson). Yonoi forces the camp to watch Kanemoto commit seppuku (suicide). Hicksley is replaced as commander not by Jack but Lawrence.  During a roll call, Jack is discovered missing.  But he shows up soon after with food for the men and flowers for De Jong who has died after biting his tongue off during Kanemoto's suicide. The guards believe Jack is an evil spirit. Sergeant Hara discovers a radio in the barracks, accusing Jack and Lawrence of smuggling it in. As punishment, Jack is locked up and Lawrence put in bondage. That night, Yonoi's butler tries to kill Jack but Jack overpowers him and frees Lawrence. Jack wants to escape and take Lawrence with him but they're quickly caught again by Yonoi before they can even leave the camp. Yonoi wants to fight Jack. Jack knows his knife is no match for Yonoi's sword. Jack refuses further enraging Yonoi.

Both Jack and Lawrence are to be executed for trying to escape and the forbidden radio. Jack and Lawrence are placed in confinement separated by a wall where they can still converse. Jack reveals to Lawrence in flashback his betrayal of his younger brother (James Malcolm) during a hazing incident at their English boarding school that haunts him. Suddenly, guards come in and lead Lawrence and Jack to a room where Sergeant Hara waits. Hara's a little drunk. It's Christmas Eve and Hara wants to be Father Christmas to them. Hara turns Lawrence and Jack back over to Hicksley who's been reinstated as Commander of the POWs. 

Hara's disobedience enrages Yonoi.  Hara explains that he was wrong about the prisoners smuggling in the radio.  It was another prisoner who had smuggled in the radio (and Hara has executed the prisoner already). Lawrence and Jack were innocent. Yonoi orders the entire camp and even those prisoners who are sick and injured in the infirmary to stand on parade in the hot Java sun. It's a tense situation. The guards are all armed and a machine gun is ominously cocked and aimed at the prisoners.  Yonoi's about to lose control. He orders Hicksley to kneel before him.  Yonoi draws his sword, ready to execute Hicksley as an example when Jack steps up and kisses Yonoi on each cheek.  Yonoi collapses. A new Commandant of Camp (Hideo Murata) takes over.  A large group of prisoners including Hara march off to build an airstrip.  Jack's sacrifice saved the other prisoners but he pays a price for his act.  And in a touching epilogue, four years after the war, Lawrence and Hara are briefly reunited. Only their situations are drastically different.

MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE is the classic World War II prisoner of war tale in the tradition of Billy Wilder's STALAG 17 (1953), David Lean's THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI (1957), and John Sturges THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963) but it's a WW II POW story made as an art film. There are no prison breakouts or the blowing up of a bridge. The biggest action in MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE is when Jack enrages his captors by eating some flowers he picked for a dead prisoner. But MERRY CHRISTMAS has all the elements of the POW film. David  Bowie's character Jack Celliers is like Steve McQueen's Hilts in THE GREAT ESCAPE.   He's the provocateur. Bowie's Jack gets under the skin of the Japanese authority just like McQueen got under the German brass's skin.  Only Jack kisses the Japanese Commandant Yonoi on the cheek to save his fellow prisoners. There's no digging of an escape tunnel or last minute air raid. 

Tom Conti's Col. Lawrence has the role of mediator between the Japanese guards and his fellow POWs like Alec Guinness in THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVE KWAI or Richard Attenborough in THE GREAT ESCAPE.  Lawrence has an uneasy alliance with the head guard Sgt. Hara. Lawrence even speaks Japanese, acting as translator for the camp. Hara's not afraid to beat Lawrence when ordered by Yonoi or to show his dominance. But Hara is fascinated by the English and their customs. Hara believes suicide is honorable. Lawrence disagrees. But Hara thinks surrender is shameful.  Lawrence feels otherwise.  The relationship between Lawrence and Hara is one of the most fascinating parts of MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE. In fact, MR. LAWRENCE is the tale of two relationships between men. Yonoi's strange fascination/admiration for Jack and the uneasy partnership between Lawrence and Hara as captor and captive.

One theme that MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE explores that you won't find in the studio made POW war films is a gay subtext.  The film opens with two men caught having sex.  But was it rape or just a prisoner and a guard lonely and seeking companionship?  The filmmakers leave it somewhat vague but both the Japanese and the Allied prisoners look unfavorably on both men, the consequences leading to death for both guard and prisoner.  Then, there's Yonoi's obsession with the blue eyed, blonde haired Jack Celliers.  Yonoi is the typical Japanese commander who believes in duty, honor, and discipline. But does he fall in love with Jack in that court room? Does he see Jack as his kindred spirit, a shining young officer like Yonoi? Jack stands up for his honor and country while on trial. He surrendered but only because the Japanese threatened to kill everyone in the village he was hiding in. When Jack is caught after freeing Lawrence, Yonoi wants Jack to fight him.  Is this Yonoi's substitute for physical contact?  Jack refuses to fight and Yonoi acts like a spurned lover. But Jack plays on Yonoi's infatuation with him at the end, publicly kissing Yonoi on both cheeks in front of his men to diffuse a tense situation.  Yonoi collapses, perhaps from ecstasy or in shock, unable to grasp the moment.  Jack has signed his death warrant but he's saved the prisoners from a possible massacre.

Bowie's Jack Celliers in MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE is a Christ like figure (JC - Jack Celliers; Jesus Christ), not the typical heroic adventure character of a POW war film. Traumatized by his lack of action in protecting his younger brother from bullying in boarding school, Jack repeatedly sacrifices himself to protect his fellow countrymen and comrades in the prison camp. Jack won't end up on a cross but his outcome is just as powerful. Bowie is such a striking figure with his blonde hair and angelic looks, it's easy to see why director Oshima cast him. Oshima saw Bowie not at a concert or in a film but on Broadway appearing in the play The Elephant Man that convinced him Bowie was the right person to play the physically demanding role of Celliers.

The other actor that filmgoers will recognize besides Bowie (and perhaps Australian actor Jack Thompson from 1982's THE MAN SNOWY RIVER who plays Hicksley) is Tom Conti as interpreter/liaison Col. Lawrence. Conti's actually in the film more than Bowie and as Lawrence has the unenviable task of trying to appease their captors while keeping his men alive. Conti has the perfect temperament, a calm voice amongst the insanity, only occasionally raising his voice when the situation needs it.  Lawrence's whimper when he's struck by the guards is chilling and reminds us that as good a person as Lawrence is, his life hangs by a thread like the other prisoners. Although he's had a prolific career, Conti's other best known film is probably Robert Ellis Miller's REUBEN, REUBEN (also 1983) where Conti plays a drunk Scottish poet and sports much shaggier hair than in MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE.

Surprisingly, there's another musician acting in MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE besides Bowie. Believe it or not, Ryuichi Sakamoto who plays the tightly wound Captain Yonoi not only composed the haunting music for MR. LAWRENCE but also co-starred and composed the music for Bernardo Bertolucci's THE LAST EMPEROR (1987) and provided the film score for Alejandro G. Inarritu's THE REVENANT (2015) starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Tom Hardy. 

Bowie and Conti are the most familiar faces to western audiences in MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE but Takeshi "Beat" Kitano who plays Sgt. Hara steals the film for me. In the tradition of Sig Ruman's German Sergeant Schultz in STALAG 17, Kitano's Hara is the head prison guard that the POWs want to stay on the right side of.  But unlike Schultz's friendly demeanor, Hara can be brutal and cold. Yet Hara and Lawrence form an uneasy alliance when Hara isn't beating Lawrence and others with his long stick. Although they don't always see eye to eye, they respect one another. Hara seems fascinated by the English.  After he falsely accuses Jack and Lawrence of smuggling in a radio, he staves off their execution by acting as one of the West's favorite symbols -- Father Christmas. Their present from him is life. 

I want to give a shout out to an unsung hero of MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE and that would be producer Jeremy Thomas. Thomas is a champion of producing interesting films by some of the most independent directors from 1980s to 2020 including Bernardo Bertolucci (THE LAST EMPEROR and THE SHELTERING SKY), David Cronenberg (NAKED LUNCH and CRASH), Terry Gilliam (TIDELAND), and Nicolas Roeg (BAD TIMING and EUREKA). Except for THE LAST EMPEROR, none of these films were especially commercial but Thomas believed in these iconoclastic directors and their vision. MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE director Nagisa Oshima had directed the art house favorite IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES in 1976 about a sexually obsessive relationship.  It's no wonder that Oshima and Thomas would team up to make MR. LAWRENCE and also the samurai film TABOO (1999). MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE was filmed in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific and New Zealand.

Singers trying their hand at acting is nothing new.  From Bing Crosby in the 40s, Frank Sinatra in the 50s, and Elvis Presley in the 60s, movies were just a natural progression for entertainers.  This tradition has continued with newer generations of artists appearing in films including Mick Jagger in Donald Cammell's PERFORMANCE (1970), Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan in Sam Peckinpah's PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID (1973), Cher in Norman Jewison's MOONSTRUCK (1987), Whitney Houston in Mick Jackson's THE BODYGUARD (1992) and even Bono in Julie Taymor's ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007).  But David Bowie probably has one of the most diverse film resumes and MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE is a most unexpected role from a man we're more accustomed to singing Rebel Rebel or Heroes than playing a prisoner of war in a Japanese POW camp. It shows that Bowie was not afraid to take chances and try different mediums.  He was both a rebel and a hero to generations of music and film fans.

What's Up, Doc? (1972)

Now that the tense election season is over and the poisonous campaign ads and rhetoric can be put away for at least a couple of years, it seems to CrazyFilmGuy like the time for the country to watch a comedy to bring some good old fashioned laughter back into our lives.  One of my favorite comedies is Peter Bogdanovich's WHAT'S UP, DOC? (1972) starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal although the real star of the film might be the city of San Francisco.  WHAT'S UP, DOC? was my introduction to the City by the Bay when I first saw the film on television in the 1970s (I must have seen other San Francisco set films BULLITT and VERTIGO later). The steep streets around Filbert and 22nd or the famously crooked Lombard Street captured my imagination (not to mention the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman's Wharf). I would not actually visit San Francisco for the first time until ten years later around 1983 but it's unique beauty rubbed off on me in WHAT'S UP, DOC? as Streisand and O'Neal are chased around the city by a group of questionable crooks, spies, and government agents. 

WHAT'S UP, DOC? is the perfect modern blend of Mack Sennett silent comedies with lots of physical comedy, the screwball comedies of the 1930s with its quick, machine gun fire banter, and the Warner Bros Bugs Bunny cartoons. WHAT'S UP, DOC? was made by several film artists who were at the top of their game. Director Peter Bogdanovich was the wunderkind of the early 70s fresh off the success of his previous film THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971). The inventive screenplay is courtesy of Buck Henry (THE GRADUATE) and David Newman & Robert Benton (BONNIE AND CLYDE) based on a story by Peter Bogdanovich.  And its stars Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal were young actors on the verge of stardom: Streisand in William Wyler's FUNNY GIRL (1968) and Gene Kelly's HELLO, DOLLY! (1969) and O'Neal in Arthur Hiller's LOVE STORY (1970).

It should be no surprise that WHAT'S UP, DOC? is such a synthesis of movie types as Bogdanovich started out as a film essayist and scholar, putting together a retrospective for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York of John Ford's films when he was in his 20s. Bogdanovich interviewed great directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, and Orson Welles.  In the early 70s, Bogdanovich would make three critically acclaimed films in a row: THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, WHAT'S UP, DOC?, and PAPER MOON (1973).  But then whether due to ego or bad project choices, Bogdanovich would follow his string of hits with a string of failures including DAISY MILLER (1974), AT LONG LAST (1975), and THEY ALL LAUGHED (1981).  Not until 1986's MASK starring Eric Stoltz, Cher, and Sam Elliott would Bogdanovich find commercial and critical success again.  Check out the podcast The Plot Thickens narrated by TCM's Ben Mankiewicz to hear Bogdanovich's incredible and candid life story.

But back to WHAT'S UP, DOC?  The film follows the exploits of four identical plaid overnight cases that contain different contents and are accidentally mixed up during one night and the following day at San Francisco's Bristol Hotel. Bag #1's contents are U.S. top secret papers that Mr. Smith (Michael Murphy) has stolen. He's followed by government agent Mr. Jones (Phil Roth) who drags a bag of golf clubs with him as his cover. Bag #2's contents contain the wealthy Mrs. Van Hoskins (Mabel Albertson) diamond jewelry. She brings them to the Bristol where German hotel clerk Fritz (Stefan Gierasch) and the hotel's house detective Harry (Sorrell Booke) plan to steal her jewels and fence them to some crooks. Bag # 3 contents are paleolithic rocks that Dr. Howard Bannister (Ryan O'Neal) believes prehistoric man used to make music.  The absent minded Bannister and his fiancee Eunice Burns (Madeline Kahn) are in town from Ames, Iowa for a convention and a chance to win $20,000 in grant money for his thesis. Which bring us to Bag # 4's owner -- the free spirited Judy Maxwell (Barbra Streisand).

Judy is just looking for a free meal and a place to hang out when she comes across Howard in the hotel's gift shop. Upon first setting eyes on him, Judy literally hijacks the good looking but distracted Howard Bannister and his life.  Howard heads for the Congress of American Musicologist Convention without Eunice who has a headache. The president of the American Musicologists Frederick Larrabee (Austin Pendleton) is awarding a $20,000 grant to either Howard or his Croatian counterpart the unctuous Hugh Simon (Kenneth Mars). Howard walks in to discover that Judy is pretending to be his wife (calling herself "Burnsie") and charming Larrabee and the other musicologists with made up tales about Howard. Then, the real Eunice shows up. Only Judy has taken her name tag. Eunice fights her way in. Realizing that he may have a better chance of winning the grant with Judy by his side, Howard does the unthinkable. He denies knowing Eunice to Larrabee and the security guards.  They drag a screaming Eunice out of the convention room.

Howard sheepishly returns back to his hotel room after the dinner, positive he's lost both Eunice and the grant. He discovers Judy taking a bath in his room.  Meanwhile, in the hallway and adjoining rooms, the battle over the various plaid overnight cases goes on between Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, and Harry the hotel detective.  Eunice calls Howard for an apology and overhears Judy's voice. Eunice storms over to investigate.  Judy sneaks out onto the balcony where she nearly falls to her death.  Howard can't turn the television volume down and accidentally rips the cord out of the wall, starting a small fire that will bring the San Francisco fire department to Howard Bannister's hotel room, further thrashing it. 

The next morning, the hotel manager (John Hillerman) arrives at Howard's room to escort him out of the hotel for destroying his room and most of the floor. Howard presses down but the elevator takes him to the top floor where he finds Judy sleeping on a piano. They're falling in love.  On his way out of the hotel, Howard and Judy learn from Larrabee that Howard has won the grant. Larrabee invites Howard and Judy to his Russian Hill house to celebrate.  Howard and Judy each carry a plaid overnight bag.  Mr. Smith discovers that the plaid bag he carries is the wrong bag.  And so begins the third act that begins with Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith, and the gang of jewel thieves converging on Larrabee's party to claim the correct plaid overnight bags and ends with Howard and Judy grabbing all four bags and fleeing first on a bicycle and then a stolen VW Bug from a wedding party, chased through the steep and crooked streets of San Francisco and Chinatown by everyone. All parties end up in the San Francisco Bay. The motley crew wind up in night court where Judge Maxwell (Liam Dunn) is about to throw the book at all of them until a surprise witness saves the day...I mean night.

In essence, WHAT'S UP, DOC? is a live action Warner Bros cartoon with Barbra Streisand as a human Bugs Bunny and Ryan O'Neal as the gullible and increasingly frustrated Elmer Fudd.  Director Bogdanovich tells us so in so many ways.  The title WHAT'S UP, DOC? is one of Bugs Bunny's favorite catch phrases and one of the wascally wabbit's best cartoons (which plays on the airplane as O'Neal and Streisand fly away at the end). When Streisand as Judy first makes contact with O'Neal's Howard, she's chewing on a carrot and quips, "What's Up, Doc?" to Howard (who also happens to be a doctor). The sight gags and pratfalls and the final car chase all have the feel of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.  All that is missing is an anvil to fall from the sky and land on Eunice's head or a box of TNT with Acme, Inc. stamped on its side to explode at Larrabee's posh home.

Besides paying tribute to Bugs Bunny, WHAT'S UP, DOC? is a homage to one of Bogdanovich's favorite directors Howard Hawks (the character Howard Bannister is named after him) and one of Hawks best known screwball comedies BRINGING UP BABY (1938). Ryan O'Neal's character Dr. Howard Bannister is BRINGING UP BABY'S Cary Grant character David Huxley. Both are handsome but scatter brained doctors. Bannister is a musicologist. Huxley either a zoologist or paleontologist (depending on which synopsis you read). They both wear glasses. Judy in WHAT'S UP, DOC?  first accidentally rips Howard's dinner jacket. Later, she tears his pajamas.  In BRINGING UP BABY, it is Katherine Hepburn's character Susan who's dress is ripped.  The female leads in both WHAT'S UP, DOC? and BRINGING UP BABY are smart, independent women.  Streisand's Judy is college educated (although she's been kicked out of every college she attended) but her school smarts help her out when dealing with a group of over educated, undersexed musicologists.  Hepburn's Susan Vance is an heiress with a pet leopard.  Both are beautiful but irritating to their male counterparts before eventually falling in love. 

Bogdanovich and his writers last tip of the hat in WHAT'S UP, DOC? is to the silent film comedies by the likes of Mack Sennett, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. Sennett, a producer and director who ran his own studio during the silent film era, is credited as "the king of comedy" with films full of slapstick antics (pie fights) and crazy car chases (sounds like WHAT'S UP, DOC? doesn't it?) often starring the Keystone Cops. Set pieces on Howard's hotel floor with spies, government agents, and hotel detectives sneaking into various rooms (appearing and disappearing behind hotel doors all in perfect repetition) searching for the plaid bags or everyone converging at Larrabee's house are full of slapstick hijinks. And the car chase through the steep up and down streets of San Francisco has all the hallmarks of a Mack Sennett comedy complete with two workmen carrying a large plate glass window across a busy street, trying not to break it as they avoid speeding cars only to have the window broken by a seemingly innocent window washer.

Like young stars Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn in BRINGING UP BABY, director Bogdanovich chose two up and coming actors for the lead roles in WHAT'S UP, DOC? Barbra Streisand had made a name for herself as a musical leading lady with FUNNY LADY but Bogdanovich saw her as a funny leading lady in her role as Judy Maxwell. Judy is charming, vivacious, flirtatious, annoying, exasperating but always with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. WHAT'S UP, DOC? would further cement Streisand as a rising star in the 70s. She would follow WHAT'S UP, DOC? with her most dramatic role to date in Sydney Pollack's THE WAY WERE WERE (1973) co-starring with Robert Redford (Streisand would sing the Academy Award winning song of the same name).  Besides acting, Streisand would become an accomplished director with films like YENTL (1983) and THE PRINCE OF TIDES (1991) with Nick Nolte.  If you weren't a fan of Streisand, you will be after her winning performance in WHAT'S UP, DOC?

Cary Grant had a lean, acrobatic body perfect for screwball comedies.  Ryan O'Neal's body is more like a middleweight boxer. Yet O'Neal pulls off the Grant like role as the befuddled Dr. Howard Bannister in WHAT'S UP, DOC? complete with horn rimmed glasses and distracted performance. O'Neal is hilarious whether struggling to remove his bow tie from his neck for half the film or trying to catch up to the sheer audacity of Judy commandeering his life. O'Neal was fresh off the melodramatic hit LOVE STORY. After that serious role, you would imagine O'Neal didn't have an ounce of comedy in him but he's spot on as the flustered musicologist. Bogdanovich and O'Neal would team up again the next year for another hit PAPER MOON. O'Neal would play a Depression era con artist and co-starred with Madeline Kahn and O'Neal's daughter Tatum O'Neal (who would win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress).  

Streisand and O'Neal have great chemistry in WHAT'S UP, DOC?, one of the keys to any screwball comedy and DOC'S success. They would try to capture that magic again seven years later in Howard Zieff's THE MAIN EVENT (1979) with Streisand as a bankrupt entrepreneur who becomes the manager to a washed up boxer (O'Neal) she acquired as a tax break. The film had the catchy tag line "A Glove Story" and was a moderate hit, proving audiences still enjoyed seeing Streisand and O'Neal together.

Any good screwball comedy needs a great supporting cast.  WHAT'S UP, DOC? is the first feature film for the wonderful Madeline Kahn who plays Howard's overbearing fiancee Eunice Burns. Eunice is the female/male prototype we become familiar with in comedies-- the insufferable friend/boss/fiancee/authority figure that suffers comedic humiliation time and time again.  Eunice loses Howard to Judy but has a happy ending as she finds solace in Frederick Larrabee by the film's end. Kahn would rejoin Bogdanovich and O'Neal the following year for PAPER MOON. 

WHAT'S UP, DOC? has a six degrees connection to Mel Brooks troupe of comedy actors he favored in his films. Madeline Kahn who made her debut in WHAT'S UP, DOC? would be one of Brooks' favorites actresses appearing in BLAZING SADDLES (1974), YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974), and HIGH ANXIETY (1977) often as sexy vamps instead of the prim and mousy Eunice in WHAT'S UP, DOC?  Kenneth Mars who plays Howard's adversary Hugh Simon in WHAT'S UP, DOC? first appeared in Brooks THE PRODUCERS (1967) and nearly steals YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN as the one armed Inspector Kemp. Mars was fantastic with foreign accents. John Hillerman (BLAZING SADDLES) as the Hotel Manager and Liam Dunn (YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN) as Judge Maxwell in WHAT'S UP, DOC? would also be members of Brooks stock company. Surprisingly, I thought Austin Pendleton who plays Frederick Larrabee had to have been in a Mel Brooks film.  Pendleton did make another film with Ryan O'Neal in Bud Yorkin's THE THIEF WHO CAME TO DINNER (1973) but no Brooks film. And Michael Murphy who plays the secret government papers thief in DOC was a favorite of director Robert Altman appearing in Altman's MASH (1970), MCCABE & MRS. MILLER (1971), and NASHVILLE (1975). Look for early bit roles in WHAT'S UP, DOC? by Randy Quaid, M. Emmet Walsh, and John Byner. One thing is for sure. Bogdanovich and Brooks knew how to cast funny actors for their films.

Streisand doesn't perform in any big musical production numbers in WHAT'S UP, DOC? but she does sing Cole Porter's You're the Top during the opening credits. Bogdanovich also ingeniously weaves Porter's Anything Goes as piano lounge music in the hotel lobby early in the film. And film connoisseur Bogdanovich has Streisand and O'Neal sing a piano duet of As Time Goes By from CASABLANCA (1943).  CASABLANCA was a Warner Bros production and WHAT'S UP, DOC? was financed and distributed by...Warner Bros.

Laughter is the best medicine and boy does the world need plenty of laughter these days. WHAT'S UP, DOC? is a throwback comedy to comedies even farther back.  It's clever, witty, and something that's hard to find these days - clean. There's no bathroom humor. It's sophisticated humor mixed with cartoon and slapstick visuals. 

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

We take it for granted in today's modern cinema that it's common place for super heroes to face off against one another like Iron Man, the Black Panther, and the Black Widow versus Captain America, Hawkeye, and Ant Man among others in CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (2016) or BATMAN VS SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (2016). But the concept of a movie franchise having more than one of their characters appear together in a film has its origins with Universal's Movie Monsters series. In particular, it started with FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943) where the Frankenstein monster encounters Larry Talbot aka the Wolf Man, the first time two of Universal's monsters appeared together in the same film.

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN in a way is a sequel to the successful THE WOLF MAN that was released two years earlier in 1941 although it really comes after THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942) but more on that connection later.  THE WOLF MAN'S screenwriter Curt Siodmak who created much of the werewolf lore returns as the screenwriter for FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. George Waggner who directed THE WOLF MAN stepped into the producing chair for FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN and handed the directing reins over to Roy William Neill, a capable director no stranger to atmospheric films having directed some of my favorite Sherlock Holmes films around the same time including THE SCARLET CLAW (1944) and HOUSE OF FEAR (1945). FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN returns several actors from THE WOLF MAN although not all of them in the same roles.  Lon Chaney, Jr is back as the tormented Larry Talbot and Maria Ouspenskaya as Talbot's surrogate mother, the gypsy woman Maleva.  But Patric Knowles and Bela Lugosi who had minor roles in THE WOLF MAN return as different but meatier characters in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN including Lugosi in his first turn as Frankenstein's monster. Tying the entire Universal Monster Universe together is the under appreciated Dwight Frye who had iconic supporting roles as Dr. Frankenstein's assistant Fritz in FRANKENSTEIN (1931) and as the fly eating Renfield in DRACULA (also 1931). But Frye's brief period of horror film glory would fade and by 1943 Frye had but a minor role as the villager Rudi in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. Frye would die that same year, much too young.

The film opens in Lanwelly, Wales where two grave robbers (Tom Stevenson and Cyril Delevanti) break into the crypt of the Talbot family on a full moon to steal jewelry and money from the corpse of Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr). But they're in for a big surprise when Talbot awakens (more on why he's not a skeleton to come), grabbing one of the grave robber's hands. Talbot's found unconscious later on a village street, his skull fractured.  He's treated at Queen's Hospital in Cardiff where he's interviewed by Dr. Frank Mannering (Patric Knowles) and Inspector Owen (Dennis Hoey). The patient claims to be Larry Talbot, whose been dead for four years. He tells them he turns into a werewolf which gets Talbot a one way ticket to a straight-jacket. While Mannering and Owen visit Lanwelly to investigate Talbot's claim, Talbot turns into the Wolf Man that night, sneaking out of his hospital room to murder a policeman. After visiting the crypt and finding Talbot's body missing and one dead grave robber, Mannering calls to check on Talbot and learns he has escaped his confines back in Cardiff.

Talbot wanders into a gypsy camp where he's reunites with Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya) whose son Bela turned Talbot into a werewolf in THE WOLF MAN. Maleva tells Larry she's heard of a man who might be able to help Talbot with his curse. With just a horse drawn carriage, Talbot and Maleva travel from Wales to the Bavarian like village of Vasaria. But the man Maleva is looking for, Dr. Frankenstein, is dead, according to the local bartender Vazec (Rex Evans). His castle lays in ruins beneath a dam above the village. Vazec kicks them out of his establishment. Talbot turns into a werewolf again and kills a local blind girl. Chased by the locals including Vazec, Franzec (Don Barclay) and Rudi (Dwight Frye), Talbot hides in the decrepit castle where he stumbles upon a frozen Frankenstein's monster (Bela Lugosi), entombed in a block of ice.

Talbot breaks the monster out of his icy tomb. He searches for the good doctor's diary with no luck but finds a photo of Dr. Frankenstein's daughter, the Baroness Elsa Frankenstein (Ilona Massey) in a secret safe. Talbot contacts Vasaria's Mayor (Lionel Atwill) about purchasing the ruins so he can meet the Baroness and inquire about her father's papers on life and death.  The Mayor invites Talbot and Elsa to the Festival of the New Wine celebration that night.  Dr. Mannering shows up at the party, following Talbot's rampage through Europe, intent on curing him. Talbot reveals to Mannering about Frankenstein's papers, piquing the doctor's interest. Frankenstein's monster wanders into the festival, nearly causing a riot.  Talbot grabs the monster and whisks him away on a carriage out of the village. Mannering pledges to Elsa to kill the monster.

Elsa takes Mannering to her father's decaying castle. Talbot and the monster are hiding there from the townspeople. Elsa shows them a secret compartment where her father's diary lies. Mannering rebuilds the laboratory in his quest to cure Talbot by drawing the Frankenstein monster's energy to rid Talbot of his werewolf curse. But Mannering falls into the trap that Elsa's Frankenstein family has fallen into of playing God. Elsa begs Mannering to forget his plan and just kill the Frankenstein's monster. Down below in Vasaria, the townspeople see those familiar flashing lights up at the ruins. As Mannering begins his experiment to save Talbot, the full moon emerges changing Talbot into the Wolf Man. The Wolf Man and the monster begin to fight.  As Mannering and Elsa flee, the bartender Vazec blows up the dam, bringing thousands of gallons of water onto the two monsters, destroying the castle ruins and apparently killing the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster (but we know better, right?). 

If you're looking for iconic horror atmosphere FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN is the film for you. Grave robbers, a spooky mausoleum, a dead man who comes back to life, castle ruins (with a dam, waterfall, and turbine next to it no less), icy catacombs, a decrepit laboratory waiting to roar back to life, and the prototype European village nearby are the classic horror ingredients that director Neill and screenwriter Siodmak provide. And where else will you find in the middle of a horror film a musical sequence during the Festival of the New Wine with the goofy song Faro-La, Faro-Li (Song of the New Wine) and lyrics like "Life is Short, Death is Long!" FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN covers all the bases.

Like the recent superhero duels, the Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man start out friendly enough. Talbot rescues Frankenstein from his icy prison. The monster tries to help Talbot find his master's papers on life and death. Even when Frankenstein wanders into Vasaria during the festival, starting a riot, Talbot pushes him onto a cart and races the monster out of town to save him. But their friendship can only go so far. After Elsa cuts the power to Mannering's experiment, fearing he's making Frankenstein strong again, Talbot transforms into the Wolf Man and Frankenstein breaks out of his restraints. The two titans of Universal Horror battle it out WWW Wrestling style as Vazec blows up the dam (a nice miniature by the special effects team) causing a torrent of water to cascade onto them and the castle ruins. It's a magnificent finale, reminiscent of Frankenstein dying in the burning windmill at the end of FRANKENSTEIN or the Frankenstein's bride pulling the lever to destroy the castle in BRIDE OF FRAKENSTEIN (1935). 

So the chronology for FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN in the Monster series is interesting. Just like the Marvel Universe mapped out a timeline for its superheroes progression and eventual team-ups, Universal had the same plan for its monsters. FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN appears to be a sequel to THE WOLF MAN but the introduction of Frankenstein in the film follows his demise in THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN which came out after THE WOLF MAN.  At the finale of GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN, Frankenstein's monster becomes blind after Ludwig Frankenstein's (Cedric Hardwicke) failed experiment to put the brain of Igor into the monster. So per Siodmak's screenplay for FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, Lugosi played the monster as blind. This explains Lugosi sticking his arms out when walking (which would unintentionally become the standard for the monster in later Universal films).  He cannot see. But he could talk.  After filming was completed, the movie was previewed.  Audiences laughed at Frankenstein speaking Lugosi's Hungarian accent. All of Lugosi's dialogue was muted after the disastrous preview. FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN would be released soon after and became a huge hit. But movie fans would never realize (except a few brief shots where Lugosi's mouth is moving but no sound comes out) that Lugosi's performance is based on the monster's blindness. 

After the success of two horror monsters in one film, Universal would milk this idea for all its worth. The next year HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944) would come out. Directed by Erle C. Kenton, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN would have not two but three monsters (Lon Chaney Jr as the Wolf Man, Glenn Strange as Frankenstein's monster, and John Carradine as Dracula).  Boris Karloff (who had played Frankenstein's monster three times previously) would star but as the deranged scientist. 1945 would switch the house from Frankenstein to HOUSE OF DRACULA (also directed by Erle C. Kenton) and return all three monsters again.  Next, to spice things up (and add some comedy to the tired formula), Universal would unleash ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948) starring the comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello mixing it up with the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr again), Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange again) and Bela Lugosi in his last appearance as Dracula. Director Stephen Sommer who would successfully reboot THE MUMMY franchise in the early 1990s would try his magic again with VAN HELSING (2004) that turned Dracula's arch nemesis Van Helsing into an action hero (Hugh Jackman) who faces off against a werewolf, the Frankenstein's monster, and Dracula. Although it was received with mixed reviews, VAN HELSING was a loving homage to Universal's Movie Monsters and the crossover concept that began with FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. 

Although Lon Chaney Jr is clearly the star of FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, blonde bombshell Illona Massey gets top billing as the Teutonic Baroness Elsa Frankenstein, daughter to Ludwig Frankenstein. The Hungarian born actress was projected to be a singing movie star but found her way onto supernatural films like THE INVISIBLE AGENT (1942) and FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. Check out her Heidi-like twisted braids for the film.  Patrick Knowles as Dr. Mannering is not the typical Frankenstein type doctor. For most of the film, he's caring and thoughtful, not crazy like other Dr. Frankenstein's such as Colin Clive or Basil Rathbone. He briefly acquires the God complex once he gets around the previous Frankenstein's lab equipment but Elsa quickly knocks some sense in him. Knowles began his career as the next Errol Flynn but ended up making several films with Flynn, usually as his brother or buddy i.e. THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1937). 

Lon Chaney Jr still seems to care about the role that made him famous as Larry Talbot in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN after his success in THE WOLF MAN. By 1943, Chaney Jr had played Dracula, the Mummy, and even Frankenstein's monster in THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN a year earlier with co-star Lugosi returning as Igor. Chaney could have slept walked through his Wolf Man role but he still brings empathy to the tormented character. Only in the later films like HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HOUSE OF DRACULA did Chaney seem bored by the Wolf Man character.

Bela Lugosi would play Frankenstein's Monster just once. He might have been drawn to the role with the chance to play the monster as a speaking creature even if blind. But as mentioned earlier, test audiences for FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN did not buy Lugosi's accent for the monster. His dialogue is lost on the cutting room floor and his interpretation as the monster watered down although he still brings a sly component to the monster. Lugosi was still a name and added cache to the already impressive cast. Horror film veterans Lionel Atwill (DOCTOR X) as the Mayor, Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva, and Dwight Frye as townsperson Rudi make nice contributions to the film. And director Neill brings a couple of his favorite bit players from his Sherlock Holmes series to FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN with Dennis Hoey once again playing an inspector (he played Inspector Lestrade in the Holmes films) and the heavy (in weight and character type) Rex Evans (PURSUIT TO ALGIERS) as the bartending, dam busting Vazec. 

Some last fun monster odds and ends. One of the great mysteries in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN is why isn't Talbot decomposed after four years of death when the graverobbers open his crypt. He's still human. Neither writer Siodmak or director Neill provide an explanation.  Horror fans have attributed Talbot's lycanthropy giving him a sort of suspended animation that allowed Talbot to appear normal. Dr. Mannering and Inspector Owen don't question it so why should we?  Surprisingly, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN is the first film that actually shows the moon transforming Talbot into the Wolf Man.  The original THE WOLF MAN never showed the moon at all. Talbot just turned into a werewolf when he saw a pentagram on one of his victims. Director Neill decided not to always show Talbot go through the entire werewolf transformation (via time lapse) except for the first time in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN.  My hunch is to save time and propel the plot faster. In later werewolf metamorphosis, Talbot is partly changed already.  An economical move by a director who shot the film in 28 days.

The cross over film that we're accustomed to today like the Hulk appearing in THOR:RAGNAROK (2017) or Iron Man/Tony Stark showing up in SPIDER MAN: HOMECOMING (also 2017) owes its origins to the creative minds behind the Universal Monster series beginning with FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN. As successful as FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN was both financially and creatively, it was also the beginning of the end for Universal's horror films which were about to run their course. World War II was soon to end and the horrors of war would abate meaning audiences no longer needed make believe horror to distract them.  But what a way to go out with the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster fighting to the death on screen while symbolically Universal was fighting to keep the Monsters series alive. 

The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)

 Before we discuss Roger Moore's second stint as James Bond in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1974), I want to give a shout out to the actor who plays Bond's nemesis in the film. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN was in a way a rebirth for Christopher Lee to new audiences who had never seen the tall, suave actor. If they had seen Lee before, they would have seen him play every famous monster on the planet for Hammer Films in the 1950s.  Count Dracula in HORROR OF DRACULA (1959). Frankenstein's monster in THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957).  The mummy in THE MUMMY (1959). Lee continued into the 1960s making Hammer horror films. It was work but with his deep voice and distinguished looks, weren't there other roles Lee could play?

Lee was still playing Count Dracula and Fu Manchu when the great director Billy Wilder (SUNSET BOULEVARD) saw something in Lee, casting him as Sherlock Holmes older brother Mycroft in THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1970).  Next would come nice supporting roles in Richard Lester's THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1973) and Robin Hardy's cult horror film THE WICKER MAN (1973). Lee's career renaissance was on the rise when director Guy Hamilton would pick Lee as Bond's adversary Francisco Scaramanga in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. Lee's popularity was such that he even appears on the Wings album cover Band on the Run with Paul & Linda McCartney and actor James Coburn among others.  Lee would have a long and illustrious career. Young filmmakers who loved Lee in his Hammer horror films would introduce him to a whole new generation of movie fans in films like Steven Spielberg's 1941, Joe Dante's GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990), Tim Burton's SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999),  George Lucas's STAR WARS: ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002), and most famously as the evil wizard Saruman in Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS (2001 to 2003) trilogy.

Besides ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969), I've probably watched THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN the least compared to all the Connery and early Roger Moore Bond films. Initially, I thought it didn't have the scope and pizazz of earlier films. There were no big explosions or legions of minions to fight Bond in some underground base. And Christopher Lee (who I have just praised) as the villain didn't have any scars or fancy villain name (he does have three nipples) that made him stand out. But with each viewing, my appreciation of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN increases. With a screenplay by the two best Bond writers in the series Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz (adapted from Ian Fleming's novel) and directed by Bond veteran Guy Hamilton (his fourth and last 007 film), THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is an underrated film that forces James Bond to face a foe who's his doppleganger, handsome and suave as James, good with the ladies, and who's paid to kill like Bond.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN plays with the conventions of the James Bond film. The opening sequence is usually reserved for a Bond mini-mission but in GOLDEN GUN we're introduced to the internationally famous assassin Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) relaxing on his exotic beach lair with his mistress Andrea Anders (Maud Adams) surrounded by limestone monoliths somewhere in the China Sea (actually Thailand's Phang Nga Bay). In a page out of the short story The Most Dangerous Game, Scaramanga has invited an American contract killer Rodney (Marc Lawrence) to try to kill him (he's even paid in advance). It's a game Scaramanga plays to keep sharp. Overseen by Scaramanga's diminutively sinister servant Nick Nack (Herve Villechaize), the deadly duel is played out with only one assassin surviving (guess who?). Cut to James Bond (Roger Moore) at MI6 headquarters in London meeting with his superior M (Bernard Lee).  A golden bullet with 007 etched on it has been addressed to Bond.  An invitation or warning from Scaramanga? No one has ever seen Scaramanga. Bond begins the hunt for the famed assassin.

Bond flies to Beirut first where a belly dancer named Saida (Carmen du Sautoy) has one of Scarmanga's golden bullets that killed a fellow British agent as a keepsake in her navel. Bond manages to swallow it during a fight in her dressing room with Russian thugs. After Q (Desmond Llewelyn) analyzes the bullet, Bond is off to Macau to find Lazar (Marne Maitland), the master craftsman who makes guns, rifles, and bullets for secretive clients like Scaramanga. With some subtle persuasion (Bond aiming one of Lazar's rifles at his crotch), Lazar reveals he drops off Scaramanga's golden bullets at a casino. Bond watches the hand-off from Lazar to the beautiful Ms. Andrea Anders. Bond follows Andrea on a ferry to Hong Kong. He's just about to confront her when Bond's fellow British operative Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland) clumsily disrupts his surveillance.

Bond tracks Andrea to a swank hotel. After roughing her up a bit (then offering her champagne), Andrea reveals Scaramanga will be at the Bottoms Up Club to pick up his golden bullets. But when Bond goes to find him, he's nearly killed by a single shot by the assassin. It turns out Scaramanga's target was another patron of the club named Gibson, an energy expert, who had in his possession the Solex Agitator that could fix the world's current energy crisis. Nick Nack grabs the device in the confusion. Bond is whisked away by Hip (Soon-Tek Oh) with the Hong Kong police and taken to the half sunken ocean liner the Queen Elizabeth where M and Q have a secret headquarters. M suspects the Thai crime lord Hai Fat (Richard Loo) ordered the hit to steal the Solex Agitator and sell it to the highest bidder. Bond flies to Bangkok, Thailand to get the solar cell back.

Bond impersonates Scaramanga to meet Hai Fat but the crime lord is not tricked. Bond is forced to fight Fat's karate killers at his fighting school. After defeating Fat's best fighter, Bond flees, chased by Fat's men through Thailand's klongs (canals) and water markets. Scaramanga turns on Fat and kills him, taking the Solex Agitator to Bangkok. Andrea comes to Bond. She wants Scaramanga dead so she can be free. She steals the Solex Agitator from Scaramanga. The rendervous is a Thai boxing match but when Bond arrives, Andrea is dead and Scaramanga waiting for him. With the Solex Agitator back in his possession, Scaramanga and Nick Nack fly back to his beach island hideout (via a flying car) with Bond in pursuit. Scaramanga is delighted to have Bond as a guest. After showing Bond his plans for the Solex Agitator, Scaramanga and Bond face off in the film's finale mano a mano in Scaramanga's assassin funhouse where only one will survive (guess who?).

What makes THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN so interesting is the relationship between Bond and Scaramanga.  They are like two modern gunslingers. Scaramanga's Golden Gun vs Bond's Walther PBK. Scaramanga and Bond are two sides of the same coin with Scaramanga representing Bond's dark side. They both kill only Scaramanga kills for money (one million dollars per hit). Bond kills to protect his country and the world. They're both handsome, erudite, connoisseur's of beautiful women and fine food. When we see Scaramanga's shooting gallery in the film's opening with its house of mirrors, we know that Scaramanga and Bond will eventually meet there in the finale. The filmmakers cleverly begin it like a duel (another nod to gunslingers), each man with his back to one another. But like much of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, nothing is like what it seems.

A Bond film wouldn't be a Bond film without some sexual innuendo and symbolism but THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN might just be the most overt in both categories. Scaramanga's golden pistol is a phallic symbol for his prowess both in bed and assassinating his victims. Case in point, early in the film, Scaramanga's in a room across from a Macau casino. His mistress Andrea lies on the bed. Scaramanga begins making love with her (foreplay) but then cuts it short to peer out again. His target comes out of the casino. Scaramanga kills him with one golden bullet. The kill is Scaramanga's climax, his ejaculation. No wonder Andrea searches out Bond to kill Scaramanga. It's always coitus interruptus when she's with him. Scaramanga's pistol may be longer and bigger than Bond's Walther PBK. But does the length and size matter?  It's how you use it that matters. Scaramanga also has three nipples, a sign in some cultures of virility.

The Bond series has always stayed true to current movie trends.  See 1973's LIVE AND LET DIE (Car Chase films, THE FRENCH CONNECTION, and Blaxploitation films) or 1979's MOONRAKER (STAR WARS). Bruce Lee and karate films were all the rage so director Hamilton stages a karate school scene in GOLDEN GUN. But Bond films have also been connected to world events.  The early Bond films were steeped in the Cold War (FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, THUNDERBALL) that was going on between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is set during the real life 1974 Energy Crisis when several Arab countries proclaimed an oil embargo forcing countries worldwide to try and conserve energy. The key plot device in GOLDEN GUN is the Solex Agitator which can create sustainable energy for an entire country through solar power. First Hai Fat and then Scaramanga plan to sell it to the highest bidder. It's a timely topic pulled straight from the world headlines when THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN was filming. What's refreshing is the plot is not doomsday related although the Solex Agitator in the wrong hands could use it for nefarious purposes.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN would be Roger Moore's second appearance as the British agent James Bond. Roger Moore never looked uncomfortable as Bond (he would start to look older as Bond beginning with OCTOPUSSY) but Moore seems very at ease and in good form in GOLDEN GUN. The weight of filling Sean Connery's large shoes in Moore's debut LIVE AND LET DIE (1973) was off his shoulders. Moore had succeeded in taking over the role and making it his to own. Moore still shows a brutal side to Bond, especially in his interrogation of Andrea in her hotel room. But Moore easily slipped into humor as well. His scenes with Britt Ekland as Mary Goodnight are sweet and funny and Moore is a pro with quips during fight scenes and car chases.

For the Bond girls, the filmmakers go Scandanavian this time with the Swedish duo of Maud Adams and Britt Ekland as Bond love interests. The role of Andrea Anders (played by Adams) is more complicated and tragic than I originally understood. Andrea's in a delicate position. She wants to escape from the clutches of Scaramanga as his mistress but she knows he'll kill her if she does leave. She turns to Bond to kill Scaramanga with the knowledge her treachery might be her doom. I was not a big fan of Adams in GOLDEN GUN upon first viewing. But she has an ice goddess beauty to her that I must admit grew on me this time. Adams would appear in Norman Jewison's futuristic ROLLERBALL (1975) as James Caan's ex-wife. Adams returned to the Bond series for a second time as another Bond girl, this time as the titular title character in OCTOPUSSY (1983).

Britt Ekland as Mary Goodnight, Bond's counterpart, has the more comic part in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and she plays it well. Usually Bond ends up with the villain's girl but as I mentioned, GOLDEN GUN plays with the Bond conventions. Even though Goodnight is blonde, she doesn't come off as ditzy. She's a little clumsy and naive but she grows as an agent as the film progresses. The film teases us as Goodnight and Bond continually get close to making love several times only to be interrupted.  Ekland (who was briefly married to Peter Sellers and dated rock star Rod Stewart) would also appear in GET CARTER (1971) and THE WICKER MAN co-starring Christopher Lee.

One of screenwriter Mankiewicz's traits taking over the writing reins of the Bond series for three films was to highlight a second minor villain besides the main villain. In DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971) the main villain was Blofeld but in the wings were his subordinates, the gay assassins Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint. In THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, Scaramanga has a miniature henchman in Nick Nack played by the French actor Herve Villachaize. Nick Nack is part maitre'd, part partner of Scaramanga's assassin games on his private island. Nick Nack has a Napoleon complex and occasionally exhibits some petulance towards Scaramanga.  After Scaramanga's dispatched, there's still Nick Nack for Bond to deal with. GOLDEN GUN would propel Villachaize into stardom and his most recognized role as Ricardo Montaban's servant Tattoo on the TV series FANTASY ISLAND (1977-1983). Sadly, Villachaize would commit suicide in 1993 at the age of 50. 

Fans of LIVE AND LET DIE no doubt rejoiced with the return of Clifton James as the Louisiana redneck sheriff J.W. Pepper.  The filmmakers cleverly have Pepper on vacation with his wife in Thailand where he encounters Bond.  Only this time, they're not adversaries but partners during an exciting car chase through Bangkok and an incredible 360 degree car jump over a small klong. Marc Lawrence who played tough guys and crooks in films like John  Huston's KEY LARGO (1948) and THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950) makes his second Bond appearance (the first was in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER) as Rodney the Chicago contract killer Scaramanga faces in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN'S opening sequence.  Lastly, with no CIA agent Felix Leiter in this film, Soon-Tek Oh plays Hong Kong police commissioner Hip (a surrogate Felix Leiter) who assists Bond navigate the Far East and track Scaramanga whereabouts.

Some Bond tidbits.  THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN would be the 9th and last Bond film co-produced by the remarkable team of Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. Saltzman would leave the series and Broccoli would be sole producer going forward.  In a nice piece of irony, Christopher Lee who plays the villain Scaramanga was related to Bond creator and author Ian Fleming.  They were cousins. Although Scaramanga's island hideaway is supposed to be in the China Sea, the remarkable limestone islands are really Phang Nga Bay in Thailand. Scaramanga's island in the film is now called James Bond island and is a popular tourist attraction. All the locations in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN are some of the most exotic in the series. The filmmakers incorporate a Chinese junk boat as one of Scaramanga's modes of escape. If you've never seen a junk, they are beautiful and a perfect symbol for Asia. Lastly, the first Bond trailer for THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN contains a few extra shots not seen in the actual film between Bond and Scaramanga's duel on the beach before they moved to Scaramanga's funhouse.  Check it out on THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN DVD. 

With all my praise of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN as an underrated gem in the Bond canon, it has a few weak spots. The theme song sung by Lulu (who you ask? She's a Scottish Pop Star) is not one of the series strongest entries.  And a flying car that Scaramanga and Nick Nack utilize to flee Bond is mostly a model (due to the fact that the pilot of the real flying car died in an accident with the flying car prior to GOLDEN GUN'S filming).  Surprisingly, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN would be the lowest grossing film up to this point in the Bond series despite the exotic locations and strong villain.

In retrospect, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN was a watershed moment for the Bond series (it wouldn't be the last one).  The producing team that brought James Bond to the big screen dissolved with Harry Saltzman stepping away after this one. Director Guy Hamilton who directed probably the best Bond film of all time in GOLDFINGER (1964) and followed up in the 70s with some strong Bond films stepped away for good. But all was not lost. The series had its new James Bond in Roger Moore who would carry the mantle all the way to A VIEW TO A KILL (1985). THE MAN WITH A GOLDEN GUN is a hiccup to some, a diamond in the rough for me.  Instead of a doomsday scenario, it highlights a current world event at the time as well as the dangerous people that James Bond encounters in his line of work, this time a character very close to his own persona. 

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The Big Heat (1953)

If it wasn't for a certain chubby English director named Alfred Hitchcock who started to make a name for himself in the 20s and 30s before coming to America, the most famous foreign director to come to Hollywood from Europe might have been German (although born in Austria) director Fritz Lang.  In fact, Fritz Lang was more famous than Hitchcock initially with powerhouse films coming out of Germany from Lang like DR. MABUSE THE GAMBLER (1922), METROPOLIS (1927), and M (1931). Hitchcock's early films dealt with espionage and spies. Lang's films centered around the criminal underworld and darker aspects of society's underbelly.  Lang who was Jewish would flee Germany just as the Nazis began to gain power in the early 1930s. Hitchcock was probably influenced by Lang's early films and visual style.  Hitchcock's THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934) feels like a Lang film and even has Lang's M star Peter Lorre in his first English speaking role. But where Hitchcock used his persona to garner publicity for his films and in turn became famous, Lang was a curmudgeon who fought with studios and actors, making it increasingly hard for him to find work later on.

Fritz Lang became well known in the U.S. for his bleak film noirs like THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (1944) and SCARLET STREET (1945) both starring Edgar G. Robinson. The closest he came to making Hitchcock like films were MINISTRY OF FEAR (1944) with Ray Milland and CLOAK AND DAGGER (1946) starring Gary Cooper. But watch MINISTRY OF FEAR with its German Expressionism and nightmare like quality and it's distinctively Lang and not Hitchcock.  In the 1950s Lang would begin to return to crime dramas only this time the urban American kind. THE BIG HEAT (1953) is my favorite.  Starring Glenn Ford, THE BIG HEAT has an early performance by tough guy Lee Marvin in a supporting role, the greatest, most sultry film noir femme fatale of all time Gloria Grahame, and the infamous coffee pot scene, shocking even by today's standards.

Directed by Fritz Lang, THE BIG HEAT'S screenplay is by Sydney Boehm from a Saturday Evening Post serial written by William P. McGivern, a former crime reporter in Philadelphia. THE BIG HEAT begins with a bang...literally. Police Sergeant Tom Duncan commits suicide in his study, a gunshot to the head. He leaves behind a confession addressed to the District Attorney which his wife Bertha Duncan (Jeannette Nolan) takes. But instead of calling the police first, Mrs. Duncan calls crime boss Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby). They agree to talk later.  Assigned to the murder case is homicide detective Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford). A good honest cop, Bannion has a pretty, vivacious wife Katie (Jocelyn Brando) and a precocious daughter Joyce (Linda Bennett). Bannion interviews Mrs. Duncan but gets little information from her.  While having dinner, Bannion receives a tip.  He meets up with barfly Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green) at a lounge called The Retreat. Lucy reveals she was having an affair with the deceased Tom Duncan. She says he didn't kill himself. He wanted a divorce from his wife.

Bannion returns to question Mrs. Duncan. She admits she knew about her husband's affair. The next day Bannion's notified that Lucy Chapman's tortured and beaten body was found outside the city.  Bannion's called into Lt. Ted Wilks (Willis Bouchey) office.  Wilks tells Bannion to lay off bothering the widow Mrs. Duncan. Bannion senses he's getting warmer in his investigation. He returns to the bar that Lucy frequented, asks the bartender Tierney (Peter Whitney) a few questions. When Bannion leaves, Tierney calls Lagana. Bannion receives a threatening phone at home that night. He visits Lagana and threatens the crime boss, roughing up Lagana's bodyguard George Rose (Chris Alcaide). Lagana asks his top fixer Vince Stone (Lee Marvin) to take care of Bannion. The next day, Wilks chews out Bannion a second time for visiting Lagana.  That night, as Bannion and his wife Katie prepare to catch a movie, Katie goes to start the car and pickup a babysitter.  She's killed by a car bomb meant for Bannion.

Police Commissioner Higgins (Howard Wendell) and Wilks assure Bannion they'll find the killer. Bannion doesn't buy it. He accuses the commissioner of working for Lagana.  Higgins suspends Bannion for insubordination.  Bannion moves out of his house and into a hotel room, too many memories of his wife Katie lingering. Joyce stays with a friend of Bannion's. Lagana visits Vince.  Vince had hired another contract killer Larry Gordon (Adam Williams) to handle Bannion. Larry mistakenly blew up Katie instead. Lagana is not happy with Vince. Bannion begins tracking down the car bomber. A lead at a wrecking yard steers Bannion back to The Retreat where Larry likes to hang out. Instead, Bannion encounters the sadistic Vince with his wisecracking moll Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame). Bannion observes first hand Vince's ugly side when he burns Doris (Carolyn Jones), a cocktail waitress with his cigarette butt. Bannion kicks Vince out of the bar. Debby likes Bannion's style.  She tries to buy him a drink. Bannion refuses and leaves for his hotel room. Debby catches up with him outside and invites herself to Bannion's room. Larry pulls up in time to see the two of them leave together.

Bannion and Debby trade insults and jokes at his hotel room but nothing comes of it. Debby returns to Vince's penthouse. Jealous that Debby hung out with Bannion, Vince throws a scalding pot of coffee on Debby's face, scarring her. Lagana puts a contract out on Debby. She know too much. Debby returns to Bannion's hotel room, half her face bandaged up, wanting vengeance on Lagana and Vince. Bannion and Debby become an unlikely team. Bannion punches his way to answers, catching up with Larry, forcing him to talk then throwing him to his associates as a snitch. Vince will kill Larry (offscreen) for squealing. Debby confronts Mrs. Duncan. Debby wants the suicide/confession note. Mrs. Duncan won't give it to her so Debby shoots the widow.  Vince returns to his penthouse. Debby waits for her ex with a pot of coffee as Bannion joins her to take down Lagana, Vince, and the crime syndicate. 

Gangsters were all the rage in the movies in the early 30s like Mervyn LeRoy's LITTLE CAESAR (1931) and Howard Hawks SCARFACE (1932). The genre faded until after World War II when gangsters and organized crime returned first in real life (that's where Robert Kennedy made his name chasing gangsters as Attorney General) and then the movies.  The 1950s saw a rebirth of gangsters in films like Richard Brooks DEADLINE - U.S.A. (1952) with Humphrey Bogart and THE BIG HEAT.  

As I mentioned earlier, THE BIG HEAT starts with a bang within its first few frames and never lets up.  If THE BIG HEAT had been made today, it's violence would have tagged it with a hard R rating.  It feels like a James Ellroy novel. THE BIG HEAT pulsates with violence, but Lang shrewdly keeps most of the violence offscreen. But that doesn't stop the characters from describing it. Lucy Chapman's murder is described vividly. We're told she was tortured with burn marks on her body before she was strangled.  Only later does Lang reveal the culprit when we see the cold-blooded Vince extinguish his cigarette on a cocktail waitress's arm when she picked up some dice too quick. Even the infamous coffee pot scene happens offscreen.  I swear the first time I saw THE BIG HEAT, I saw Vince throw the hot coffee on Debby's face. That's how shocking the moment was.  Lang emphasizes the horror of the act with Debby's anguished howl.  

Lang sets up Ford's Dave Bannion perfectly as the perfect All-American cop with a pretty wife and cute daughter then destroys that image within thirty minutes, turning Bannion into a tortured wrecking ball, obsessed with finding his wife's killers after she's accidentally blown up by a car bomb meant for him. Bannion is the prototype of future vengeance seeking cops like Clint Eastwood's DIRTY HARRY (1971) or Bruce Willis's John McLane in DIE HARD (1988). Corruption also fuels Bannion's lust for retribution.  Everyone in Kenport in THE BIG HEAT is corrupt except the good cop Bannion. The police force, the police commissioner (we see him playing poker with Lagana's hired killer Vince Stone), bartenders, hookers, and even the widow Mrs. Gordon. All of them greased with dirty money from crime boss Mike Lagana.

For me, THE BIG HEAT is Fritz Lang's last great noir/crime film.  He would make two other interesting noir like films in the 50s -- WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS (1956) and BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT (also 1956) both starring Dana Andrews but they both have a televison style quality to them.  THE BIG HEAT is bathed in light and dark, shadows and low-key lighting making everyone look more sinister. Credit goes to Director of Photography Charles Lang, Jr who shot many of Billy Wilder's films including SABRINA (1954) and SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959). Lang also had a penchant for selecting supporting actors with distinct characteristics that stand out from the leads. The big boned Peter Whitney (THREE STRANGERS) with his bushy eyebrows as the bartender Tierney or the short, rotund Dan Seymour as Atkins the wrecking yard foreman or Edith Evanson as the spinster like secretary with the cane and thick glasses who identifies Larry as the bomber for Bannion. The car bomber Larry (Adam Williams) with his blonde hair and sniveling manner reminded me of a Lang favorite Dan Duryea who appeared in Lang's SCARLET STREET and MINISTRY OF FEAR. 

One of the best parts of THE BIG HEAT are the unlikely team of cop Dave Bannion and sarcastic hood girlfriend Debby Marsh who take down Lagana and his empire. Bannion and Debby meet half way through the film, courtesy of Debby's psychopath boyfriend Vince. Director Lang teases us that the recently widowed Bannion and the sexy, put upon girlfriend of Vince might hook up.  Debby invites herself to Bannion's hotel room and he lets her in. She even makes herself cozy on his bed. But Debby's really turned on that Bannion wasn't afraid of Vince and pushed him around like a stooge. The loss of Bannion's beloved wife and the loss of Debby's good looks unite both of them in a crusade to right the wrongs that have turned both of them into damaged goods.

Before I saw THE BIG HEAT, I only knew Glenn Ford as an older actor, having only seen him play a Rear Admiral in Jack Smight's World War II drama MIDWAY (1976). But Ford was quite a leading man in his early years.  He began a nice streak of leading man roles in the 1940s and 50s appearing in Charles Vidor's GILDA (1946) starring Rita Hayworth; Richard Brooks THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (1955) as a new teacher in an inner city high school, and as an outlaw leader in 3:10 TO YUMA (1957). Ford's perfect in THE BIG HEAT transforming from good guy to enforcer, busting balls and heads as he finds his wife's killers and cleans up a corrupt city.

Sexy noir siren Gloria Graham was just coming off winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Vincente Minnelli's THE BAD AND BEAUTIFUL when she made THE BIG HEAT.  Grahame steals THE BIG HEAT in many ways.   She has all the best lines and brings humor and pathos to her character of Debby Marsh.  When Lee Marvin's Vince asks if she's wearing a new perfume, Graham's Debby retorts, "Something new. It attracts mosquitoes and repels men." Graham's half bandaged face after Vince throws hot coffee on her gives her a Phantom of the Opera like quality. 

The 1950s was Grahame's decade after first attracting attention in Frank Capra's IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) with James Stewart and her first film noir turn in CROSSFIRE (1947) with Robert Mitchum. Grahame would co-star with Humphrey Bogart in Nicholas Ray's IN A LONELY PLACE (1950), win an Academy Award as an unhappy wife to writer Dick Powell in THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952), and appear in the big budget THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952) directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Both Grahame and Glenn Ford would work with Fritz Lang the following year in HUMAN DESIRE (1954) co-starring Broderick Crawford where they would get the chance to play lovers.

Lee Marvin made his career playing anti-heroes in films like Robert Aldrich's THE DIRTY DOZEN (1966) and John Boorman's POINT BLANK (1967) but he began his career as a supporting actor with a humorous turn as Meatball in THE CAINE MUTINY (1954) and memorable bad guys in John Ford's THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962) and as the sadistic psychopath Vince Stone in THE BIG HEAT. Even though Marvin's Vince is a terrible person, Marvin makes him charming and a bit sad.  When Bannion emasculates Vince in front of his friends at The Retreat, I felt sympathy for him. But it doesn't last long. Vince turns his embarrassment into rage, disfiguring Debby in a fit of anger. But Debby's a handful and she'll get her revenge on Vince, returning the hot coffee to the face favor to her ex.

Jocelyn Brando has a memorable, brief role as Bannion's wife Katie. She's not your typical suburban wife. She'll share a glass of beer or take a puff of Bannion's cigarette while making dinner for her husband. She's like one of the guys and Bannion loves her for that. Jocelyn Brando was the older sister of Marlon Brando (who knew!).  Glenn Ford even co-starred in THE TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON (1956) with Marlon. Although she didn't have as well known a career as her little brother, Jocelyn would appear in a few more films like Jacques Tourneur's NIGHTFALL (1956) and work steadily in television for several decades.

THE BIG HEAT is a crackerjack crime drama, raw and visceral that has everything you want in a gritty gangster film: a handsome cop seeking vengeance; a villain to root against; a beautiful, sassy femme fatale, and a crime cartel that will go to all extremes to remain on top.  Directed by the expert hands of film noir master Fritz Lang, THE BIG HEAT is as shocking and powerful today as it was in 1953. 

Do the Right Thing (1989)

Racial tensions in an urban city. A black man suffocated to death by the police. Rioting in the streets.  It sounds like I'm talking about the latest nightly newscast.  But these all happen in Spike Lee's DO THE RIGHT THING made in...1989.   Thirty one years ago, director Spike Lee's third feature film foreshadowed today's headlines and reminds us we haven't made much head way in race relations since 1989. I was going to revisit a past summer blockbuster BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) directed by Robert Zemeckis this month but recent events involving the tragic deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, both African American men, changed my mind.  It's time to look back at a film and director who had his thumb on the pulse of racial discord and Black Lives Matter way before 2020 arrived.

"1989 the number another summer" belted out the rap band Public Enemy with Fight the Power over the opening credits of DO THE RIGHT THING. It was a hot summer afternoon in 1989 when a white kid from Portland, Oregon went to see DO THE RIGHT THING not in Brooklyn or Bedford Stuyvesant but the Beverly Cineplex Odeon theater on trendy Melrose and Beverly Blvd in Los Angeles, CA. For two hours, I was mesmerized by Lee's use of color, extreme close ups, Dutch (titlted) camera angles, and mixture of humor and drama as his story of a scorching summer day in Brooklyn, New York unfolded. Black, White, Puerto Rican, Italian, and Korean characters all intertwine until the heat and rising tensions reach a boiling point. For me, this is Spike Lee's masterpiece (better than MALCOLM X or BLACKKKLANSMAN which are both fine films). With DO THE RIGHT THING, Lee paved the way for a new generation of black filmmakers including John Singleton (BOYZ IN THE HOOD), Carl Franklin (ONE FALSE MOVE), and Ernest Dickerson (JUICE) who's was Lee's cinematographer for several of his films including DO THE RIGHT THING.

Lee, who wrote and directed DO THE RIGHT THING, sets his Greek like comedy/tragedy in the Brooklyn suburb of Bedford Stuyvesant where a mixture of different ethnic characters work and live in an uneasy alliance of racial unity. Set in a single, scorching summer day, we are first introduced to Mookie (Spike Lee) who lives with his sister Jade (real life sister Joie Lee). Mookie struggles to make ends meet, trying to support his Puerto Rican girlfriend Tina (Rosie Perez) and their young child Hector.  The local gathering place is Sal's Famous Pizzeria, owned and run by Sal (Danny Aiello) and his two sons Vito (Richard Edson) and Pino (John Turturro). Mookie works for Sal as their pizza delivery boy.

We soon meet more characters on the block. Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito), Mookie's friend, is a Nike wearing firebrand. Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) walks around the streets with his gigantic boom box, blaring Public Enemy's Fight the Power, the anthem of the film. Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) and Mother Sister (Ruby Dee) are the patriarch and matriarch of the block. ML (Paul Benjamin), Sweet Dick Willie (Robin Harris), and Coconut Side (Frankie Faison) sit on the sidewalk under a beach umbrella, a Greek chorus observing daily life in the neighborhood. DJ Mister Senor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson) on We Love FM 108 plays the tunes from a nearby building. The stuttering Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith) tries to sell a photo of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X together to anyone he can stop. And keeping the peace, however tenuous, are Officer Ponte (Miguel Sandoval) and Officer Long (Rick Aiello).

As the day grows longer, fuses become shorter. Pino's weary of working for his father Sal in a neighborhood that's not Italian. Pino wants Sal to sell the pizzeria. Vito's tired of Pino picking on him. Mookie tells Vito he needs to stick up for himself, irritating Pino. Tina wants Mookie to visit her and their infant more. Raheem brings aggravation with his boom box, upsetting a group of Puerto Rican youths first with his loud music and later Korean grocery store owner Sonny (Steve Park) and his wife Kim (Ginny Yang). The entire neighborhood freaks out when Larry Bird jersey wearing Clifton (John Savage) accidentally scuffs up Buggin Out's new white Nike's. They fear gentrification as the only white guy on the block goes into his brownstone apartment. Mookie gets jealous when he catches Sal and Vito acting nice to his sister Jade. But the catalyst for the film's finale is when Buggin Out complains to Sal that his pizzeria only has photo of Italians like Frank Sinatra and John Travolta on its wall but no photos of black people. Buggin Out tries to organize a boycott of the pizzeria enraging Sal but the locals like Ahmad (Steve White), Cee (Martin Lawrence), Punchy (Leonard L. Thomas), and Ella (Christa Rivers) all like their pizza slices too much to join.

Dusk begins to fall on the neighborhood. Sal starts to close up for the night.  Ahmad, Cee, Punchy, and Ella beg for one last slice of pizza.  Sal gives in against Pino's wishes. But then Buggin Out and Radio Raheem show up, Raheem's boom box music cranked to the highest decibel.  Sal loses his cool and takes a baseball bat to the boom box. Radio Raheem leaps over the counter and attacks Sal, starting a fight that will move outside into the street, starting a tragic chain of events that will end in the unnecessary death of a black man and the destruction of a neighborhood institution. 

One of the strengths of DO THE RIGHT THING is every character is flawed, no matter their ethnicity. They all have their faults as well as their good sides. Sal's an Italian American who has set up his livelihood in a black neighborhood.  For the most part, Sal gets along with his black customers but Buggin Out and Radio Raheem get under his skin, revealing cracks in Sal's character.  Mookie seems like a good kid. He's a peacemaker at times between Sal's racist son Pino and Mookie's friends. But Mookie's not a good father or boyfriend.  Tina has to order a pizza to get Mookie to come see her and their son. And Radio Raheem may seem cool with his tricked out boom box but he plays his music too loud, not caring about the others around him. As the film unfolds, the racial divide between the multicultural block is revealed, punctuated by a brief montage in which director Lee has five different ethnic characters spew out racial epithets to the camera, breaking the third wall. 

DO THE RIGHT THING can be summed up by two quotes that director Lee shows at the end of the film.  One quote is from Martin Luther King preaching peace; the other quote is from Malcolm X condoning violence in self defense when necessary. DO THE RIGHT THING offers both choices and asks its characters and you to choose. The film shows most of the characters going through their lives, trying to get along, in a civil manner. But when overzealous policeman Officer Long goes too far in restraining Radio Raheem "because he had a radio", even Sal's most loyal customers turn on him and his pizzeria, needing to express their outrage at the racial injustice they have all just witnessed. It's Mookie of all people who sparks the riot.  Mookie tried to be the peacemaker but it didn't work. His friend is dead. What's it going to take to make people "wake up" as Spike Lee often says.  Peaceful protest or throwing a garbage can threw the pizzeria's window.

Director Lee doesn't just nail DO THE RIGHT THING'S racial tensions.  From a purely cinematic point of view, Lee and cinematographer Ernest Dickerson make bold choices visually that enhance the film. Lee and Dickerson shoot the characters in numerical groups of four, threes, and twos for dramatic effect. Close ups of characters are shot wide angle, often down low looking up or from up high looking down.  The camera is often tilted slightly to the left or right, making the world slightly out of balance.  It's the hottest day of the summer in Brooklyn so Lee uses warm colors to give the impression of heat.  The Greek Chorus sits in front of fire red brick wall. Teenagers turn on the fire hydrants to cool off, spraying anyone close by. Tina dumps her head in a bucket of ice water. The theater I watched DO THE RIGHT THING might have had air conditioning but the movie screen pulsated with heat both literally and emotionally. 

Watching DO THE RIGHT THING again, I didn't realize how many up and coming film stars got their start in this Spike Lee Joint.  Martin Lawrence (BAD BOYS) as Cee, Samuel L. Jackson (PULP FICTION) as the neighborhood DJ Senor Love Daddy, Giancarlo Esposito (BREAKING BAD) as Buggin Out, Bill Nunn (SPIDER MAN) as Radio Raheem, and in her film debut Rosie Perez (WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP) as Mookie's girlfriend Tina all have small but key supporting roles in DO THE RIGHT THING. Even Spike Lee who had appeared in his previous two films SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT (1986) and SCHOOL DAZE (1988) was not very well known until his performance as Mookie in DO THE RIGHT THING.  Lee would become more famous as an actor in a series of Nike commercials with basketball legend Michael Jordan (directed by Lee) where Lee reprised his goofy character Mars Blackmon from SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT. Although most of the characters in DO THE RIGHT THING are not sympathetic, Mookie is our guide for the day, his pizza deliveries taking us to encounters with the diverse inhabitants of the block he lives on. 

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee (who were married in real life) are the most well known black actors in the film.  Davis and Dee are touching as the elders on the block who have seen it all. Danny Aiello, fresh off his performance as Nicolas Cage's older brother in Norman Jewison's MOONSTRUCK (1987), is probably the most familiar face. Like many of the characters in the film, Aiello's Sal is hard to pin down. He's sympathetic at times but then changes with outbursts toward his sons or customers. John Turturro (BARTON FINK) and Richard Edson (PLATOON) as his sons Pino and Vito are excellent, representing both sides of Sal. Turturro could play Pino as a one dimensional bigot but he shows signs of humanity especially when Pino and Mookie discuss their favorite black athletes. Pino could be a better person like his brother Vito if  he could just get past his prejudices. Vito is the more easy going brother, the peacemaker between Sal and Pino. 

John Savage (THE DEER HUNTER) has a funny turn as the Larry Bird jersey wearing white guy on the block.  And Martin Scorsese favorite character actor Frank Vincent (GOODFELLAS) also has a brief appearance as an Italian man caught in the middle of a fire hydrant water fight. Spike Lee's sister Joie Lee who plays Mookie's sister Jade is one of the more likable characters in DO THE RIGHT THING. She gets under her brother's skin when she flirts innocently with Sal and Vito at the pizzeria. Like Pino getting on Vito for commiserating with blacks, Mookie takes Jade aside, expressing his dissatisfaction with Jade getting friendly with the Italian-Americans he works for. Everyone has prejudices that creep out. 

As I said at the beginning of this essay DO THE RIGHT THING foretells events happening in 2020 as well as the 1992 LA riots that happened just a few years after DO THE RIGHT THING came out in 1989.  Interestingly, when Spike Lee made his film, Lee was reacting to several incidents in New York where black people were either wrongly killed by authorities (Michael Stewart, Eleanor Bumpers) or the infamous Howard Beach incident where four black men whose car broke down in Queens, New York were beaten by a group of white youths after leaving a pizzeria. One of the black men, Michael Griffith, ran out onto a highway to escape his attackers and was hit and killed by a car. Out of these horrible incidents of injustice in New York City, Lee wrote DO THE RIGHT THING. At the time it may have seemed like a New York problem but history has ripped the band aid off to show racism and injustice is a national issue, one that has never really gone away.

Just as I followed Steven Spielberg, David Lynch, and Oliver Stone during their creative periods, Spike Lee was a revelation for me after DO THE RIGHT THING.  I couldn't wait to see what his next projects would be. Lee followed up DO THE RIGHT THING with MO BETTER BLUES (1990) starring Denzel Washington as a jazz trumpeter and JUNGLE FEVER (1991) starring Wesley Snipes and Annabella Sciorra dealing with interracial romance.  Although both well made, neither film captivated me like DO THE RIGHT THING. By the time Lee came out with his magnum opus MALCOLM X (1992) I had already moved on to the next up and coming directors (John Woo and Quentin Tarantino by that time).  I wouldn't rediscover Spike Lee again until his excellent heist film INSIDE MAN (2006) came out with an all star cast including Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, and Christopher Plummer. Spike Lee is the preeminent black director of our time, still making racially and socially interesting films like BLACKKKLANSMAN (2018) and the recent Vietnam drama DA 5 BLOODS (2020) for Netflix.

DO THE RIGHT THING was both praised and criticized when it was released.  Many were surprised that a film about racial discord could be so stylized.  But that's exactly what captivated me about the film.  DO THE RIGHT THING has a powerful social message but it's presented in a creative, fresh, eye popping way.  It reminds me of another stylized film about two street gangs that fought it out in the streets of New York -- Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins WEST SIDE STORY (1961).  DO THE RIGHT THING is more relevant than ever today.  Even as I type, every day Americans of all color and sexual orientation are protesting for a better, more equal future.  They are doing the right thing.