Born to Kill (1947)

When Quentin Tarantino's debut RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) was released, moviegoers and critics were blown away by the eclectic group of actors that he had assembled for his low budget crime thriller. Tarantino had veteran actor Harvey Keitel joined with new faces like Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Steve Buscemi. But there was one bullet-headed older actor who plays crime boss Joe Cabot, the man who bankrolls the robbery that no one seemed to know who he was except Tarantino. The actor's name was Lawrence Tierney. Tierney was best known for playing tough guys in film noirs back in the late 1940s, making him the perfect bridge from classic film noir to Tarantino's modern LA noir. Casting Lawrence Tierney in RESERVOIR DOGS would be an introduction to Tarantino's incredible cinematic memory as he would resurrect forgotten actors in future films including John Travolta (PULP FICTION), David Carradine (KILL BILL, VOL 1 & 2), Pam Grier (JACKIE BROWN), Rod Taylor (INGLORIOUS BASTERDS), and Dennis Christopher (DJANGO UNCHAINED). 

BORN TO KILL (1947) with a young Lawrence Tierney in the lead role sounds like a Tarantino film. Tierney apparently carried his tough guy persona off-screen as much as on-screen (more about that later). BORN TO KILL was directed by of all people a young Robert Wise who began his career as an editor on Orson Welles CITIZEN KANE (1941) before advancing to directing with a couple of Val Lewton horror films including THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944) and THE BODY SNATCHER (1945) starring Boris Karloff. Before Wise went on to direct classic films like WEST SIDE STORY (1961), THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965), and THE SAND PEBBLES (1966), Wise cut his teeth directing film noirs like CRIMINAL COURT (1946), THE SET-UP (1949), and BORN TO KILL.

With a screenplay full of poisonous dialogue by Eve Greene and Richard MaCaulay based on the novel Deadlier Than the Male by James Gunn and directed at a fast clip by Robert Wise, BORN TO KILL open in Reno, Nevada where Helen Brent (Claire Trevor) has just been granted a divorce. Helen returns to the boardinghouse she's staying at where the alcoholic owner Mrs. Kraft (Esther Howard) and young pretty boarder Laury Palmer (Isabell Jewell) offer her a beer to celebrate Helen's new found freedom. Helen declines. She's ready to return to her hometown of San Francisco. She settles her bill with Mrs. Kraft. Laury brags about dating two men at one time. She's going to see the younger one Danny Jaden (Tony Barrett) tonight to make the more handsome, stronger beau jealous. Helen goes to the casino one last time hoping to win a few bucks. She encounters Sam Wild (Lawrence Tierney) playing craps. They make eye contact as Sam rolls her a few winning bets before losing. Helen runs into Laury and Danny. Sam sees Laury from afar. It turns out Sam is Laury's other boyfriend and he's the jealous type. When Laury and Danny return to the boardinghouse, Sam's waiting for them. Sam tells Danny to scram. Danny won't and pulls a knife on Sam.  Sam kills Danny in anger and then murders Laury who stumbles across Danny's body. As Sam flees the murder scene, Helen returns to find the two dead bodies in the kitchen. Surprisingly, instead of calling the police, Helen calls the train station for the next train to San Francisco. 

Sam chills at his flat. His roommate and associate Marty Whiteman (Elisha Cook) returns. Sam confesses to Marty he murdered Laury and Danny. Marty tells Sam to get out of town. Marty will check to make sure there aren't any loose ends and join him later. At the train station, Sam recognizes Helen from the casino. He helps her with her luggage and they both head to San Francisco on the train, chatting in the club car. Sam flirts with Helen and asks for her phone number when they arrive in San Francisco. Back in Reno, Mrs. Kraft hires the sleazy private investigator Albert Arnett (Walter Slezak) to find Laury's killer. Helen visits her new fiance Fred Grover (Phillip Terry) who's waiting for her at Helen's wealthy half-sister Georgia Staples (Audrey Long) home. The reunion is short lived when Sam unexpectedly shows up. Sam is surprised to learn Helen's engaged so soon after her divorce. Georgia sees the newspaper headline about the two murders in Reno. Helen confides to Georgia she discovered the two bodies at the boardinghouse she was staying at. She didn't call the police so as not to get Fred involved. The four of them go out dancing. Helen is not happy Sam followed her. Sam switches dance partners. Georgia becomes smitten with the good looking but rough Sam. After a few dates, Sam and Georgia become engaged.

Helen's upset about the marriage. Helen's secretly in love with the volatile Sam. Marty arrives in San Francisco for the wedding, trailed by Arnett. At the wedding, Arnett lies his way into working in Helen's kitchen. Arnett asks a lot of questions about Sam to the staff. Helen gets word of it and throws Arnett out. Sam and Georgia go on their honeymoon but return sooner than expected due to an argument. Sam wants to run the newspaper Georgia inherited from her father. Georgia doesn't believe Sam has the experience. Sam overhears Helen taking a phone call from Reno and thinks Helen's setting him up. Helen secretly meets with Arnett. Arnett's close to pinning Sam for the murders. Helen wants to protect Sam. Helen tries to bribe Arnett to drop the case. Helen offers $5,000. Arnett wants $15,000 to disappear. Sam confronts Helen when she returns. Helen tells Sam about the detective Arnett who has been hired to catch Laury's killer.  

Marty follows Arnett to the Felton Hotel where Arnett meets Mrs. Kraft to update her. After Arnett leaves the meeting, Marty appears and promises Mrs. Kraft some information about the murder. But she has to meet Marty later that night at a predetermined street corner. Back at the house, Sam catches Marty coming out of Helen's room. Sam becomes jealous again. Marty updates Sam on his plan to deal with Mrs. Kraft. Marty meets Mrs. Kraft that night. Marty attempts to kill her but Mrs. Kraft struggles free. Sam shows up out of nowhere and stabs Marty. The police show up at Georgia's to tell them Marty has been murdered. Helen grows tired of cleaning up Sam's messes. Helen visits Mrs. Kraft and threatens her if she doesn't drop her investigation. Fred breaks off the engagement with Helen. Arnett calls Helen, upset that Mrs. Kraft has ended the investigation. BORN TO KILL speeds toward its finale as the greedy Sam and Helen plot to murder Georgia and take her money before they turn on each other as the police close in on them. 

BORN TO KILL is hard-boiled film noir with a fascinating group of flawed, morally corrupt characters. What's interesting with BORN TO KILL is a film noir trope is flipped. Usually, it's the femme fatale who turns the sap into a killer for her. With BORN TO KILL, it's bad boy Sam who warps Helen. When we first meet Helen, she's freshly divorced and already engaged to the wealthy and kind Fred Grover. But deep down in Helen, there's a bad seed waiting to sprout. She just doesn't know it until she encounters Sam. Helen discovers the two bodies but doesn't call the police. Helen doesn't know Sam's the killer yet. She wants to protect Paul from any bad publicity. She's protecting her asset, marrying into money she was denied when her deceased father gave the newspaper company to her half sister Georgia. First attracted by Sam's rugged good looks at the Reno casino, Helen becomes enamored by Sam's ruthlessness as she gets to know him. Both Sam and Helen's actions are driven by class. They're from the lower side. They feel like life has cheated them, given them the short straw. They're trying to scratch their way to the top by marrying into wealth.

But Sam and Helen are destined to be bad together. They may be engaged to nice, good-hearted people but they desire each other. If BORN TO KILL was made today, Sam and Helen would be sneaking away to have sex in seedy hotels. In 1947, it's clandestine kisses in the hallway or kitchen. Helen finds  "goodness and safety" with Fred. Fred can keep her from turning bad with his "peace and security." In Sam, she finds "strength and excitement and depravity." Helen doesn't kill anyone but she begins to run interference for Sam and his actions, partly to protect her sister, partly because she's attracted to Sam. She tries to bribe the shady detective Arnett to drop the investigation. "Obstructing the wheels of justice is a costly affair," Arnett reminds her. Later Helen threatens Mrs. Kraft if she goes to the police about Sam killing Marty. "Perhaps you don't realize it's painful being killed. A piece of metal sliding into your body, finding its way into your heart." Only when Fred calls off their engagement, does Helen turn to a disastrous, last ditch plot for her and Sam to kill Georgia for her money. 

It's not only Sam and Helen who are rotten in BORN TO KILL. In a clever twist, private detective Albert Arnett (Walter Slezak) is not a straight, honest gumshoe.  Arnett's down on his luck and as morally compromised as Sam or Helen. He's chased by creditors and owes money to the coffee shop woman for using her phone but he has a lead that could change his fortunes. Mrs. Kraft hires him to find her friend Laury's killer for $500. In San Francisco, Arnett receives a counter offer from Helen to quit investigating Sam.  "I'm a man of integrity, "Arnett tells her, "but I'm always willing to listen to an interesting offer." Now, Arnett holds some blackmail power over Helen as he has Sam in his crosshairs. In true film noir fashion, Arnett's advantage will crumble.  He never will get paid by either Mrs. Kraft or Helen. At least he manages not to get killed.

Sam's bunkmate and associate Marty Waterman (Elisha Cook) is another character operating in the gray areas of morals and ethics in BORN TO KILL. Why Marty hangs around with a guy like Sam with his volcanic rage is never explained. Marty might idolize Sam. He's definitely intimidated by Sam. He's wormed his way into Sam's favor by cleaning up his messes (soon Helen will fall into the same trap).  Marty talks a good game but we know he's no Sam when he clumsily fails to kill Mrs. Kraft to silence her investigation into Sam. Marty was a dead man the moment he began hanging around with Sam. 

BORN TO KILL is lucky to have three leads who should be in the Film Noir Hall of Fame (if there was such a thing). Lawrence Tierney broke onto the film noir scene with his breakthrough performance as bank robber John Dillinger in Max Nosseck's 1945 DILLINGER (Tierney would also play western bank robber Jesse James in 1946's BADMAN'S TERRITORY). Tierney apparently hated the role as Dillinger yet it paved the way for more leading man roles for him. Tierney's fantastic in BORN TO KILL, charming one moment, a paranoid, raging sociopath the next. Tierney's Sam Wild (prophetic last name) has an inferiority complex. He's lower class, born on the wrong side of the tracks. He covets wealth, power, and respect. Marrying newspaper heir Georgia Staples almost brings him to his goal but Sam can't get out of his own way, his ego and hair trigger temper his downfall. The way Tierney switches from charmer to jealousy in half a second is impressive.  

Other film noirs that Tierney appeared in include Gordon Douglas's SAN QUENTIN (1946), Felix E. Feists's THE DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE (1947), Richard Fleischer's BODYGUARD (1948), and Nosseck's THE HOODLUM (1951). Right before BORN TO KILL was to be released, Tierney was involved in a drunken brawl that brought him more notoriety. Several arrests in the 1950s for fighting at bars and Hollywood parties would derail Tierney's promising film career.  Tierney would bounce back (although his off-screen issues like being stabbed in 1973 never quite left him) appearing in small parts on television and film with Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS shining a spotlight once again on a true film noir legend.

If Tierney was the king of tough guy roles for a brief period, Claire Trevor cornered the market on the fallen woman for over a decade. It all began for Trevor (with blonde hair no less) in John Ford's STAGECOACH (1939) where she had top billing over the young, unknown John Wayne as prostitute Dallas run out of town by a women's "Law and Order League." As newly divorced Helen Brent in BORN TO KILL, Trevor's Helen is best described toward the film's end by Mrs. Kraft as "the coldest iceberg of a woman I ever saw, and the rottenest inside. And I've seen plenty, too." Helen wants a second chance at married life, to marry the kind and wealthy Fred and have a safe, secure life. She becomes compromised by the brutal but handsome Sam Wild who touches her inner dangerous side. It's a juicy role that Trevor plays perfectly. Trevor would have a good run of film noir roles in the 1940s including Jack Hively's STREET OF CHANCE (1942), Edward Dmytryk's MURDER, MY SWEET (1944) with Dick Powell based on the Raymond Chandler novel, and her Academy Award Best Supporting Actress performance as the washed up, drunk former nightclub singer Gaye Dawn in John Huston's KEY LARGO (1948) with Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Lauren Bacall. 

Nobody played a born loser better than character actor Elisha Cook, Jr. who is noted for having appeared in 21 film noir movies (more than any other actor) according to one film book. Ever since audiences and directors took notice of the diminutive actor in his breakthrough performance as Kasper Gutman's stooge Wilmer Cook in John Huston's THE MALTESE FALCON (1942), Cook, Jr was the go-to-supporting actor to playing roles from a doomed petty criminal to a drug addicted jazz drummer. In BORN TO KILL, Cook plays Marty Waterman, Sam Wild's only friend and conscience. Whether Marty idolizes Sam or he's intimidated by him (probably both), Marty cleans up the messes of his bigger, volatile pal. Unfortunately for Marty, as he becomes more confident of his influence with Sam, he forgets that Sam's the jealous type. Like murder jealous. When Sam catches Marty innocently coming out of Helen's room, Sam snaps. He kills Marty on a lonely beach after Marty fails to murder Mrs. Kraft. Some of Cook, Jr's best film noir performances include Robert Siodmak's THE PHANTOM LADY (1944), DILLINGER with Tierney, Howard Hawks THE BIG SLEEP (1946), and Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING (1957). Later in his career, Cook, Jr appeared in small roles in Roman Polanski's ROSEMARY'S BABY (1969), Sam Peckinpah's PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (1973), and Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979). Not bad for a pipsqueak. 

Austrian actor Walter Slezak should have been in more film noir films like BORN TO KILL. Instead, Slezak bounced around playing numerous ethnic roles including the German U-boat captain in Alfred Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT (1944) to Latin American politicians and pirates in Frank Borzage's THE SPANISH MAIN (1945) and Vincent Minnelli's THE PIRATE (1948). Slezak's crooked private investigator Albert Arnett has the perfect name. Arnett would be at the front of the phone book under A for clients to look up like Mrs. Kraft. Arnett is anything but A class. He's a good detective, tracking Sam to San Francisco, convinced he's most likely the killer in Reno. But Arnett's greed and financial issues will cloud his moral judgment. Slezak's interesting voice and Sydney Greenstreet like stature make him a good candidate as a film noir player. Slezak would appear in a few other film noir films like Richard Wallace's THE FALLEN SPARROW (1943), Edward Dmytryk's CORNERED (1945) with Dick Powell; and Ted Tetzlaff's comedy noir RIFFRAFF (1947). 

Actors Phillip Terry as Fred Grover and Audrey Long as Georgia Staples have the unenviable task of playing the dull, honest significant others to the morally questionable Helen and Sam. Their roles sound boring yet in BORN TO KILL, Fred and Audrey are important supporting characters who are the key to Helen and Sam trying to better their standing in society. Fred will the first to realize Helen's moral compass has done a 180 and he drops Helen sooner than Georgia discovers Sam's true intentions. Actor Terry appeared in more than 80 films (mostly uninteresting except for Billy Wilder's 1945 THE LOST WEEKEND). His better claim to fame was as actress Joan Crawford's husband for four years in the 1940s. The pretty Long mostly appeared in low budget films in the 40s and early 50s like George Blair's DUKE OF CHICAGO (1949) and Ray Nazarro's INDIAN UPRISING (1952) before retiring after an uncredited cameo in Billy Wilder's LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON (1957). Special mention to actress Esther Howard who plays the good-hearted, alcoholic Mrs. Kraft who uses her life savings to find the killer of possibly her only friend in life Laury. Howard was part of director Preston Sturges stock company appearing in THE PALM BEACH STORY (1942) among others.  Howard had parts in two well known film noirs MURDER, MY SWEET and Edgar G. Ulmer's DETOUR (1945).

Some final BORN TO KILL trivia tidbits.  The reason Helen goes to Reno, Nevada to get a divorce was that Reno was the only place at the time in the U.S. where a person could get a no-fault divorce.  They just had to establish residency for six weeks in Reno which is why Helen was staying at Mrs. Kraft's boardinghouse at the start of the film. Actor Lawrence Tierney was the older brother to actor Scott Brady who appeared in more westerns than film noirs in the 50s including Allan Dwan's MONTANA BELLE (1952) with Jane Russell and Nicholas Ray's JOHNNY GUITAR (1954) with Joan Crawford. Put two photos of the men together in their handsome heyday and you can see the resemblance. Look for actress Ellen Corby, better known as Grandma Walton in the TV Series THE WALTONS (1972-1980) as one of Helen's maids at the wedding. 

BORN TO KILL is a unique film in the annals of film noir. It's a brutal, dark film filled with not famous Hollywood stars but hardcore film noir actors and actresses who play their parts perfectly in this lurid tale of murder and sexual attraction. Like young Quentin Tarantino making his mark in the film world with his first film RESERVOIR DOGS, young Robert Wise staked out his presence as an up and coming director who would springboard from film noir films to other genres including science fiction and musicals that would become classics.  BORN TO KILL is a film noir classic. 

Hook (1991)

My first encounter with J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan was through Walt Disney but it wasn't the animated PETER PAN film from 1953. It was the fairly benign Peter Pan ride based on the animated film at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. The ride consists of sitting in a small pirate ship and flying over sequences from the film. It's the beginning of the ride where you feel like you're soaring over London that captured my imagination immediately.  The Peter Pan Ride is one of my favorite rides at Disneyland in large part to that feeling of flying like Peter Pan.

It was inevitable that Peter Pan and Steven Spielberg were going to cross paths at some point in their careers. Both were boys who didn't want to grow up. Peter Pan wanted to hang out and have fun with Tinkerbell and the Lost Boys on the island of Neverland forever. Spielberg had turned his childhood passion of making Super 8mm films into a wunderkind career with hit films like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) and E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTIAL (1982) that showed a filmmaker in tune with young audiences. Finally, in 1991, Spielberg and Peter Pan would team up for a new take on the J.M. Barrie's beloved characters from screenwriters James V.  Hart and Malia Scotch Marmo called HOOK based on J.M. Barrie's 1911 novel called Peter and Wendy.

When HOOK was first released, I was outraged. Spielberg had been so great at filming his movies on real locations, capturing incredible images. HOOK was filmed entirely inside studio soundstages. The nerve! How could Spielberg and company deprive us of real locations. But if you think about it, that's the only way that HOOK was ever going to get made. A giant pirate ship, the most famous director in the world at the time, and an all-star cast (with big salaries) including Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, and Julia Roberts, the budget of HOOK might have exceeded ten times what it was if they had tried to film in Hawaii or the Caribbean or Tahiti. Spielberg had learned his lesson from JAWS (1975). Filming on water is hell.  

In Steven Spielberg's modern update of the Peter Pan story, co-written by James V. Hart and Malia Scotch Marmo based on a story idea by Hart and Nick Castle, the never grow old Peter Pan is now paunchy, adult Peter Banning (Robin Williams), a successful corporate Merger & Acquisitions lawyer with a wife Moira (Caroline Goodall) and two children, 11 year old Jack (Charlie Korsmo) and 7 year old Maggie (Amber Scott). Whether it's taking business calls at Maggie's school play (she's playing Wendy in her school version of Peter Pan) or missing Jack's baseball game, Peter has become too consumed with work to notice he's missing out on his children's lives. The Banning family fly back to London for a dedication of a hospital wing to be named after Moira's Granny Wendy (Maggie Smith) for her work with orphans. Its been ten years since Peter last saw Wendy and her her maid Liza (Laurel  Cronin) and friend Tootles (Arthur Malet). Peter doesn't remember the adventures he had with them when he was a young Peter Pan. When Peter, Moira, and Wendy return from the dedication, they find the flat covered with scratch marks and Jack and Maggie gone, kidnapped by Peter's nemesis Captain James Hook (Dustin Hoffman) who leaves a note requesting Peter Pan's presence in Neverland. 

Granny Wendy tries to help Peter remember his past, that he's the real Peter Pan. Peter has no memory of his childhood. Peter's glowing fairy friend Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts) arrives to nudge Peter. Peter still has no recollection. Tinkerbell ends up kidnapping Peter and flies him to Neverland and a Pirate Town where Hook has taken Jack and Maggie.  Disguising himself as a pirate, Peter watches as Hook and his loyal boatswain Mr. Smee (Bob Hoskins) show off a trussed up Jack and Maggie to their crew. Seeing his kids in danger, Peter reveals himself to Hook. Hook doesn't believe he's Peter Pan. He's overweight, afraid of heights, and cannot remember how to fly. Hook gives Tinkerbell three days to get Peter back to his old self or he will kill execute him. Peter wakes up back with his old gang the Lost Boys at their hideout.  Only they have a new leader named Rufio (Dante Basco). Tinkerbell asks the Lost Boys to help get Peter in shape and remember who he was.  The Lost Boys are torn. They're not sure if the adult in their midst is Peter or not. 

Back on his pirate ship, Hook wants to die. There's no adventure left in Neverland. His greatest foe Peter Pan is now just a boring lawyer. Smee suggests Hook make Peter's son Jack like him. Hook can become Jack's new father to make Peter become jealous and return to his old self. The Lost Boys eat a pretend dinner until Peter regains his imagination. Suddenly, their plates and bowls are teeming with colorful food. Hook becomes frightened by the sound of Jack's pocket watch. He thinks the crocodile that ate his hand has returned. Smee reminds him the crocodile is dead. Hook takes Jack to a broken clock store. Hook urges Jack to break a clock for every time his father Peter broke promises to him. Jack smashes away, slowly brainwashed by Hook and Smee. Hook stages a baseball game in Jack's honor. Peter and the Lost Boys show up in disguise. Jack hits a home run, the ball blasted into the sky. Hook waits at home plate to congratulate Jack. Peter realizes he must remember how to fly so he can defeat Hook and win his son back. Peter still can't fly until Jack's baseball falls back to earth and hits him on the head.

Peter looks into the water and sees a reflection of his younger self. Peter's shadow leads him to an old tree and the remnants of Wendy's house. Tinkerbell is waiting for him. Peter begins to remember how he became an orphan, how Tinkerbell rescued him, how he first met young Wendy (Gwyneth Paltrow), now Granny Wendy. Peter realizes becoming a father as his happy thought. Peter flies again. The Lost Boys rejoice. Tinkerbell reminds Peter he needs to save his children. Tinkerbell grows to human size and kisses Peter. She tells Peter she loves him. Peter tells Tinkerbell he loves Moira and his kids. Hook prepares to make Jack a real pirate when Jack and the Lost Boys show up for a final fight. Peter rescues Maggie first. Hook stabs Rufio. Peter bests Hook in a duel. He lets Hook live. When Hook tries to kill Peter again, his errant sword pierces the giant stuffed Crocodile that ate his hand. The Crocodile momentarily comes to life and falls on Hook, swallowing the pirate. Peter brings Jack and Maggie back to London where they happily reunite with Moira and Granny Wendy. They are a family again.

After watching HOOK for possibly the third time, my opinions of the film have not changed drastically. I have a little more clarity about some of the plot and production. HOOK has some truly magical moments that you would expect from a Spielberg film but it's an uneven film that takes a while to find its footing. Although the opening, modern scenes in Los Angeles set the tone for the schism in Peter and Jack's relationship, the beginning seems disjointed until the family reaches London (more familiar Peter Pan territory). Peter's first time back at the Lost Boys hideout is too over the top and noisy as if Spielberg was reverting back to his younger anything goes 1941 (1979) days. Only when Captain Hook arrives on the screen does HOOK start to feel like something special.

The meat of the story in HOOK is the tug of war between Hook and Peter Pan for Peter' son Jack's fidelity. Spielberg expertly shows Hook and Smee slowly turning Jack against his father, using all the times Peter promised to catch one of Jack's baseball games only to miss it as the bait. What young Jack doesn't realize is Hook is using him to trigger adult Peter into turning back into young, carefree Peter Pan, the adversary Hook is craving to battle and kill. Hook pretends to care for Jack but it's just a charade. When we see Jack dressed as a mini-Hook, it's terrifying for the audience and Peter. The transformation is almost complete. Jack is about to go over to the dark side. This triangle between Hook, Jack, and Peter is the heart and soul of HOOK and corrects the film from its early bumpy beginning. 

I never thought I would hear myself saying this but what saves HOOK and Spielberg's film is the music by composer John Williams. Williams music is synonymous with some of the best known musical scores in cinematic history: JAWS (1975), STAR WARS (1977), and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Williams scores are like another character. You don't forget them.  You hum them in the shower. HOOK's score would probably never even come up on a Top Ten list of John Williams best scores. It doesn't have a hook (no pun intended) like JAWS although I heard a few flourishes in HOOK that will find their full sound in Chris Columbus's HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE (2001). 

After an awkward beginning in HOOK with some awful modern music to coincide with Peter's corporate job, Williams demonstrates why music can be so important to a film as a whole and to a scene in particular. Williams music in HOOK elicits the right emotions that Spielberg visualizes throughout the film, tugging at our heartstrings again and again. Peter realizing he's losing his son Jack to Hook. The Lost Boys rejoicing when Peter rediscovers his imagination and his ability to fly. And Peter reconnecting with his wife and kids. Williams music for HOOK may not be as unforgettable as CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) or E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTIAL. The music is emotional. 

HOOK is buoyed by strong performances by its two leads -- Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook and Robin Williams as Peter Banning/Pan. At this point in his career, Spielberg never had two bigger stars in one of his films. The moment Hoffman appears with his black curly locks and red suit, he dominates the screen. Many actors would play Hook flamboyantly. Hoffman plays Hook as charming and funny rogue always with an undercurrent of menace. He doesn't go into histrionics but make no mistake, Hook's still a cutthroat. Winner of two Best Actor Academy Awards in Robert Benton's KRAMER VS KRAMER (1979) and Barry Levinson's RAIN MAN (1988), HOOK should have been another feather (and Oscar) in Hoffman's pirate hat. It was not to be. HOOK is still one of Hoffman's finest and fun performances.

Who else could have played the adult Peter Pan than the human dynamo with more energy than the boyish Peter Pan himself but Robin Williams. Williams was born to play the adult Peter who must find his youthful past self. As you would expect, Spielberg reins in Williams for a good part of HOOK, having him play the adult Peter as boring and rigid corporate pirate. Other Williams films like George Roy Hill's THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP (1982) and Peter Weir's DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989) managed this tall task of clamping down on Williams manic energy with success, achieving fine performances from Williams. Spielberg maybe holds on a little too long with letting the genie out (yes an ALADDIN pun). When Peter does rediscover his youthful, mischievous self, we all exhale with relief. Williams lets loose, staying in character, resisting ad libs and improvisation. Williams continues to show his growth and maturity as a dramatic actor in HOOK.  

At the time, casting Julia Roberts to play Tinkerbell in HOOK seemed like divine inspiration. A rising movie star after a string of hits including Herbert Ross's STEEL MAGNOLIAS (1989), Garry Marshall's PRETTY WOMAN (1990), and Joel Schumacher's FLATLINERS (1990), Roberts may have caught Spielberg's attention in PRETTY WOMAN where she's outgoing and bubbly. Just the type of personality needed for Tinkerbell. Roberts doesn't deliver. Whether it was a cancelled wedding with FLATLINER co-star Kiefer Sutherland or her inexperience dealing with green screen special effects and not working directly with her co-stars (she does play a miniature fairy that flits around after all), Roberts seems out of her element in HOOK. There's very little whimsy to her fairy. Her best scene is when she grows to human size to tell Peter she loves him. I think an older, more experienced Julia Roberts would play Tinkerbell beautifully now. In 1991, HOOK was too big a moment for her.

Every villain needs a good sidekick. Bob Hoskins as Mr. Smee provides that partnership with Hoffman's Captain Hook in HOOK. Smee is a friendlier, Iago like confidant to the pirate king, part psychiatrist, part administrative assistant. It's Smee that proposes to Hook he step in to replace Peter as Jack's father figure, brainwashing the young, impressionable boy, turning him on his real father Peter. Smee and Hook are like childhood buddies that have stayed friends for years. Hoffman and Hoskins are terrific together. Hoskins began his career playing tough, British blue collar characters in films like John Mackenzie's THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (1980) and Neil Jordan's MONA LISA (1986). Hoskins would prove he was deft in comedy too, showcasing his ability in Robert Zemeckis's WHO KILLED ROGER RABBIT? (1988) and soon after, in HOOK. 

Spielberg once again knocks it out of the theater with his child actors in HOOK. From Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore in E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTIAL to Christian Bale in EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987) to Joseph Mazzello in JURASSIC PARK (1993), Spielberg's direction of child actors has been mind boggling. Add HOOK'S Charlie Korsmo (and to a lesser extant Amber Scott) to that list. Korsmo gives a heartbreaking, emotionally nuanced performance as Peter's son Jack, grappling with longing for his father's love and support versus siding with Peter's sworn enemy Hook who has stepped in to fill the vacuum Peter has left. Other fine films to catch Korsmo in include Paul Brickman's MEN DON'T LEAVE (1990) and Warren Beatty's DICK TRACY (also 1990).

Korsmo and Scott aren't the only child actors in HOOK. The Lost Boys provide Spielberg with his largest young cast of his career (and apparently a handful on the set). Spielberg wisely makes the Lost Boys diverse so that the audience can differentiate between each one. Memorable Lost Boys include Dante Basco as their new leader Rufio, Raushan Hammond as Thud Butt, James Madio as Don't Ask, and Thomas Tulak as Too Small. HOOK is full of fun cameos.  Look for singer/drummer Phil Collins (Genesis) as a police inspector, Glenn Close as the unfortunate buccaneer Gutless, Jimmy Buffett (Margaritaville) and David Crosby (of Crosby, Stills, and Nash) as members of Hook's pirate crew, and a young Gwyneth Paltrow as young Wendy. 

Some final HOOK observations. Spielberg channels his inner Michael Curtiz with the Lost Boys swinging from one ship to another to attack Hook's pirates ala Curtiz's CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935) and THE SEA HAWK (1940). HOOK was made just at the dawn of CGI (Computer Generated Images). Yet, the Tinkerbell effects are underwhelming and may contribute to my overall unhappiness with Julia Roberts performance. Where Spielberg did succeed is with the use of shadows in HOOK which play an important visual. It's Peter's shadow that leads him to uncover his past self and become the impish Peter Pan again. Earlier in the film, Jack's shadows looms over adult Peter as he takes a business call on his phone, hinting at the splintering of their relationship. 

With my initial disappointment with HOOK when it was released in 1991, my favorite live action version of the Peter Pan story was Universal's PETER PAN that came out in 2003. It didn't have big movie stars (Jason Isaacs is the most recognizable star in it) or a famous director (P.J. Hogan directed) but it seemed a more faithful, reliable telling of J.M. Barrie's story. Upon further review of HOOK, Steven Spielberg's film is a worthy addition to the Peter Pan cinematic library. It's not a perfect film but it takes chances with its story and setting and has the luxury of two excellent performances from Dustin  Hoffman and Robin Williams as the titular characters of Captain Hook and Peter Pan as they duel for the soul of Peter's young son Jack and a film saving musical score from the great John Williams. 

Return of the Jedi (1983)

After the cliffhanger ending of the middle installment THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980), STAR WARS fans who were there from the beginning (like me) had no idea what to expect from the third episode of the trilogy. Even the title was kept a secret by creator George Lucas until close to its release. As it would turn out, RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) would be a split personality of a finale. The first 45 minutes of JEDI were as strange and mysterious as audiences could have expected (including providing us teenage fanboys with the indelible image of a scantily clad Princess Leia in loin cloth and golden brassiere). The second half of JEDI reverted back to a more mainstream story and images STAR WARS fans were accustomed to and revealed a side of Lucas fans weren't expecting: adorable, little furry creatures from the forest moon of Endor called Ewoks that could be turned into all kinds of toy merchandising.

RETURN OF THE JEDI provided fans with plenty of old and new characters to be excited about: the return of the gluttonous gangster Jabba the Hut; more screen time for everyone's favorite Mandalorian bounty hunter Boba Fett; a new monster that Luke Skywalker encounters in Jabba's palace called Rancor; a new creepy majordomo for Jabba the Hut named Bib Fortuna; and the afore mentioned (ahem) sexy Princess Leia barely dressed as Jabba's slave girl. But those same enthusiastic fans were disappointed in Lucas's choice of freedom fighters to assist our heroes in defeating the Galactic Empire on Endor. Ewoks. A mix between dwarves and bears, the Ewoks were too cute and cuddly for die hard STAR WARS fans (I did not have a problem with them). Lucas's affinity for cute characters would raise its ugly head again with the character of Jar Jar Binks in STAR WARS: EPISODE 1 - THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999).

As with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, Lucas again turned the day to day directorial reins for RETURN OF THE JEDI over to another fairly unknown director as he had previously with Irvin Kershner in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: Welsh director Richard Marquand who was just coming off a successful adaption of Ken Follett's World War II thriller novel EYE OF THE NEEDLE (1981) with Donald Sutherland and Kate Nelligan.  Lucas still oversaw the entire production daily to ensure Marquand was achieving his vision. And RETURN OF THE JEDI'S screenplay was written by Lucas along with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK co-screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. The third film in this incredible trilogy was still Lucas's baby. 

RETURN OF THE JEDI opens one year later after THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK as Darth Vader (David Prowse; voiced by James Earl Jones) visits a newer, better, partially built second version of the armored space station the Death Star. Vader warns the current Admiral that the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid) will be arriving soon and expects the station to be completed. We jump to Tatooine where R2DS (Kenny Bake) and C3PO (Anthony Daniels) arrive at Jabba the Hut's palace with a message from Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Jabba's majordomo Bib Fortuna (Michael Carter) brings the droids to Jabba. Luke's holographic message is to strike a bargain with Jabba for Han Solo's (Harrison Ford) release. Han decorates Jabba's den frozen in carbonite. Disguised as a bounty hunter, Leia (Carrie Fischer) brings in a handcuffed Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew). Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) also lurks in the palace. At night, Leia and Chewbacca thaw out the temporarily blind Han only to be caught by Jabba and his court of alien creatures. 

A hooded Luke shows up at the palace. He finds Leia chained to Jabba as a slave girl. Han and Chewbacca stuck in a cell. Luke attempts to make a deal with Jabba only to be lured to a trap door where he tumbles to a pit and dispatches of Jabba's pet creature Rancor.  Jabba and his crew take the prisoners on his Sail Barge into the desert where he plans to throw them into the Sarlaac Pit where a tentacled creature with sharp teeth awaits. With the assistance of R2D2, Luke reobtains his green light saber. He along with Han, Leia, and Lando dispatch of Jabba, Boba Fett, and the other scum, blowing up the barge.  Luke and R2D2 head to Dagobah to visit Yoda (Frank Oz). Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and Lando reconnect with the Rebel Alliance.

The Emperor arrives on the new Death Star to meet with Vader. He tells Vader to be patient about finding Skywalker. Luke will come to Vader. Luke connects with Yoda on Dagobah. Yoda confirms that Vader is Luke's father. The 900 year old Yoda passes away peacefully. Luke is visited by the Force Ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness). Obi reveals to Luke that Leia is Luke's twin sister. Obi tells Luke to become a true Jedi, he will have to confront Vader. The Rebel Alliance make Lando a general.  Admiral Ackbar (Tim Rose) sends Han, Leia, and the rest (including Luke who has returned from Dagobah) on a mission to the forest moon Endor to knock out an energy shield that protects the new Death Star. With the shield disabled, the rebels squadron of X-Wing fighters can destroy it. Using a stolen Imperial shuttle and pass code, Luke, Han, and the others pass through the Death Star's checkpoints to Endor. The Emperor and Vader sense Luke is on that shuttle.

On Endor, the group encounter storm troopers. Luke and Leia chase after a pair of fleeing storm troopers on speeder bikes before they can warn the Empire. Leia is knocked off  her speeder bike. She's found by Wicket (Warwick Davis), a furry inhabitant of Endor called Ewoks. When Luke and Han are captured by more storm troopers, they're rescued by a tribe of Ewoks who take them back as prisoners to their wooded encampment where they find Leia. The Ewoks believe the golden droid C3PO is a god. Luke makes C3PO levitate, scaring the Ewoks who accept the visitors as friendly.  Luke reveals to Leia that they are brother and sister. Vader arrives on Endor where Luke surrenders to him. While Vader takes Luke back to the Death Star and turns him over to the Emperor, Lando and his squadron prepare to attack the Death Star. Will Han, Leia, and the Ewoks be able to knock out the energy shield so Lando and the Rebel Alliance can blow up the new Death Star? And will Luke be able to turn his father Darth Vader away from the dark side or will the Emperor destroy Luke and extinguish the Jedi Knights for good?

I remember when Time Magazine had STAR WARS as its cover story in 1977, film critic Richard Corliss stated that Lucas's fantasy film referenced everything from Flash Gordon to Robin Hood to the Wizard of Oz. In RETURN OF THE JEDI, Lucas and Kasdan definitely pay homage to some of those stories. The band of Ewoks can be compared to Robin Hood's Merry Men in Michael Curtiz's 1938 THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (with Han Solo as Robin Hood and Princess Leia as Maid Marian. The Ewoks assault on the deflector shield and the storm troopers protecting it is reminiscent of Robin's Merry Men attacking the Sheriff of Nottingham and King John's soldiers when they ride through the Sherwood Forest. The Ewoks also remind me of the Seven Dwarves from SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES (1937). The Ewoks are short in stature and each one has a slightly different personality similar to the Dwarves. When Wicket comes across Leia on the forest floor, it's like the Dwarves finding Snow White asleep in their cottage.

Luke and Leia hopping on speeder bikes to pursue a pair of fleeing stormtroopers harkens to William Wyler's BEN HUR (1959) and its famous chariot race. When Luke and a stormtrooper are side by side, clashing their speeder bikes against each other, trying to knock the other one off, it's a space version of Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd dueling it out with their chariots in BEN HUR. And Luke's removal of Darth Vader's helmet to see for the first time his father's human face can be linked to Dorothy pulling the back the curtain in Victor Fleming's THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) to reveal the all and powerful Oz is just a normal human being. 

I never fully appreciated the father/son storyline between Luke and Darth Vader when I originally watched RETURN OF THE JEDI. Vader was cool but kind of a stock matinee villain in the vein of the bad guy in a western complete with black suit and helmet. There wasn't much depth to Vader's personality in the first two STAR WARS films except for his heavy breathing (and James Earl Jones's fantastic voice). With RETURN OF THE JEDI, we finally see a human side to the machine like Vader as he grapples with the Emperor's wishes to either turn Luke to the Dark Side or destroy the young Jedi. Luke also struggles with trying to connect with a father he never knew and bring him back to the good side of the Force (Lucas will explore Vader's aka Annakin Skywalker's back story in his prequel trilogy beginning with THE PHANTOM MENACE). This father/son subplot is the strongest, most dramatic part of the STAR WARS series. Ultimately, Vader stands up to the Emperor, sacrificing his life to save his son Luke's, tossing the Emperor to his death down a shaft on the Death Star. Luke's taking off Vader's helmet to reveal our first look at his father Annakin's face is one of the most poignant scenes in the series.

Beginning with STAR WARS and then THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, Lucas and his creative team made tremendous strides in each film with its visual effects. RETURN OF THE JEDI boasts the most impressive and visually stunning space landscapes of the trilogy including dozens of X-Wing fighters zipping and darting around the Empire's Star Destroyers during a dog fight, more spaceships in a single shot than we had ever seen before. The matte paintings of Jabba's fortress set against the Tatooine desert or the multiple moons of Endor are breathtaking. My favorite image is the partially built second Death Star, floating malevolently in space, like a decaying haunted house or partial skull. 

For RETURN OF THE JEDI, Lucas brought back a favorite villain, spotlighted another that had become a fan favorite after THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and introduced some new creatures. The gangster Jabba the Hut was talked about but never seen in the original STAR WARS before technology brought him to visual life in Lucas's STAR WARS SPECIAL EDITION version. A large space slug like Sydney Greenstreet, Jabba is despicable whether decorating his den with a frozen Han Solo or forcing Leia to be chained to him as his personal slave. Leia will get her revenge on Jabba on the Space Barge. A minor, barely seen character in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, bounty hunter Boba Fett (Jeremy Bulloch)  with his unique suit and jet pack has a little more screen time in RETURN OF THE JEDI as one of Jabba's hired guns. Boba's father Jango Fett will be prominent in the STAR WARS prequel series such as STAR WARS: EPISODE II - THE ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002). 

My two personal favorites in RETURN OF THE JEDI are two new characters.  Bib Fortuna is Jabba's Iago like majordomo and key advisor.  You can't miss him with his orange eyes and large green tentacle sprouting from his head and around his throat. The Rancor is Jabba's pet predator, hidden in the bowels of his palace awaiting Jabba's next unsuspecting victim to step onto Jabba's trap door. Bones litter the Rancor's lair. The Rancor's screen time is short lived as it comes up against one foe it cannot devour. Luke Skywalker. 

If THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK showcased Han Solo and Leia, RETURN OF THE JEDI is Mark Hamill's chance to shine again as Luke Skywalker, the young farm kid we met back in STAR WARS (1977) who dreamt of flying X-Wing fighters for the Rebels. What a journey it's been.  In RETURN OF THE JEDI, Luke starts off calm and mysterious as he infiltrates Jabba's palace, channeling his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi. He witnesses the passing of another teacher in Yoda on Dagobah. Luke's determination to connect with the father he never knew in Darth Vader and bring him back to the good side of the force is touching. Vader will save his son from the Emperor and their final farewell with Luke lifting Vader's helmet off to see his father's face for the first time is powerful. Hamill rises to the challenge with a mature performance in the final film of the trilogy.

Some final RETURN OF THE JEDI trivia tidbits. For most of the production, the title of the third film was going to be REVENGE OF THE JEDI.  But weeks before the film was going to be released, Lucas went back to his original title RETURN OF THE JEDI.  I think he made the right choice. Harrison Ford had only signed up for the first two films and had become a major movie star after Steven Spielberg's RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981). His character Han Solo was frozen in carbonite in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK with the thought he might not want to return for the third film. Ford did sign up for RETURN OF THE JEDI. He's got some of the film's best quips but it's not Ford's strongest appearance in the trilogy as everyone's favorite mercenary Han Solo. Jabba's Palace is Lucas's attempt to top the Cantina scene from STAR WARS with even more strange and bizarre aliens including Bib Fortuna, the Rancor, and palace guards that look like walking warthogs. RETURN OF THE JEDI even throws in a dance sequence at the palace that turns deadly for one of the dancers. The tone of that sequence never quite works for me.

Making just one film is a tricky thing. Making three films like the STAR WARS series that has lasted the test of time and seared itself into Pop Culture seems impossible but George Lucas and his creative team pulled it off. RETURN OF THE JEDI was a satisfying conclusion to Lucas's trilogy that turned out to be the middle section of a nine part story. Lucas would discover that capturing lightning in the bottle not twice but three times was not so easy. Although his prequels (THE PHANTOM MENACE, ATTACK OF THE CLONES, and REVENGE OF THE SITH) tracing the rise and transformation of Luke's father Annakin Skywalker from Jedi protege to the evil Darth Vader had their moments and introduced the STAR WARS universe to a generation of new fans (like my son), it wasn't the original. More recently, the final three films in the series (THE FORCE AWAKENS, THE LAST JEDI, and THE RISE OF SKYWALKER) faced even tougher scrutiny and did not satisfy many die hard fans (like my son or I). The STAR WARS universe is still going strong in the cinema and on streaming television.  But they will never top the original STAR WARS, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, or RETURN OF THE JEDI experience. 

Sleeper (1973)

Like the proverbial question, "What came first?  The chicken or the egg?," the same question could be said about parodies of film genres. Was it Mel Brooks or Woody Allen who started the trend? Both men began their careers as Jewish comedians in the 1950s and 1960s performing in clubs and television before moving into writing and directing their own films. Off the top of my head, I guessed it was Mel Brooks lampooning the western in BLAZING SADDLES (1974) who started it all. I would be wrong. Upon further review, Woody Allen eight years earlier took a Japanese spy film from 1965 and re-dubbed it hilariously in English renaming it WHAT'S UP, TIGER LILY? (1966), spoofing the James Bond craze at the time.

Brooks's parodies are very clear cut.  Besides the western, Brooks affectionately made fun of horror films in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1975), sending up Hitchcock films in HIGH ANXIETY (1977), and poking fun at the STAR WARS franchise in SPACEBALLS (1987). Allen had fun with the crime drama genre (and possibly the first mockumentary) in TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN (1969). Besides film genres, Allen took a shot at history and literature. In BANANAS (1971), Allen had some fun with Third World revolutions.  He got intellectually funny in LOVE AND DEATH (1975) poking fun at Russian literary greats like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.  My introduction to Woody Allen was one of his best and funniest early films called SLEEPER (1973), spoofing the sci-fi genre and described as a dystopian sci-fi slapstick comedy. 

As with BLAZING SADDLES, I heard about SLEEPER from word of mouth from my parents and the older brothers who lived in the cul-de-sac below me who both had seen SLEEPER at the movie theater. Both were conduits to comedy films I wanted to see but wasn't old enough yet. They told me the funny bits of the film until I could finally view the film for myself. I finally saw SLEEPER on television a few years later. It was worth the wait. Woody Allen's stand up jokes throughout SLEEPER mostly went over my head but Allen's physical antics and sight gags made me laugh out loud.  SLEEPER also introduced audiences to Allen's future leading lady and comic co-partner for some of his best comedies. Diane Keaton. 

SLEEPER was directed by Woody Allen with an original screenplay by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman. Miles Monroe (Woody Allen), part owner of the Happy Carrot health food store in Greenwich Village and part time clarinet player with the Ragtime Rascals had gone in for a routine ulcer check-up in 1973. There were complications and Miles wakes up two hundred years later in 2173 cryogenically frozen. A group of doctors led by Dr. Agon (John McLiam) and Dr. Tryon (Don Keefer) unearth Miles time capsule in the forest and whisk him away to a place called the Farm. With the help of Dr. Melik (Mary Gregory), Miles is illegally revived. The doctors warn Miles he's in danger as he's not registered in the government's database. The United States is ruled by an omnipresent dictator known as the Leader and his police state. Miles is considered an outlaw, an alien. The doctors urge Miles to go to the Western District, make contact with the anti-government Underground movement, and infiltrate the government's mysterious "Aries Project" since he's not registered with them. The Security Federation aka police show up at the compound. Miles tries to escape into the woods with a flight pack but he fails. He backtracks to the Farm and hides out in a delivery truck full of domestic robots. Miles disguises himself as one of the metallic servants.

The vehicle drops Miles off at the home of aspiring but talentless poet Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton). Luna's throwing a party for her artist friends and needs a domestic robot. Miles attempts to hang the guest's coats, serve drinks, and make instant pudding all with hilariously bad results. The guests pass a round silver object called the orb to each other. Miles grabs on to it and it makes him amorous. Miles overhears Luna's friend Herald Cohen (Brian Avery) mention the Aries Project. After the party, Luna takes Miles back to Domesticon for a more pleasing head. When Miles witnesses repair men rip off other robot's heads, Miles flees the factory, kidnapping Luna and driving away in her car. Miles ties Luna up in the woods and searches for food for them. Miles stumbles across an organic garden growing gigantic fruit and vegetables. He returns with a monstrous stalk of celery and humongous banana to share with Luna.

Searching for the rebels and information about the "Aries Project", Miles and Luna stumble across a gay couple's house. From their bathroom, Luna calls the authorities. When the police arrive, they try to arrest Luna. Miles puts on the owners hydrovac suit and inflates it. Luna climbs on top of Miles, releases the air valve in the suit, and they propel across a nearby lake to safety. Miles and Luna enter a cave and discover a 200 year old Volkswagen Bug. Miles turns the dusty key and the car starts. Miles and Luna begin to warm up to each other and begin to fall in love. They return to the Farm where Miles was thawed out. The police show up again. Miles hides in a spherical device now used for sex in the future called the Orgasmatron. He's apprehended by the police. Luna sneaks into the woods where she fends for herself before she's found by the leader of the Underground, the handsome Erno Windt (John Beck). 

The authorities prepare to integrate Miles into its dystopic society by scrubbing his brain which includes making Miles think he's Miss America and later Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire. Now working with the Underground, Luna sneaks into the complex where Miles lives and grabs him, trying to snap the brainwashed Miles back to his old neurotic self. When Miles does shake off the brain wash, he notices Luna and Erno are now in a relationship. Luna convinces Miles to set aside his jealousy and complete the mission. Miles and Luna sneak into the "Aries Project" where they discover that the Leader was maimed by an explosion eight months earlier. Only the Leader's nose survived.  Miles and Luna disguise themselves as doctors and become mistaken for the surgeons who are to perform the cloning procedure to bring back the Leader. Miles and Luna grab the nose and race out of the facility. Will they destroy the Leader's nose before the secret police catch them? And will Luna ditch Erno for Miles? 

For Woody Allen fans accustomed to his urban New York comedies like ANNIE HALL (1977) and MANHATTAN (1979), SLEEPER is full of surprises and a different kind of Woody Allen film. Foremost, it's a genuine slapstick comedy (a sci-fi slapstick comedy no less) in the vein of  Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, the Marx Brothers, and Mack Sennett films. Allen proves to be up to the task. From his body's awkwardness in reacclimating after having been cryogenically frozen for two hundred years to impersonating a housekeeper robot and reeking havoc at Luna's party to fighting and fleeing the secret police multiple times, Allen channels the silent film greats with his physical comedy. Look for references to the Marx Brothers DUCK SOUP (1933) and Charlie Chaplin's MODERN TIMES (1936). SLEEPER has a host of sight gags that are not common in later Allen films. Accompanying the comic set pieces is the jazz music of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band including Allen on clarinet, making the bits more frenetic, loose, and funny. 

The other surprise to SLEEPER in the canon of Woody Allen films are the film's locations. It's not the streets of Manhattan or Brooklyn that SLEEPER takes place in. SLEEPER was shot in Colorado and California, a rare venture by Allen to the western United States. The futuristic architecture that Allen needed for the film was more available in the wide open American west like Denver, CO. Later in his career, Allen would venture out of New York with a series of films set in Europe including MATCH POINT (2006) and SCOOP (2007) in England; VICKI CRISTINA BARCELONA (2008) in Spain; MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011) in France; and TO ROME WITH LOVE (2012) in Italy. 

Allen touches on his favorite topics in SLEEPER including God and sex that will pop up in his New York films.  One theme that seemed to preoccupy Allen early in his career were revolutions. In SLEEPER, Miles reluctantly joins the rebels fighting the repressive government alongside Luna and rebel leader Erno Windt. After Miles and Luna damage the Leader's nose (they throw it in front of a road steamroller where it is flattened), they debate if Erno will turn the country around. Miles cynically (and possibly strategically) tells her that Erno will become as corrupt as the Leader was as that's how all revolutions end up (in Miles opinion). In BANANAS, Allen plays a nebbish New Yorker who travels to a Latin American country to impress his girlfriend and winds up joining a group of revolutionaries and becoming their leader. Allen would move on from films about revolutions as he would find inspiration in his comic and romantic counterpart for the next few years: Diane Keaton. 

With SLEEPER, Allen would find his muse and comic partner for some of his best films in the 70s with Diane Keaton (they would also have a romantic relationship during that period). Prior to SLEEPER, Janet Margolin in TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN and Louise Lasser in BANANAS played Allen's romantic leads. No one saw that the Diane Keaton who burst onto the screen as Michael Corleone's (Al Pacino) somber and suffering wife Kay in Francis Coppola's THE GODFATHER (1972) would be the perfect foil and love interest to the neurotic characters played by Woody Allen. 

In SLEEPER, Keaton is funny and goofy (her trademark) and yes, sexy as the uncreative poet turned revolutionary Luna Schlosser. Luna transitions from spoiled party girl to anti-government rebel, falling in love with both the alien Miles and the good looking rebel leader Erno. Allen and Keaton were cast together the year before in Herbert Ross's PLAY IT AGAIN SAM (1972) based on Allen's play.  Allen may have seen her comic potential in that film. After SLEEPER, the hits kept coming for Allen and Keaton with LOVE AND DEATH, ANNIE HALL, and MANHATTAN. In the 80s, Mia Farrow took over for Keaton as Allen's on-screen and off-screen love appearing in THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985), HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986), and RADIO DAYS (1987). Allen and Keaton would reunite one more time for Allen's MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY (1993). 

The only other familiar face in SLEEPER is John Beck who plays the Underground leader Erno Windt. It's a fun role for Beck who mostly played strong, macho characters in films like Sam Peckinpah's PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (1973) and Norman Jewison's ROLLERBALL (1975). In SLEEPER, matinee idol Beck plays his character Erno straight, giving the laughs to Allen and Keaton. In a cameo, psychologist and one time LSD and psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary portrays the Leader who we only see in glimpses including a promotional video, sitting by the ocean with a dog, waving to the camera. The rest of the unknown cast in SLEEPER is up to the task interacting with Allen's pratfalls and gags that include Allen swallowing a rubber glove, erratically driving an electric wheelchair, and slipping on a giant banana peel. 

SLEEPER includes some early collaborators that would work with Allen as he became an acclaimed writer/director/auteur.  Jack Rollins and Charles H. Joffe were Allen's Executive Producers (aka managers) for his films from the very beginning with TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN all the way until Rollins death in 2015.  Editor Ralph Rosenblum began with Allen on BANANAS and continued to edit Allen's films up to INTERIORS (1978) winning an Academy Award for Best Editing for ANNIE HALL. One production member who went on to directing films himself was costume designer Joel Schumacher. Schumacher's costumes in SLEEPER are futuristic yet aesthetically clean, just like the film. Schumacher filmography includes THE LOST BOYS (1987) and BATMAN & ROBIN (1997) with George Clooney as the Caped Crusader. 

Mel Brooks starred in and directed SILENT MOVIE (1976), his ode to silent films. That makes sense as Brooks' film parodies were obviously aimed at different film genres. In SLEEPER, I was not expecting Woody Allen's sci-fi comedy to also be a love letter to the silent film greats like Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd. Like Allen's choice of snappy jazz music instead of moody synthesizer sounds to be the score for his futuristic film, the melding of two different genres (science fiction with slapstick comedy) in SLEEPER is genius. SLEEPER is Woody Allen beginning to find his feet as a filmmaker, becoming bolder and braver in the type of films he was going to make. For some, SLEEPER is the very funny, early phase of Woody Allen before he became a little more serious in his future films. 

  

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

We take it for granted that today's generation of black movie stars like Denzel Washington,  Eddie Murphy, Samuel L. Jackson, Viola Davis, Angela Bassett, and Michael B. Jordan are taking the torch from the greats of the past.  That would be misleading. There is one man that blazed the trail for today's black stars. Sadly, his debut was not that far in the past. That actor would be Sidney Poitier. Due to our country's great racial inequality and prejudice during a good part of the 20th century, black actors and actresses were a rare sight in films of the Golden Age (1930s to early 1950s). When they did appear, they were bit roles as waiters or servants or maids. There was even the awful use of blackface (white actors wearing black makeup to portray a negro) in silent films and some early talkies. Thanks to some socially conscious directors like Richard Brooks, Stanley Kramer, and Norman Jewison, Sidney Poitier emerged on the big screen as Hollywood's first black movie star. 

A native of the Bahamas before moving to Florida at the age of 15, Poitier's acting breakthrough came in Richard Brooks BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (1955) as a rebellious student at an inner city high school. He would follow that debut with THE DEFIANT ONES (1957) directed by Stanley Kramer and co-starring Tony Curtis. They would play escaped convicts: one white, one black who are chained to each other as they seek freedom. Before you knew it, Poitier would win the Academy Award for Best Actor in Ralph Nelson's LILIES IN THE FIELD (1963) as a handyman who helps a group of nuns build a chapel in the desert. 1967 would be a watershed year for Poitier as he would appear not only in Stanley Kramer's GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER? opposite Spencer Tracy (in his last role) and Katherine Hepburn but as a big city police detective stuck in a small Mississippi town with a murder in Norman Jewison's IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT. By today's standards, the two films are fairly tame. At the time, both films dealt with racial barriers that were simmering to the top in the tumultuous 1960s. 

With a screenplay by Stirling Silliphant (THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE) based on the novel by John Ball and directed by Norman Jewison (ROLLERBALL), IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT begins on a humid night in the small southern town of Sparta, Mississippi. It's two in the morning. Officer Sam Wood (Warren Oates) departs the local diner run by Ralph Henshaw (Anthony James) and cruises around the sleepy town on patrol. He stops to voyeuristically watch the local teenage tease Delores Purdy (Quentin Dean) stand naked in her kitchen on the hot evening before moving on. Wood comes across a dead body in the middle of Main Street. Wood reports the death to his superior Sheriff Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger). The dead man is Philip Colbert, an outside developer in Sparta to help build a new factory just outside the town that would provide jobs for the locals. Gillespie sends Wood to scour the town for any vagrants or strangers that might be out at this hour. Wood finds a well-dressed black man named Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) sitting alone at the train station. Without questioning him, Wood brings Virgil directly to the police station.

Gillespie and Wood immediately suspect Virgil just by the color of his skin. Virgil tells them he's a police detective from Philadelphia, PA on his way back to the East Coast after visiting his elderly mother. Gillespie calls Virgil's superior who confirms his occupation and offers Virgil's skills to the Sheriff with the murder investigation. Virgil is a homicide expert. Virgil doesn't want to help the racist Gillespie. Gillespie admits he's not an expert on murder. The next morning, Gillespie's men with dogs chase another suspect Harvey Oberst (Scott Wilson) through the woods and onto a bridge toward Arkansas where he's apprehended. Harvey has Colbert's wallet on him. Harvey is brought back to the station where Mrs. Colbert (Lee Grant) is waiting. Virgil tells Mrs. Colbert her husband is dead. Gillespie is positive Harvey is the killer. Virgil thinks he's innocent. Virgil won't reveal his evidence so Gillespie locks Virgil up along with Harvey. Virgil questions Harvey who says he has an alibi. Virgil believes Colbert was killed elsewhere and his body dropped off in town. Mrs. Colbert demands Virgil work the case or she will pull her husband's engineers off the factory project. 

Tibbs is back at the train station when Gillespie shows up to talk him into staying. Tibbs reluctantly agrees to help on the case. Tibbs inspects Colbert's car. He finds blood and a piece of a plant inside. Tibbs and Gillespie visit the one man who may have been Colbert's enemy. Eric Endicott (Larry Gates) is a cotton grower and the richest man in town who opposed Colbert's factory.  Endicott grows orchids as a hobby. Tibbs and Endicott do not hit it off (they end up slapping each other). Mayor Schubert (William Schallert) puts pressure on Gillespie to run the black detective Tibbs out of town. Endicott sends a car full of young, white men after Tibbs, chasing him to an abandoned warehouse.  Gillespie shows up in the nick of time to rescue Tibbs from a lynching. Tibbs tells Gillespie he just needs two more days to solve the murder. Tibbs asks Officer Wood to retrace his path that night. Wood alters his route, avoiding Delores Purdy's house. Tibbs knows what Wood is doing. Gillespie asks the town banker Henderson (Kermit Murdock) to show him Wood's recent bank transactions. Wood made a recent deposit of $632. Gillespie arrests Wood on suspicion of the murder of Colbert. 

Tibbs still believes Endicott murdered Colbert. Gillespie's now convinced it's his own man Wood. Tibbs tells Gillespie that Wood couldn't have been in two places at one time. The whole situation changes when Lloyd Purdy (James Patterson) brings in his sister Dolores to the station. Dolores claims she's pregnant with Officer Wood's baby. Tibbs walks back to the jail cells and asks Harvey if a guy got a girl pregnant, who would he or she turn to for an abortion? Harvey tells him Packy Harrison (Matt Clark) is the man he wants to talk to. Tibbs travels out to where the new factory is to be built. Gillespie shows up. Tibbs believes Colbert was murdered here. Tibbs had found a piece of pine wood in Colbert's scalp. The lot is full of pine wood stakes. Tibbs and Gillespie go back to Gillespie's house. Packy shows up and tells Tibbs to see a woman named Mama Caleba (Beah Richards). Tibbs goes to Mama's store and asks her who's paying for Dolores's abortion. Dolores shows up at Mama's. When Tibbs steps outside, he's met by the lynch mob again as well as Dolores's angry brother Lloyd. The real father of Dolores's baby and the person who murdered Colbert will also reveal himself. 

Besides figuring out the mystery (and not being misled by its delightful red herrings), the fun with IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT is watching Poitier's black Detective Virgil Tibbs and Steiger's white southern Sheriff Jim Gillespie square off against each other. The two men begin as adversaries, divided by race and class. The big city detective versus the small town hick sheriff. The educated Tibbs wants nothing to do with this racist town except to get out of it. Gillespie is a proud man who arrives at the realization that he's in over his head with this high profile murder in his quiet town. Tibbs and Gillespie butt heads over leads and suspects before acknowledging they need each other to solve the case. They go from fighting each other to fighting the elite of Sparta like the wealthy cotton plantation owner Eric Endicott or the mayor. In the end, they overcome their differences and prejudices. Gillespie rescues Tibbs from a possible lynching when Tibbs gets trapped by a mob of young white adults. Tibbs helps Gillespie solve the case.

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT would be just another crime mystery if it wasn't for the race element. Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs is cinema's first black crime solver. Poitier paved the way for future African-American sleuths like Richard Roundtree as private eye John Shaft in Gordon Parks SHAFT (1971) or Denzel Washington as WWII hero turned gumshoe Easy Rawlins in Carl Franklin's THE DEVIL IN THE BLUE DRESS (1995) based on the Walter Mosley novel. We've seen detectives before.  Only this time, the detective is black and educated. What IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT taught audiences in 1967 (during the turbulent Civil Rights movement) was the color of someone's skin did not mean they were different. We're all the same. Mrs. Colbert wants Tibbs to solve her husband's murder because he's the best one for the job. Not because he's black. Tibbs proves Harvey's innocence in the murder, befriending the white small time criminal. It's possible Harvey doesn't like negros. Tibbs cleared Harvey because it was the right thing to do. And if the murderer is white or black, Tibbs will make sure he's arresting the right person regardless of race or skin color. 

Rod Steiger's performance as the gum chewing, biased Sheriff Bill Gillespie is worthy of a Best Actor Academy Award nomination but was it worthy of winning the Best Actor Award? Steiger's competition in 1967 was Warren Beatty in Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE; Paul Newman in Stuart Rosenberg's COOL HAND LUKE; Dustin Hoffman in Mike Nichols THE GRADUATE; and posthumously, Spencer Tracy in GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER? Beatty and Hoffman were probably too young to win yet. Tracy would have been a sentimental vote. For CRAZYFILMGUY, Paul Newman's performance is far and away the best. Regardless, Steiger came out on top that night.

Steiger's Gillespie is three dimensional in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT.  He makes Gillespie human not a stereotypical lawman from below the Mason-Dixon line like we expect. The interaction between the white Gillespie and the black Tibbs is dynamic. Gillespie throws Tibbs in jail, tries to run him out of town not once but twice only to realize Tibbs is the best man to solve the murder case regardless of the color of his skin. When Gillespie invites Tibbs to his house, it's a major decision for the sheriff. We realize that beyond all his bluster that Gillespie is a lonely man. He probably doesn't have many friends. His job as the sheriff of Sparta is his life. Steiger's win as Best Actor for IN THE HEAT OF THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT showcases what a chameleon of an actor Steiger was. Steiger played a Jewish New Yorker in Sidney Lumet's THE PAWNBROKER (1964), a Russian businessman in David Lean's DR. ZHIVAGO (1965), and a Mexican outlaw in Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE (1971) also known as DUCK, YOU SUCKER! My favorite Steiger role is in Elia Kazan's ON THE WATERFRONT (1954) as Marlon Brando's older brother Charley Malloy.

Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs is intense in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT as a man who just wants to get out of this town that has mistreated him since the moment he sat in their train depot waiting for the next train. Tibbs sense of duty as a police officer gets the better of him. Tibbs relishes the opportunity to solve the murder as a black man in this mostly white town. The success of IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT would lead to a sequel with Poitier reprising his role as Tibbs in Gordon Douglas's THEY CALL ME MISTER TIBBS! (1970) playing off IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT'S most famous line spoken by Poitier. Poitier would take a break from acting (partially) and turn to directing films far from the dramas he appeared in with films like the western BUCK AND THE PREACHER (1972) co-starring Harry Belafonte, the urban crime comedy UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT (1974) with Belafonte and Bill Cosby, and the buddy comedy STIR CRAZY (1980) with the unlikely duo of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. Poitier would appear in Phil Alden Robinson's ensemble comedy thriller SNEAKERS (1992) with Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, and Ben Kingsley. 

Warren Oates made a living early in his career playing humorously dim-witted characters like Officer Wood in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT or Lyle Gorch in Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH (1969). I first came across Oates as a white collar insurance investigator trying to catch jewel thief Ryan O'Neal in Bud Yorkin's THE THIEF WHO CAME TO DINNER (1973) co-starring Jacqueline Bisset. It was the movie on my flight to and back from Portland, OR to Maui. I watched it both times. Oates's Wood is never menacing or violent toward Virgil Tibbs. He's a racist version of Barney Fife. We're never quite sure what's going on in Wood's  head. Is he capable of murder or impregnating the teenager  Dolores? A newer audience would discover Oates when he appeared in Ivan Reitman's comedy STRIPES (1981) as Sgt. Hulka.

Actress Lee Grant is under used in a small but pivotal role as Mrs. Colburn, the wife of the murdered developer. Her importance in her brief scenes in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT is recognizing that the only person who's going to solve her husband's murder is not the redneck cops of Sparta but a black detective. Grant would have bigger roles in films like Hal Ashby's SHAMPOO (1975) with Warren Beatty, Stuart Rosenberg's VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED (1976), and Don Taylor's DAMIEN: OMEN II (1978) co-starring William Holden. IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT is peppered with many supporting actors I would get to know watching television in the 70s including William Schallert (INNERSPACE), Matt Clark (THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES), and Anthony James (HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER). IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT would be Scott Wilson's debut film.  Wilson who plays Harvey Oberst in the film would so impress Poitier that he recommended Wilson to director Richard Brooks for his next film IN COLD BLOOD (also 1967). 

Another contributor to IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT'S success and winning the Academy Award for Best Picture are the artisans who worked on the film. Cinematographer Haskell Wexler (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUKOO'S NEST) was one of the first cameramen to tone down the lighting on actors with dark skin, producing less glare, providing a more realistic, less harsh look. IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT film editor Hal Ashby would graduate to becoming an acclaimed director. Ashby films include HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971), SHAMPOO, COMING  HOME (1978) with Jon Voight and Jane Fonda (with Wexler as cinematographer), and BEING THERE (1979) with Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine. Director Norman Jewison's commitment to more diversity in film included legendary music producer Quincy Jones (THE COLOR PURPLE) as composer of IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT and musician Ray Charles singing the film's theme song In the Heat of the Night.  Both Jones and Charles were black.

Director Jewison had a diverse career delving into different genres like the caper film in THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (1968) with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, the musical with FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (1970) and JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (1973); science-fiction in ROLLERBALL (1975) with James Caan, and the romantic comedy in MOONSTRUCK (1987) starring Cher and Nicholas Cage.  Jewison would return to racial themes amidst a World War II military drama in A SOLDIER'S STORY (1984) with a primarily black cast including Howard E. Rollins, Jr., Adolph Caesar, Robert Townsend, and a young Denzel Washington. The strength of the two protagonists in Jewison's IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT would lead to a hit television of the same name starring Carroll O'Connor (TVs ALL IN THE FAMILY) as Sheriff Gillespie and Howard E. Rollins, Jr (RAGTIME) as Detective Virgil Tibbs. The TV series ran on NBC for an incredible 7 years from 1988-1995. 

Although a seminal film as the United States came to terms with its race issues in the 1967, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT'S good will did not happen overnight.  In fact, the film was made in Sparta, Illinois rather than Mississippi for the safety of Sidney Poitier.  Some of the America public was not ready for a black movie star. When the crew did film a small portion in Tennessee, Poitier received death threats from anonymous sources. IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT is a subtle film. At its core, it's a intriguing murder mystery. Underneath its surface, it's a microcosm of America's struggle with equality and race relations.  Social issues have always been important to the Academy Awards and IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT came out at the right place and right time as America churned toward the watershed year of 1968.