Notorious (1946)

Alfred Hitchcock loved one word titles. ROPE, MARNIE, TOPAZ, VERTIGO, PSYCHO, FRENZY, SPELLBOUND, SUSPICION. When I was researching Hitchcock as a child, browsing through the Encyclopedia Britannia at my school library, these film titles from his filmography seemed mysterious to me. There was another single word title that Hitchcock directed called NOTORIOUS. The name conjured up images of a wanted criminal. But when I first saw Hitchcock's NOTORIOUS (1946) as a teenager on late night TV, I was not able to juxtapose the title with the plot of the film. To me, it was an arbitrary, sensational title to hook a viewer.

NOTORIOUS refers to Ingrid Bergman's character Alicia Huberman who's father is declared a traitor for his role as a German sympathizer in post WWII America. Alicia is notorious for her reputation as a party girl, a woman of loose morals who drinks too much, who throws a party after her father is convicted for treason and sleeps around with other men. The plot is bold for 1946. The original screenplay is written by the great Ben Hecht who also wrote SCARFACE (1932), HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940), and Hitchcock's previous film SPELLBOUND (1945).  Producer David Selznick loaned Hitchcock out to the RKO studio for NOTORIOUS and Hitch flourished without Selznick interfering with him.

NOTORIOUS is also the beginning of a thirteen year window where Hitchcock paired some of the great actors and actresses in cinema together in some of his best films.  Some may argue it began a year earlier with  Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman in SPELLBOUND (1945) but I think the Cary Grant/Ingrid Bergman duo is much sexier and NOTORIOUS a better film.  He would go on to team Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart with his iconic blond heroines Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Doris Day, and Eve Marie Saint.

NOTORIOUS opens inside a Miami courtroom in 1946 as Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) watches her father convicted as a traitor. Alicia's the Paris Hilton of her day and this socialite throws a small party that night to drown her sadness in alcohol and music with a few friends.  One guest stays after everyone has left: the handsome stranger Devlin (Cary Grant). Devlin works for American Intelligence (perhaps OSS the precursor to the CIA). Devlin's boss Paul Prescott (Louis Calhern) wants to use Alicia to infiltrate a group of Germans (i.e. Nazis) hiding out in Rio de Janeiro who Alicia's father associated with. The Germans are up to no good and Prescott wants to find out what. Devlin and Alicia wait for the final orders and begin to fall in love until the assignment comes through. Alicia is to reconnect with an old flame Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), whose house in Rio the German are meeting at.

Devlin arranges for Alicia to accidentally run into Sebastian at a riding school in Rio. Sebastian is instantly smitten by Alicia again and a whirlwind romance begins. Sebastian invites Alicia to his ocean front mansion one night for dinner where she meets Sebastian's suspicious mother Madame Sebastian (Leopoldine Konstantin) and some well dressed Germans including 'Dr. Anderson' (Reinhold Schunzel), Eric Mathis (Ivan Triesault), and poor Emil Hupke (Eberhard Krumschmidt) who pays for making a scene about a certain wine bottle by disappearing later that night, never to be seen again. The next day at the horse races, Alicia reports to Devlin about the dinner guests and that she and Sebastian have consummated their relationship. Despite Sebastian's mother's protest, Sebastian and Alicia get married and Alicia moves into Sebastian's mansion.

As Alicia gets the lay of the house, she discovers that Sebastian has the keys to all the closets and doors. The cellar door in particular is off limits. Devlin suspects whatever the Germans are doing, the secret is hidden in the cellar. Alicia secretly takes the cellar key from Sebastian's key ring. Devlin asks Alicia to convince Sebastian to throw a big dinner party and invite him so he can go down into the cellar and investigate. With Sebastian distracted by guests, Devlin and Alicia sneak down to the wine cellar where they accidentally knock over a wine bottle and discover the mystery hidden inside: uranium ore. It is Dr. Anderson who is experimenting with the rare mineral. Later that evening, Sebastian discovers his wine cellar key is missing. The next morning he investigates the basement and finds glass shards. Sebastian reveals to his mother his worst fear.  Alicia is a spy.

Fearful Sebastian's error in judgment will be uncovered by the hyper suspicious Germans, Sebastian and his mother Madame Sebastian begin to slowly poison Alicia. Alicia becomes almost bed ridden. Even Dr. Anderson becomes concerned about Alicia's health. Devlin requests a transfer out of Rio, unable to watch the woman he loves Alicia with another man, regretting he's sent her to sleep with the enemy. But when Alicia misses several of their clandestine debriefings, Devlin grows concerned. Prescott recalls Alicia not feeling well on her last visit to him. Devlin begins to suspect Alicia's cover had been blown and drives up to Sebastian's mansion at night to see Alicia. He finds Alicia clinging to life. Devlin begins to take Alicia down the grand staircase to his waiting car but Sebastian and the Germans emerge from the dining room, their curiosity aroused by the commotion. Will Devlin and Alicia make it out alive?

Hitchcock is at the top of his game in NOTORIOUS, exploring familiar themes and motifs. Hitchcock introduces us to the mother/son relationship in NOTORIOUS that we've seen in other films, most notably in PSYCHO (1960). Alexander Sebastian is a man-child, a little boy in a tuxedo, playing Nazi games with his German expatriates. When he sees his former girlfriend Alicia, he develops a school boy crush on her all over again, his feelings for her clouding his better judgment. Sebastian gets jealous when he sees Alicia with Devlin, who he believes is a rival. Sebastian even acknowledges he's "behaving like a stupid schoolboy." He uses sex to make Alicia prove to him she's not interested in Devlin.  But when he discovers the woman he's sleeping with is an American agent, he comes running to his Mommy. Madame Sebastian is a good Nazi mother. She wants to see Sebastian climb the ladder of a new Fourth Reich. She knows Sebastian's mistake could cost them both their lives.  But she's devious and ruthless. They will remove Alicia by slowly poisoning her. "We are protected by the enormity of your stupidity," Madame Sebastian tells her son.

The MacGuffin (Hitchcock's term for a plot device that drives the story) returns for NOTORIOUS this time as the uranium hidden in the wine bottles. This is what sends  Devlin and Alicia to Brazil to investigate the Germans. In PSYCHO, the cellar hid the mummified Mrs. Bates. But in NOTORIOUS, the cellar hides a less gruesome mystery, yet still dangerous. Uranium is an element needed for nuclear bombs. Hitchcock was so ahead of his time with the uranium idea that he claimed the FBI  followed him for three months because of it. Once again, Hitchcock's villains are handsome, sophisticated, well-dressed, and urbane. Sebastian may be one of Hitchcock's most sympathetic bad guys. He treats Alicia well, fawns over her almost too much until he realizes he's betrayed. In the finale, as  Devlin helps Alicia escape, raising the suspicions of Mathis and the other Germans, Sebastian helps Devlin and Alicia to his car, begging them to take him with them but Devlin won't have it. The audience (including myself) almost roots for Sebastian to get away. But Devlin's a tough cookie. He leaves Sebastian to face his fate with his Nazi conspirators. If you're a Sebastian fan, one can only hope U.S. Intelligence will barge in soon before he gets killed. Sebastian would probably turn state's evidence against his German friends. We will never know.

When Hitchcock works with great writers like John Michael Hayes (REAR WINDOW), Ernest Lehman (NORTH BY NORTHWEST, FAMILY PLOT) or Thornton Wilder (SHADOW OF A DOUBT), he seems more assured as a director.  Working with writer Ben Hecht, Hitchcock is at the top of his game in NOTORIOUS. Story wise, Hitchcock and Hecht are masterful in laying out the story in pieces, never quite giving away everything all at once. Devlin is introduced in silhouette, his back to the camera at the party, making him mysterious. When Alicia is pulled over for speeding early in the film, Devlin shows the cop his I.D. We never see his identification but from the cop's reaction, we know Devlin is important. Sexual innuendos are prominent as we know Alicia has a reputation. "You can add Sebastian to my list of playmates," Alicia tells Devlin. Hitchcock is known for great set pieces like the crop duster chase in NORTH BY NORTHWEST or the shower murder in PSYCHO. The party scene in NOTORIOUS may be one of Hitchcock's most underrated suspense scenes. Devlin and Alicia need to sneak into the cellar but Alicia needs to keep Sebastian distracted. To make matters worse, the bar is running out of bottles of champagne which could send the bartender down to the cellar. Who would have thought a party running out of champagne would be so nerve wracking?

Camera wise, Hitchcock is innovative and creative, using amazing camerawork to propel the story not just show off. NOTORIOUS has Hitchcock's amazing crane shot at the party scene where the camera starts high above the hallway as Alicia and Sebastian greet arriving guests and cranes down to an extreme close up of  Alicia grasping the cellar key, waiting for Devlin to arrive so she can hand it to him, all in one fluid take. Hitchcock would use a similar crane shot in an earlier film called NUMBER SEVENTEEN (1932). Hitchcock brought over with him some of the Salvador Dali influences from his previous film SPELLBOUND for NOTORIOUS. He tilts the camera cockeyed to make the audience feel Alicia's drunkenness when Devlin checks on her early in the film.  Later, as the Sebastian's poison Alicia, Sebastian and his mother's twin images become sinister from Alicia's point of view, black and white shapes trying to kill her.

What elevates NOTORIOUS are the three lead actors: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains. Grant had primarily done comedies or played romantic comedic roles (BRINGING UP BABY, MY FAVORITE WIFE) prior to working with Hitchcock on their first film together SUSPICION (1941). But NOTORIOUS may be one of Grant's best dramatic performances as American agent Devlin. He's torn between duty to his country and falling in love with woman he's recruited to infiltrate a den of Nazis in Rio. Devlin seems cold and manipulative, even striking a drunk Alicia when she gets out of hand. He's snide to Alicia when she does what she's asked: to sleep with Sebastian to win his loyalty. But Devlin's professionalism hides his true feelings for her. When the intelligence bureaucrat Walter Beardsley (Moroni Olsen), visiting Rio, makes a derogatory comment about Alicia's character, Devlin goes off on Beardsley. "Miss Huberman is first, last, and always not a lady. She may be risking her life, but when it comes to being a lady, she doesn't hold a candle to your wife, sitting in Washington, playing bridge with three other ladies of great honor and virtue." Grant solidifies himself as the quintessential leading man and perhaps the precursor to James Bond.

Ingrid Bergman as Alicia Huberman is a provocative performance, one of many Bergman would give. In CASABLANCA (1943) Bergman's Ilsa had a relationship with Bogart's Rick Blaine while she was still married (later we learn she thought her husband Victor Lazlo was dead. He's not). Bergman also played a barmaid/prostitute in DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE (1941). In NOTORIOUS, she's a woman with a reputation, trying to find her identity, the daughter of a traitor who jumps at the chance to redeem herself by helping the US government even if it means sleeping with a man she doesn't love. Alicia doesn't seem to realize the danger she's in and if it wasn't for Devlin, the country she's trying to help might just let her die. I liked Bergman's performance more in the first half of the film as she and Grant toy with each other's affections, hurting each other with words, deeply in love but following their mission. In the second half of the film, I thought Bergman overplayed the nervousness a little too much. In real life, Bergman would be a bit notorious in her private life when she left her first husband and daughter and fell in love with Italian director Roberto Rossellini in 1949. Bergman would also make SPELLBOUND and UNDER CAPRICORN with Hitchcock but NOTORIOUS is her best film with Hitch. Director Stanley Donen (who would make a couple of Hitchcock like thrillers himself with CHARADE and ARABESQUE) would reunite Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman for the comedy/drama INDISCREET (1958).

Rounding out the superb cast is Claude Rains as Alexander Sebastian who receives about as much screen time as both Grant and Bergman in NOTORIOUS. Rains is perfect as Sebastian, the childish, petulant, and very jealous beau of Alicia. Sebastian is the villain of the film yet he's extremely sympathetic. He's not as good looking as Devlin yet he gets the girl ... temporarily. He's small in stature, like a little boy, which plays wonderfully when he sits at the foot of his mother's bed to tell her he has married an American spy. He behaves like a child when he sees Devlin and Alicia together at the horse track, behaving immaturely afterward. "I'd like to be convinced. Would you maybe care to convince me, Alicia, that Mr. Devlin means nothing to you?"  Rains and Bergman were part of the famous cast of CASABLANCA (1942). Rains proves once again what a fantastic supporting actor he is. I wish he had done more films with Hitchcock.

Two others key supporting actors to acknowledge in NOTORIOUS are Louis Calhern as Devlin's boss Captain Prescott and Leopoldine Konstantine as Alex's mother Madame Sebastian. Interestingly, both play parental roles although only one is an actual parent. Prescott is a father figure to Devlin, sending him out to woo Alicia and reel her in, reminding him that duty calls over feelings. Calhern does a great job with his eyes, no words, recognizing Devlin is in love with Alicia just by glancing at the champagne bottle Devlin leaves in his office after learning Alicia's role in the mission.

According to the Internet Movie Data Base, NOTORIOUS is the only American role the Austrian born Konstantine would play as Alex's domineering mother. She is scary in every scene she's in, her senses on full alert as Alicia weaves her way into her son Alex's life. She doesn't trust Alicia and as a Nazi on the run, who can blame her. She's like a black widow spider, watching her web of Germans as Dr. Andersen experiments with uranium to create something dangerous. But she's the good mother, doting yet reprimanding Alexander like a mother should and when she learns Alicia is a spy, she assists her son in slowly poisoning her daughter-in-law.

NOTORIOUS is the beginning of what I like to call Hitchcock's sophisticated section of filmmaking. Whether it was spies or murderers, his characters dressed to the nines, drank the best wines and champagne, and lived or traveled to exotic locations like Rio, New York, or the French Rivera. NOTORIOUS boasts Hitchcock at his most confident both with his filmmaking and with his actors and story.

Les Miserables (1935)

Miserable is the best way I can describe my experience the one and only time I saw the musical LES MISERABLES (English translation The Wretched) at the Schubert Theater back in 1989. I was living in Los Angeles at the time. My girlfriend (now my wife) and I were going to see the musical on a Saturday night.  I was taking the Assistant Director's test that morning to try to get into the Director's Guild. A friend of mine Lee was also taking the test. I picked him up and we drove down to USC to take the exam. I had a suit and dress shirt to change into later that night and instead of putting it in the trunk, I left it hanging full view in the backseat. When I returned from the test that afternoon, my suit was gone.  Either Lee or I forgot to lock one side of the car. It was too late to return to my apartment so I drove out to the San Fernando Valley with nothing to wear for the play. I ended up borrowing my future mother-in-law's only shirt with lapels that looked semi-masculine. The entire time during LES MISERABLES I moped about my wardrobe that I couldn't enjoy the musical.

What I do remember from that miserable night was that the musical LES MISERABLES was sad and downbeat. Just when you thought the good guy Valjean was going to enjoy life, his nemesis Inspector Javert would show up again, hounding him. The songs were depressing. I was depressed. Some stranger in Los Angeles was wearing my suit. So I was mildly excited when the recent movie version of the Musical LES MISERABLES (2012) came out to see what I missed while in my funk that night at the Schubert Theater.  Even with bigger stars (Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe) and a better understanding of French author Victor Hugo's sprawling story written in 1862, I still found LES MISERABLES the Musical depressing and not very uplifting. Now don't get me wrong. I love a good depressing film (like James Gray's 1994 gangster film LITTLE ODESSA or Robert DeNiro's 2006 CIA film THE GOOD SHEPHERD).  Maybe it was just the Musical LES MISERABLES was throwing me off.

So to give Hugo's story another chance, I decided to go back and watch a straight cinematic adaption of his story this time the 1935 version of LES MISERABLES. Studios were adapting all the classic novels into film in the 1930's. LOST HORIZON, GONE WITH THE WIND, GREAT EXPECTATIONS, ANNA KARENINA, and yes, LES MISERABLES. They may have had to steer clear of any controversial subject matter that was in these novels but I think the studios and film makers did a fantastic job of condensing these complex novels into entertaining fare. I'm glad I gave LES MISERABLES another chance. Directed by Richard Boleslawski and adapted by W.P. Lipscomb, this definitive version tells the literary story straightforward (with no singing), hitting all the dramatic points but with a more hopeful ending.

LES MISERABLES is Victor Hugo's manifesto on injustice, including France's prison system and the treatment of  convicts after serving their sentences. It begins in Faverolles, France in 1800 with Jean Valjean (Frederic March) getting sent to the galleys for ten years for stealing a loaf of bread for his hungry sister and her children. Joining Valjean on the ship is Inspector Rene Javert (Charles Laughton), a zealously obedient servant of the law. Valjean will endure brutality on the galleys, becoming a hard man when he's released ten years later. Unable to land a job or even find a place to sleep, Valjean find life unforgiving for an ex-convict. He finds shelter at the church of Bishop Bienvenu (Sir Cedric Hardwicke). With only 109 francs to his name, Valjean cannot resist stealing the Bishop's silver. The local authorities catch Valjean and bring him back to the church. However, the Bishop lies to the police, telling them he gave Valjean the silver and asks why Valjean didn't take the candlesticks as well. The Bishop makes Valjean promise him one thing. "Life is to give, not to take." This generosity will change Valjean's life and send him in a new direction.

We move forward several years and Valjean has a new identity and life as Monsieur Madeleine, a respected business man running a successful factory, employing many workers. The town loves him so much they make him mayor as well. But Valjean's past returns to haunt him when Javert shows up to his town as the new Inspector Police to the District bent on upholding the letter of the law. When Valjean lifts a cart off an injured man, Javert begins to suspect he's seen this mayor before. Unknown to Valjean, a young worker from his factory Fantine (Florence Eldridge, Mrs. Frederic March in real life) is let go from the factory because she's pregnant. Fantine gives birth to a girl, naming her Cosette. Fantine gives up Cosette to adoption but blames Valjean for getting her fired from her job and losing Cosette. Valjean promises to find Cosette and return her to Fantine.

Valjean travels to the inn Le Brave Sergeant and rescues little Cosette (Marilyn Knowlden) from greedy innkeeper Madame Thenardier (Jane Kerr). But Cosette's reunion with Fantine is short-lived as Fantine becomes ill and dies. With Javert once again in pursuit of prisoner 2906, Valjean and Cosette pack up and head for the outskirts of Paris. Valjean leaves Cosette with the sisters at a convent, making a donation so they may raise and educate her. Several years pass. Valjean works near the convent as a gardener, keeping an eye on the now grown up Cosette (Rochelle Hudson). After Cosette is confirmed, Valjean takes her from the convent and they move to the city. It's 1832. Cosette falls in love with a young student Marius (John Beal) who's part of a group of revolutionaries called the Students Society Law Reform protesting government injustice and inhuman treatment of prisoners. Marius's secretary Eponine (Frances Drake) is also in love with Marius.

Once again, Javert shows up in Paris, this time working with the French government investigating the student uprising. Javert follows Marius and sees him with Cosette. Javert plans to use Cosette as bait to arrest Marius. Valjean recognizes Javert spying on Cosette and makes arrangements for both of them to go to England. Cosette tries to get a letter to Marius with their plans but Eponine intercepts it. The students and soldiers begin fighting in the streets of Paris in what is known as the June Rebellion. Marius and his fellow students are trapped by the police in a blind alley. Valjean promises Cosette he'll rescue Marius. Javert follows him. The students grab Javert and prepare to hang him but Valjean stops them, saving Javert's life. This act of mercy destroys Javert who will jump off a bridge, destroyed by Valjean's act of kindness. Valjean carries a beaten Marius through the sewers of Paris to bring him back to his beloved Cosette.

Jean Valjean and Inspector Rene Javert are one of the great adversarial duos in literature rivaling Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Moriarty. This LES MISERABLES reveals plot points that I missed in the Musical and may not have been presented.  The biggest surprise comes early in the film when we learn Inspector Javert was turned down for a promotion previously because his mother was a tramp and his father a convict who died in prison. Javert was even born in prison. Javert's lip quivers as his superior reads Javert's file aloud.  This back story (which would make an incredible prequel all its own) explains Javert's obsession with Valjean.  Valjean reminds Javert of his father. And, just as Javert climbed out of the gutter to become a policeman, he despises Valjean for turning his pitiful life around as well to become a successful businessman and mayor, loved by the community. At LES MISERABLES finale, Valjean doesn't need to physically shoot Javert as he points a pistol at him. He kills him with kindness, by letting him live. It drives Javert to jump off a bridge to his death.

Eponine is by far my most favorite character in the LES MISERABLE universe. In the Musical (and I assume the novel), she's much more prominent. She's the daughter of the innkeepers the Thenardier's. But in this LES MISERABLES, she's almost a bit player yet I find her fascinating. In this version, she's not related to the Thenardier's at all or the film never shows us that connection. She is Marius's secretary and also in love with him.  But Marius ignores her. To Marius, she's just one of the guys. Eponine is the female version of Valjean. She's jealous of Cosette yet so in love with Marius, she takes up the movie's mantra "to give" by revealing to Marius that Cosette is still in Paris as the fighting grows between students and the soldiers. Eponine even takes a bullet for Marius, so that he can live to love his true love Cosette. She makes as great a sacrifice as Valjean does.

Just like their dynamic characters in the film, actors Frederic March (Valjean) and Charles Laughton (Javert) were at the top of their game in LES MISERABLES. March is the perfect choice as the tormented Valjean having played the equally anguished Dr. Jekyll (and Mr. Hyde) in DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1932). March seemed to thrive in films where his characters underwent a transformation. In LES MISERABLES, he goes from barely recognizable in thick beard and scraggly long hair in the first act to a more refined, well-dressed businessman in the rest of the film. Laughton steals almost every scene in LES MISERABLE. Javert will always be Laughton's role in my opinion with his thick jowls and pursed lips and obsessive adherence to rules. "Right or wrong, the law is the law and it must be obeyed to the letter." As good as Geoffrey Rush and Russell Crowe might be as recent film Javert's, they've got nothing on Laughton.  Laughton would have an amazing run in the 30's playing larger than life characters like Dr. Moreau in THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1932), Henry VIII in THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY THE VIII (1933), Captain Bligh in MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935), and the Dutch painter Rembrandt in REMBRANDT (1936). Laughton would even play another noteworthy character from another Victor Hugo novel as Quasimodo, the deformed bell ringer in THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1939).

Although the rest of the cast in LES MISERABLES are exemplary, the two supporting actors that really stood out for me are Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Bishop Bienvenu and Frances Drake as Eponine, Marius's unrequited love. The Bishop is a droll, mischievous man who enjoys thumbing his nose at both the police and his own servants. Only because of the Bishop's kindness does Valjean get a second chance. Hardwicke plays the Bishop to perfection, giving him both humanity and humor. The dark-haired Frances Drake is far more interesting and beautiful as Eponine than either the characters of Fantine or Cosette.  Eponine seems to be Drake's one juicy dramatic role as she would play the female lead in several horror films of the 30's including THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936) and the minor horror classic MAD LOVE (1935) co-starring Peter Lorre. The one other notable actor to mention is the brief appearance of the young John Carradine as Enjolras, one of Marius's student friends. Carradine would go on to act in over 300 films and television shows. He is the father of actors Keith, David, and Robert Carradine. Although he has one brief scene in LES MISERABLES, he makes it count.

I had never heard of director Richard Boleslawski before watching his LES MISERABLES but he has a great grasp on Hugo's story, moving the story along at a good clip. His staging of the fight between students and the French soldiers is well-staged using 20th Century Fox's backlot as is Valjean's escape with the wounded Marius through the underground sewers of Paris. Director Boleslawski uses imagery to great effect in LES MISERABLES. He shows the two silver candlesticks often, reminding both Valjean and the audience that they represent Valjean's past and his promise to the Bishop to give to society and not take. The candlesticks become good luck for Valjean. Javert is represented by handcuffs, a symbol of justice. As Javert struggles to comprehend Valjean's acts of kindness toward him, one of the most powerful moments in the film is after Valjean has said goodbye to Cosette and Marius, he steps out of the apartment to turn himself in to Javert and lying on the street are Javert's empty handcuffs.

Director Boleslawski had the good fortune of having Gregg Toland (CITIZEN KANE, GRAPES OF WRATH) as his cinematographer on LES MISERABLES. Toland is a master with black and white photography. One reason I may not have known much about Polish born Boleslawski is that he died two years later in 1937 at the age of 47. He hadn't had the chance to direct many films. LES MISERABLES was definitely his most high visible project. Ironically, Toland would also die at an earlier age, only 44 years old in 1948, another talent who's flame went out too early.

Although Broadway Musical versions of novels or films can bring a new audience to an established story and turn a familiar story into something different, liberties are always taken with the original source. I much rather prefer LES MISERABLES the non-musical to LES MISERABLES, the Musical. The story was much clearer to me, the characters motivations made more sense, and I wasn't as saddened by the story because there weren't any depressing songs in this 1935 version. Now that I know the original story better, dare I try to watch the Musical LES MISERABLES one more time? Or should I go see THE LION KING or THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA instead?

Risky Business (1983)

Like the teenage protagonist Joel Goodson  (Tom Cruise) in RISKY BUSINESS (1983), I had high school friends who had good grades and were outstanding members of our high school class who would get a little risky when their parents went away for the week. One friend did doughnuts (or cookies as some have debated me) in our high school parking lot with his parent's Volvo before an Oregon Sheriff put a stop to his expression of freedom.  Another of my buddies took his Dad's Porsche 944 out with another friend for a spin before either of them had their driver's licenses (thankfully they did not put the Porsche into the Willamette River as Joel Goodson does with his father's Porsche in Chicago). And I recall an epic party with lots of teenagers at a barn behind yet another friend's house when his parents were gone.

RISKY BUSINESS came out at the perfect time in my life, right as high school was ending and college was about to begin, similar to Joel Goodson's senior year. I could relate to Joel's sexual frustration (what teenage boy couldn't) but even more so, I related to his fear of taking chances and failure. RISKY BUSINESS was a smart, dark teen comedy that was the polar opposite of raunchy teen comedies like MEATBALLS (1981) or PORKY'S (1982). Set in the same Chicago suburbs as John Hughes' comedies SIXTEEN CANDLES (1984) or THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985), RISKY BUSINESS was a high school world familiar to me. Preppy kids with visions of good schools and making money. Written and directed by first time director Paul Brickman, RISKY BUSINESS would be Brickman's one hit wonder. Brickman shows remarkable confidence in his directorial debut and it's a shame his directing career didn't flourish (don't fret, he's still writing screenplays like Clint Eastwood's 1999 TRUE CRIME).

Joel Goodson's (Tom Cruise) world in RISKY BUSINESS is Glencoe, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Joel is a typical senior in high school, playing poker with his buddies Barry (Bronson Pinchot), Miles (Curtis Armstrong), and Glenn (Raphael Sbarge) and trying to get good grades so he can get into an Ivy League college. Joel's parents (Nicholas Pryor and Janet Carroll) are going out of town for the week leaving the house all to Joel. Miles challenges Joel to take some chances with his parents away but Joel is not a risk taker. He doesn't want to jeopardize his future. Joel's world will turn upside down when Miles prank calls a sex ad, pretending to be Joel and giving out his address.

Miles prank call brings Jackie, a black transvestite (Bruce A. Young) the size of a linebacker to Joel's front door that night. Joel explains it's all a mistake and pays for Jackie's fare back. Before leaving, Jackie gives Joel the phone number for Lana. Lana is "what every white boy on the lake wants," Jackie tells him. The next evening, Joel does call Lana. Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) is a call girl, mysterious and sexy. Joel loses his innocence that night to Lana but that's only the beginning. Joel doesn't have enough money to pay Lana her $300 fee. When he returns from the bank with cash to pay her, Lana is missing and so is Joel's mother's prized glass egg.

So begins Joel's odyssey to reacquire the glass egg and return his life back to normal.  Joel will be chased by Lana's pimp Guido (Joe Pantoliano). Joel will accidentally put his father's Porsche into Lake Michigan. After Joel is suspended from school for threatening the school nurse for giving him a tardy slip and failing two exams, Joel teams up with Lana and her roommate Vicki (Shera Danese) to make some quick cash so he can repair his father's car.

With Barry handling the money, Joel doing the marketing, and Lana supplying the working girls, Joel turns his parent's house into a brothel for one night only, entertaining Joel's high school classmates (and even cousins from Skokie). Among the visitors is Bill Rutherford (Richard Masur), a recruiter from Princeton that Joel's father invited to interview Joel about attending the Ivy League school. The night is a success as Joel raises $8,000 dollars. He's able to get his father's Porsche out of the shop but when he returns home with the car, he discovers Guido has stolen all of his parent's belongings. Joel has only two hours to get all the furniture and glass egg back before his parents return from their vacation.

So why do I love RISKY BUSINESS? First and foremost, it has some of the best lines and dialogue in any coming of age film. These examples may not mean much to you (unless you've seen the film), but I find them clever and funny.

• "Who's the U-boat Commander?" asks the Auto Dealer as water and fish pour of Joel's father's 928 Porsche.
• "I don't think you should mix centuries," says Barry as they try to put Joel's mother's china back on its shelves.
• "I've got a Trig mid-term tomorrow and I'm being chased by Guido the Killer Pimp," groans Miles after Guido chases Joel, Lana, and himself.
• "Did you pack my mace?" Joel's mother asks Joel's father before they depart for their trip.

I crack up when Joel explains to Barry that "boffing" and fucking" are the same thing (who hasn't been confused by the multiple names for fornicating). Brickman's dialogue is witty and smart and mature. He perfectly captures the tenuous bridge from teenager to adult. Joel and his friends want to be adults. They play poker, smoke cigars, and have sex. But they are clumsy in their execution of adult rituals. They lack the knowledge and experience of an adult. RISKY BUSINESS is a mature comedy disguised as a teenage sex romp.

RISKY BUSINESS always reminded me of another influential film for me when I was in high school. Mike Nichols' THE GRADUATE (1967) starring Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock. Both films have young, naive protagonists (high school senior Goodson; college graduate Braddock) who face uncertain futures (will Goodson have good enough grades to go to Princeton?; what will Braddock do now that he's done with college? "Plastics" as one of Braddock's father's friends suggests?). Both will get involved in sexual politics (Goodson with the call girl Lana; Braddock with his father's best friend's wife Mrs. Robinson). Both RISKY BUSINESS and THE GRADUATE would catapult young actors Cruise and Hoffman to stardom. Both films used eclectic musical choices that take the film to a higher level (Tangerine Dream for RISKY; Simon and Garfunkle for GRADUATE). And both films capture feelings I had both in high school, college, and post college. "Can I make it to college?", "will I survive college", and "what do I do after college?" Hoffman and Cruise would even make an Oscar winning film together in RAIN MAN (1988).

At first glance RISKY BUSINESS could be mistaken for one of John Hughes teenage films only it's darker than anything Hughes could have made (although THE BREAKFAST CLUB hints at some dark moments). It's a class clash as the rich kids (Joel, Barry, Miles) from the lake collide with the tough reality from the city (Lana, Guido, Vicki). Lana is not the hooker with a heart of gold.  Lana has had a tough life, hit on by her step father. She's a blessing and a curse to Joel. She teaches Joel more than just sex, about life and free enterprise. But she also steals the egg and she may have double-crossed Joel after their business venture. After all, she owes Guido some money as well. Brickman's cinematographers (Reynaldo Villalobos and Bruce Surtees) shoot the film to match the movie's darker tone. Surtees shot many of Clint Eastwood's movies (DIRTY HARRY, PALE RIDER) and Eastwood favored low lighting too. Joel's suburban house, even his room is bathed in shadows . The suburbs aren't as bright and happy as we think. The city night scenes crackle in neon and blurry lights.

Music can make or break a film. Much of my fondness for RISKY BUSINESS is due to the German group Tangerine Dream's hypnotic electronic score. Yes, Brickman uses some popular music at key moments (Bob Seger,  Phil Collins, Muddy Waters) but he goes a different route with Tangerine Dream, music that's edgier and mournful, acknowledging Joel's transition from teenager to young adult, from high school to college.

Like Hughes early films, RISKY BUSINESS is set in the Chicago area. But director/writer Brickman's young characters don't wear the latest fashion trends like a Hughes character would (although Joel wearing Rayban sunglasses is the one exception). Brickman's teenage characters are preppy not alternative or Goth or punk. Hughes will borrow slightly from RISKY BUSINESS with another Hughes Chicago teenage comedy FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF (1986). But instead of Ferris's parents going away, Ferris just skips school for the day with his two friends Sloane (Mia Sara) and Cameron (Alan Ruck). Cameron will also wreck his father's car echoing Joel's predicament with his father's Porsche. Even HOME ALONE (1990) written by Hughes, uses the RISKY BUSINESS idea of being alone but makes it more juvenile as Kevin McCallister's (Macaulay Culkin) parents accidentally leave him home alone when they go off to Paris.

As many times as I have seen RISKY BUSINESS, I never caught on to the metaphor in Joel Goodson's name until now. Joel is a good son.  He rakes the leaves up in his yard and drives his parents to the airport.  He's a member of the Future Enterprisers club. He gets good grades and dreams of going to Princeton, his father's alma mater. He thinks about sex with the babysitter but hasn't acted upon it. But when Joel's buddy Miles offers his philosophy of "What the Fuck" with Joel's parents gone for a week and the house to himself, the good son goes off course. He's got freedom now. He dances in his underwear around the house. He has sex with a call girl. He loses his mother's glass egg to said call girl. He gets chased by Guido the Killer Pimp. He puts his father's Porsche into Lake Michigan. Joel becomes a pimp for a night, providing sex to all his horny high school classmates. It turns out Miles was just bullshitting Joel when he gave the advice "What the Fuck." Miles didn't think Joel would take him seriously. Joel both benefits and pays the price for believing in "What the Fuck."

RISKY BUSINESS is the one and only time you will see Tom Cruise play the closest thing to a nerd. A good looking straight arrow. I was a huge Tom Cruise fan after RISKY BUSINESS. I loved how he alternated between awkwardness and confidence as Joel, the epitome of a teenager. Cruise was on the brink of super stardom. He played another high school character in the football film ALL THE RIGHT MOVES (1983) then a young hero in Ridley Scott's fantasy LEGEND (1985). I was still on the Cruise band wagon until Cruise's next film, Tony Scott's TOP GUN (1986) which would introduce us to the future prototype character for Cruise off and on going forward: the intense, selfish, cocky hero who undergoes a transformation to good, caring person. I fell off the Cruise bandwagon with TOP GUN. RISKY BUSINESS will always be his defining performance for me.

Writer/Director Brickman casting is impeccable. Besides selecting a relative unknown Cruise to play the lead Joel, he smartly surrounds Cruise with smart, less attractive geeks like Bronson Pinchot as Barry and Curtis Armstrong as Miles. Pinchot and Armstrong steal every scene they're in. Both are so convincing and dead on that they would be typecast for awhile with Armstrong following up RISKY BUSINESS by playing Booger Dawson, a more disgusting nerd in THE REVENGE OF THE NERDS (1984). Pinchot would have a nice run as the Greek geek Balki on the ABC TV show PERFECT STRANGERS.

The wild card in RISKY BUSINESS'S success is Rebecca De Mornay. Like her fellow actors Bronson Pinchot and Curtis Armstrong, RISKY BUSINESS was De Mornay's first film role (besides a walk on in Francis Coppola's ONE FOR THE HEART). Lana is the key to the film. If the audience isn't attracted to Lana like Joel is, the film's core is gone. De Mornay's Lana can be sexy when fulfilling Joel's fantasies but in reality she's hard-edged and guarded, not willing to easily reveal her vulnerability. She's not Hollywood's version of a prostitute with the heart of gold. Her heart has been bruised. De Mornay's cold demeanor would get her cast as icy seductresses in other films like THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE (1992) and THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1993). For film trivia geeks with a quick eye, try to find Megan Mullally as one of the Call Girls in RISKY BUSINESS. Mullally would later co-star in the NBC TV comedy WILL AND GRACE. Cruise and De Mornay would date briefly after RISKY BUSINESS. I always liked that they were a couple off-screen.

RISKY BUSINESS would be a summer hit in 1983 with some iconic scenes that remain in Pop Culture's consciousness today. But for writer/director Paul Brickman, RISKY BUSINESS is his one hit wonder. He's only directed one film since RISKY and that was MEN DON'T LEAVE (1990) with Jessica Lange. I saw it when it came out specifically because Brickman was directing. It's a nice film but nothing spectacular except that Brickman launched the career of another young actor named Chris O'Donnell (SCENT OF A WOMAN, TV's CSI LOS ANGELES). If you listen to Brickman's commentary on the RISKY BUSINESS DVD, he sounds like a perfectionist. Perhaps he's not going to do another film until he has total control of the product, much like he did for RISKY (except for the ending). Or is it that RISKY BUSINESS was the best that he had and he didn't have an encore. Here's hoping Brickman has another film like RISKY BUSINESS in him.  He is a film auteur I'd like to hear from again.

RISKY BUSINESS elevated the teenage comedy genre with its surreal dream sequences, sophisticated sense of humor, and synthesizer music score that was unique for its time. RISKY BUSINESS resonated for me as I was Joel Goodson's age when I first saw RISKY, dealing with the same guilt and anxiety that teenagers struggle with. Although Tom Cruise would become a superstar thanks to RISKY, director Paul Brickman's career didn't follow Cruise's trajectory. My guess is Brickman is a script doctor now, touching and enhancing other writer's scripts before they go into production. Maybe one day Cruise and Brickman will team up to tell Joel Goodson's story today. Where did Joel end up? What happened to Lana? That would be something to see. As Joel says in the final narration, "Time of your life, eh kid?"

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

In 2012, ARGO and LINCOLN proved again that moviegoers love films about real people and historical events, CrazyFilmGuy included.  I want to learn everything about the real life subject after I see a film. When GLADIATOR (2000) came out, I fell in love with all things Roman.   After watching Oliver Stone's JFK (1991), I became obsessed with the conspiracy theories regarding Kennedy's death and read four books on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. My conclusion. Contrary to Oliver Stone's film, Lee Harvey Oswald was the only killer. As much as we love films about real people and real events, we must remember that films sometimes take dramatic license with the truth.  Contrary to what we see in the film ARGO, the truth is the Canadian ambassador played almost as important a role in helping the six Americans escape Iran as the Ben Affleck CIA character.  In LINCOLN, the Connecticut senators did not vote against abolishing slavery as the filmmakers indicated.  They voted with Lincoln to abolish slavery. So let movies about the famous and infamous entertain you but don't take the story as gospel.

So with that said, I went into BONNIE AND CLYDE not knowing much about either of these famous criminals of the Great Depression. Did the real life bank robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker even look like good looking movie stars Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway? I'll save that answer for later but BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) directed by Arthur Penn, presented to audiences Hollywood's version of the infamous armed robbers. Penn and his screenwriters David Newman and Robert Benton (with some assistance from story consultant Robert Towne who later wrote CHINATOWN) don't glamorize their exploits and yet we find ourselves rooting for them. BONNIE AND CLYDE like BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969) two years later gave audiences anti-heroes to root for. Both films fit in well with the anti-establishment mood of the United States in the late 60's.

BONNIE AND CLYDE begins in 1932 as the Great Depression lingers. Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) is a bored high school Texas girl who hates her job as a waitress in a West Dallas cafe. She dreams of being famous, getting out of Texas. She spies a young man eyeing her mother's car, preparing to steal it and confronts him. His name is Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty), an armed robber recently released from prison after two years for good behavior.  Bonnie flirts with the handsome Clyde. He brags about what he does.  Bonnie doubts him so Clyde robs a store to impress her. They flee in a stolen car and so begins the legend of  Bonnie and Clyde.

Bonnie quickly learns armed robbery is not as glamorous as it appears. It's a life of running from the law, living in empty houses and cheap motels. The first bank the two of them try to knock off together has no money. They pick up another member for their gang, a baby-faced gas station attendant named C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard) who becomes their getaway driver. In their next attempt, Bonnie and Clyde do rob a bank but Clyde kills the bank manager as he jumps on their car. The killing bothers Clyde and C.W. but Bonnie seems excited by it. Clyde hooks up with his brother Buck (Gene Hackman) and his annoyingly loud wife Blanche (Estelle Parson), a preacher's daughter. Clyde likes the family feeling but  Bonnie just wants to be alone with Clyde.



The real Bonnie and Clyde

The Barrow Gang begins it's crime spree throughout the Midwest. While hiding out in Joplin, Missouri, the local police ambush them. A fierce firefight ensues but the Barrow Gang escapes, only after killing a few lawmen. A Texas Ranger named Frank Hamer (Denver Pyle) almost apprehends them as they rest near a lake. Instead, the Barrow Gang catch Hamer and humiliate him, posing for photographs with the tied up Ranger. Clyde dreams they'll give up robbing banks when times are better but Bonnie realizes they're not going anywhere, just running.

Bonnie and Clyde are now famous outlaws. The police and locals enjoy the notoriety of their encounters with the gang. But the gang begins to encounter lawmen with more guns and even armored cars. During another gunfight with the police in Iowa, Buck is mortally wounded and Estelle blinded in one eye. Bonnie and Clyde and C.W. drive off into the woods but the police surround them. The three barely escape and both Bonnie and Clyde are wounded. C.W. takes them to his father Ivan Moss's (Dub Taylor) home to hide out and recuperate. While Bonnie and Clyde talk of marriage, Ivan meets with Hamer, cutting a deal with the lawman to spare C.W. by giving up Bonnie and Clyde. As Bonnie and Clyde return to the Moss house from a romantic picnic, they are ambushed along the roadside by Hamer and his men hiding in the brush in a bloody finale.

The filmmakers characterization of Bonnie and Clyde is one of the films many strong points. The film opens with Bonnie applying lipstick, admiring herself in the mirror before throwing herself on her bed, grabbing the headboard like she's a prisoner in her own room. Like many teenage girls, she dreams of glamour and fame but she's bored, stuck in a dead end waitress job. She sees Clyde Barrow as her ticket to become famous. In a way, Clyde is her Prince Charming, rescuing her from her dreary life. After robbing a bank, they go to a movie theater showing GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933.  Bonnie is enthralled with the Busby Berkley dancers as the song We're in the Money plays. Bonnie believes she'll be in the money. But the life of an armed bank robber is anything but glamorous and usually short lived.  Still, Bonnie is enamored with being a famous criminal. Bonnie is also attracted to Clyde sexually, her hormones raging. Clyde appears sexually impotent for the first two thirds of the film. He admits that he's "no loverboy" and Bonnie becomes frustrated when Clyde won't consummate their encounters. Clyde's sexual power is his gun. At one point, Bonnie caresses the barrel as Clyde shows it off. But as Bonnie and Clyde head toward their demise, Clyde overcomes his sexual inadequacy and they make passionate love in a field. Even their death scene is orgasmic as Bonnie and Clyde reach for each other as their bodies shake and twitch in a barrage of bullets.

If BONNIE AND CLYDE had been made today, the third main character besides Bonnie and Clyde would have been a lead police detective or FBI agent on the case. But an interesting choice by director Penn is that the law is shown for the most part on the periphery, always a step behind the Barrow gang. Only when the Barrow gang catches the Texas Ranger Hamer and humiliate him by taking photos with the lawman do we have the first real face of authority. Hamer's rage at getting caught by Bonnie and Clyde will manifest itself when he and his posse ambush Bonnie and Clyde and riddle their bodies with machine gun fire. I had heard about the outrage toward BONNIE AND CLYDE for its violence but it's tame compared to today's films by Scorsese or Tarantino. Critics at the time equated the film's violence with the mood of the United States during Vietnam. But BONNIE AND CLYDE's violence did usher in a change cinematically toward violence and what to filmmakers would begin to show.

BONNIE AND CLYDE was a major turning point in actor Warren Beatty's career. Not long ago I watched an early Beatty film called ALL FALL DOWN (1962) and realized that Beatty began his career as the heir apparent to James Dean. Beatty played restless, tormented young men much like Dean did. But BONNIE AND CLYDE is his breakout role playing a real person, the famous bank robber Clyde Barrow. Beatty would also produce BONNIE AND CLYDE and the film's success would pave Beatty's way to have more control over the type of projects he would go on to make for the rest of his career like SHAMPOO (1975) or REDS (1981).

Clyde Barrow is a a star turning performance by Warren Beatty. Clyde's smooth and slick as he flirts with Bonnie. He's quick with a gun but struggles with intimacy when alone with her. Beatty was already a sex symbol so it's a nice stretch for him as an actor to have some sexual hang-ups as the impotent Clyde. Barrow was the son of poor sharecroppers and he never forgets his roots, relating much more to the common, struggling people than the people in nice clothes or the law.  Clyde seems most happy when he reunites with his older brother Buck. Clyde appreciates family more so than Bonnie. At times, Clyde seems a bit like Robin Hood. He doesn't rob from the rich to give to the poor but having been poor himself, he associates the banks with the affluent. During one heist, Clyde even allows a regular citizen to keep his money as they take bags from the teller.

The real Bonnie Parker, from the photos of her I have seen, was very attractive and Faye Dunaway does her justice as Bonnie both in looks and performance. When we first meet  Bonnie, she's flirty and shy and curious about Clyde and armed robbery. Once she becomes an armed robber, she's almost more dangerous and volatile then Clyde at times. But the life of a criminal begins to wear on her. She begins to loathe Buck and Blanche as they hog time she could have alone with Clyde. She becomes homesick and they risk everything to visit her mother (Mabel Cavitt). Bonnie also recognizes death is inevitable. When the Barrow gang grabs Eugene Grizzard (Gene Wilder) and Velma Davis (Evans Evans) for a joyride, Eugene reveals that he's an undertaker. Bonnie immediately has them both thrown out of the car. She will not have death riding with them. BONNIE AND CLYDE would also propel Dunaway to the next level as an actress. Dunaway would have a remarkable run of films with great leading men: Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, and Paul Newman. And Dunaway as Parker definitely brought back the beret proving fashion is cyclical.

Rounding out the BONNIE AND CLYDE cast is a young Gene Hackman as Clyde's good-natured older brother Buck. It's fun to see Beatty and Hackman together in their early careers before they became bona fide stars. Baby-faced actor Michael J. Pollard plays C.W. Moss, the gas station mechanic who joins Bonnie and Clyde's gang. I remember Pollard from an old episode of TV's STAR TREK as a scary youth named Jahn. Gene Wilder (WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY) makes his first film appearance in BONNIE AND CLYDE as undertaker Eugene Grizzard and steals the few scenes he's in. Estelle Parsons as whiny Blanche won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1967. Blanche's screeching is annoying at first but Blanche is a sad, pivotal character and Parsons bring pathos to the role. Dub Taylor as C.W.'s abusive father Ivan Moss is a nice turn by Taylor who usually played more comedic roles in westerns like SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GUNFIGHTER (1971) and was a favorite role player in Sam Peckinpah films. In BONNIE AND CLYDE, Ivan will turn rat and give up Bonnie and Clyde to the authorities.  Beatty, Dunaway, Hackman, Pollard, and Parsons would all be nominated for their performances by the Academy, an incredible accomplishment.  Only Parsons would take home an Oscar.

According to the Internet Movie  Data Base's trivia about BONNIE AND CLYDE, director Arthur Penn was very influenced by the French New Wave filmmakers of the 60's.  That would explain Penn's earlier effort with Beatty called MICKEY ONE (1965), a very fractured and disjointed film that would have made New Wave filmmaker Jean Luc Godard happy. I have no idea what MICKEY ONE was about but Penn and Beatty put it all together with BONNIE AND CLYDE. Penn does display some choppy edits and tone early in the film but then the film finds its feet. Because Bonnie and Clyde are bank robbers and constantly on the run, Penn gets creative and stages many of the scenes inside their getaway car, motels, and empty fields. The gun battles are ferocious and bloody, based on actual gun battles between the Barrow gang and local police. And Penn uses the Texas locations nicely shooting in small towns frozen in time from the 1930's.

So how does the film BONNIE AND CLYDE compare to the real events and people? Writers Newman and Benton nicely mix historical truth with some dramatic license. In real life, Bonnie was actually already married before she took off with Clyde and even went to jail briefly at the start of her criminal career. The real Bonnie was also seriously injured in a car accident with Clyde that injured her right leg and never healed toward the last year of her life. She either had to hop around on crutches or be carried by Clyde. The character of C.W. Moss is actually a composite of three different male accomplices who were part of Bonnie and Clyde's crime wave from 1932 to 1934. The real Bonnie and Clyde (although more likely Clyde and his male counterparts) killed 14 people. In the film, Clyde doesn't appear quite as blood thirsty as he may have been in real life.

The reality is that the Great Depression drove many folks like Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, John Dillinger, and Pretty Boy Floyd among others to turn to a life of crime to deal with the hardship people all across America but particularly in the Midwest were facing. I think Director Penn and writers Newman and Benton do an admirable job of showing the key factual events in the crime spree of Bonnie and Clyde while embellishing on certain points and characters to tell the story in a dramatic, cinematic way. BONNIE AND CLYDE was also the beginning of the bridge from studio driven films to more iconoclastic, director driven films that would begin to emerge in the late 60's and early 70's.

BONNIE AND CLYDE humanizes the legend of the real Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, providing insight into what these two young lovers might have been like and what drove them to begin a life of crime.  There have been other boy/girl criminals on the run movies like BADLANDS (1973), TRUE ROMANCE (1993), and NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994) but BONNIE AND CLYDE is the film that made dating a bank robber acceptable. At least in the movies. It's probably not recommended in real life.

Guys and Dolls (1955)

MGM Studios was king of the musicals from the 40's thru the 60's. Nobody did them better. CrazyFilmGuy has many musicals on his list that he still needs to see but I was finally able to catch GUYS AND DOLLS (1955) recently starring the unlikely pairing of Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. The hottest young actor of the 1950's with the hottest crooner of the 1950's. Ironically, Brando and Sinatra don't have that many scenes together but it is inspired casting by writer/director Joseph Mankiewicz who had worked with Brando two years earlier on JULIUS CAESAR (1953).

Although doll is probably considered a sexist term in today's vernacular, I always liked the way it was  used in the 40's and 50's. A girl was something special if her man called her a doll. She wasn't inanimate or a play thing. She was his special girl.   GUYS AND DOLLS is based on a 1950 play that was adapted from a book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows based on a couple of  Damon Runyon stories. Runyon wrote about colorful shady characters like gangsters, gamblers, pickpockets, and con men, all present in GUYS AND DOLLS.

Set in a bright, colorful, stylized New York, gambler Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra) needs a thousand bucks to set up a floating craps game for a group of the best gamblers in town but he's squeezed by all sides. Police Lieutenant Brannigan (Robert Keith) wants to arrest him and his cronies including Nicely-Nicely Johnson (Stubby Kaye) and Benny Southstreet (Johnny Silver). A missionary Susan Brown (Jean Simmons) with the Save A Soul Mission and her band roam the streets preaching against the sins of gambling and drinking. And Nathan's longtime girlfriend, nightclub singer Miss Adelaide (Vivian Blaine) is pressuring Nathan to marry her after fourteen years of engagement.

Nathan sees a chance to win a thousand dollars when he runs into the legendary gambler Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) who's also in town for Nathan's big craps game. Nathan bets Sky that  Sky can't convince the straight-laced Sarah to fly to Havana with Sky for a night. Sky accepts the wager and immediately visits Sarah at the mission, seeking help as a sinner, to give up gambling.

As the gamblers wait for Nathan to reveal the location of the craps game, Brannigan shows up ready to arrest everyone. Benny interrupts and lies to Brannigan, telling him that the men are all here for Nathan's wedding party. This is news to Nathan but Adelaide is ecstatic until she realizes Nathan is more interested in organizing the floating craps game than marrying her. Meanwhile, Sky and Sarah fly to Havana.  Sarah loosens up, drinking and dancing with Sky and even fighting with some of the locals when she gets jealous of Sky dancing with another Cuban woman.

When Sky and Sarah return to New  York the next morning, they discover that Nathan borrowed the empty mission to hold one of his craps games before Brannigan chased them away. General Cartwright (Kathryn Givney), the head of the national chapter of the Save a Soul Mission, also arrives in town with plans to close the mission if Sarah can't attract more sinners. Sky confides to Sarah he took her to Havana to win a bet. He promises to deliver two dozen sinners to her next meeting. Sky finds Nathan and the rest of the boys shooting craps down in the sewers.  Nathan loses all the money he's made to Big Jule (B.S. Pully) . Sky rolls the dice (and a thousand dollars to each man) against their souls. If  he wins, they have to attend Sarah's prayer meeting. I'll leave it to you as to how it turns out but GUYS AND DOLLS ends with a double marriage if that's any consolation.

The revelation of GUYS AND DOLLS is watching a young Marlon Brando dancing and singing. After powerhouse dramatic roles in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951) and ON THE WATERFRONT (1954) Brando apparently decided to go lighter in his next roles with GUYS AND DOLLS and a comedy THE TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON (1956). We're all accustomed to Brando's dramatic performances as Stanley Kowalski or Don Coreleone. But Brando singing and dancing is deliciously unexpected. Brando looks comfortable singing and he's decent. He's also light on his feet in a Havana dance number. 

Frank Sinatra is a bit understated as Nathan Detroit but then Nathan is a smooth, under control operator. Sinatra doesn't try to out act Brando but he's very confident in his role and seems born to play a Damon Runyon character. Ironically, Sinatra wanted the Sky Masterson part and was unhappy the role went to Brando. But Brando is better suited and more sexy as Masterson and Sinatra is excellent in the more comedic role as Detroit. Sinatra's confidence as an actor after his acclaimed performance in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953) shows in this film and he never flinches in his scenes with Brando.

Surprisingly, Brando sings the film's signature song Luck Be A Lady although Sinatra later made Luck one of his better known songs. Most of Sinatra's singing is with other performers, just part of the ensemble. One of the joys of GUYS AND DOLLS is the dialogue. Writer/director Mankiewicz captures perfectly the Runyonese language used by all the characters, spoken in present tense and without any contractions. Runyonese is to Brooklyn what Shakespeare was to Stratford-upon-Avon. Brando, Sinatra, and especially Sheldon Leonard as Harry the Horse speak Runyon's vernacular wonderfully.

The rest of the cast in GUYS AND DOLLS are fantastic. Both Stubby Kaye as Nicely-Nicely Johnson and Vivian Blaine as Miss Adelaide reprise their roles from the 1950 play and each have a couple of nice musical solos. Jean Simmons as Sergeant Sarah Brown is surprisingly funny as the prudish missionary. Simmons and Brando have a nice chemistry together and Sarah is a perfect comic foil to the slick Sky Masterson. Although it's obvious GUYS AND DOLLS is shot on a studio backlot, director Mankiewicz and his production designer Oliver Smith create a Broadway like city set that looks dirty and more realistic than most backlot city sets I've seen in movies, right down to puddles of water and garbage in the streets. Warren Beatty's DICK TRACY (1990) owes its production and costume design to GUY AND DOLLS style.

GUYS AND DOLLS is a play adapted into a film and it still feels like a play. The story is broken down into two easy to follow storylines following the relationships between Nathan Detroit and Miss Adelaide & Sky Masterson and Sarah Brown with the floating crap game intertwined amongst both couples. GUYS AND DOLLS takes its time with both storylines. Brando and Sinatra disappear for good portions of the film when their plot line isn't center stage.

One of the great things about film are the interesting connections that can made with actors, films, and characters. In GUYS AND DOLLS, Brando plays for the first time a type of gangster (a gambler) that he will later be immortalized as when he played Don Vito Corleone, a Mafia don in THE GODFATHER (1972). As Sky Masterson, it's deja vu when he makes the other craps players an offer they can't refuse to win a thousand dollars or attend a prayer meeting. It's prophetic when Sky tells his fellow craps players he would "consider it a great personal favor" if they attended the prayer meeting. Don Corleone will make similar, deadlier offers and ask for favors to get his way. THE GODFATHER even has a subplot where a Frank Sinatra-like character named Johnny Fontane begs Corleone to help him a get a plum role in an upcoming war film. Corleone makes the film producer Woltz an offer which Woltz refuses. The producer ends up with his prized horse's head in his bed and Fontane gets the part. In reality, Sinatra jump started his film career with the WWII drama FROM HERE TO ETERNITY but I don't believe any thoroughbred race horses were killed so that Old Blue Eyes got the part.

GUYS AND DOLLS runs a bit too long at 150 minutes.  MGM shamelessly promotes its Goldwyn Girls (think West Coast Rockettes) in a couple of dance numbers.  A few songs could have been cut including the awful Kitty Meow Song with Miss Adelaide and yes, the Goldwyn Girls. But overall, GUYS AND DOLLS is a colorful, funny musical with great performances, an endearing love story (or two), and the one and only time a film fan will get to see Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra acting and singing in the same film.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947 and 1994)

Like most children, I was in 8th grade when I finally learned there was no Santa Claus (what do you mean 8th grade is a bit late to find out?). If my parents hadn't spilled the beans, I may have made it to high school believing in Jolly Saint Nick. I was devastated by the news. We tend to not want children to learn Santa Claus isn't real early in their formative years and yet what is wrong whether you are 8 or 48 with believing in a benevolent chubby man who brings good cheer around the world.

Which brings CrazyFilmGuy to MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET. Maybe CrazyFilmGuy is a tad late but what better holiday film about the spirit of Christmas then the original MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947) and the age old question of whether Santa Claus is real or not. Next to IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET might be the second most famous Christmas film ever made and I had never seen it before. As I prepared to watch the 1947 version a few weeks ago, one of my favorite movie channels HDNET had the 1994 remake of MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET on.  I had forgotten that someone even had the courage to remake the original.  But after avoiding AMC's colorized version of the black and white MIRACLE over the holidays, I decided to watch the remake as well, even watching it before I viewed the original.  The remake very closely follows the original and has some inspired casting but it still won't make anyone forget the first one.

Although Maureen O'Hara and John Payne get top billing in the 1947 MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, the real star of the film is Edmund Gwenn. Gwenn steals the film and makes us believe in Santa Claus with his winning performance. Written and directed by George Seaton based on a story by Valentine Davies, MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET begins with a long tracking shot as we follow a man named Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn), wearing a black coat and hat, walking amongst the tall skyscrapers of New York City. Kris stops to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. He notices the Macy's Santa (Percy Helton) is drunk and scolds the impersonator. He reports it to Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara), a Macy's employee in charge of parade talent. Noticing Kris's white beard and twinkling eyes, Doris asks if he would mind taking the other Santa's place. Kris obliges and becomes such a huge hit that she offers Kris a job as the Macy's Santa Claus in their New York department store.

Kris is struggling with the commercialism of Christmas, feeling society has taken the Christmas spirit for granted. "Seems we're all so busy trying to beat the other fellow in making things go faster and look shinier and cost less that Christmas and I are sort of getting lost in the shuffle, " Kris laments. When the store manager Julian Shellhammer (Philip Tonge) asks Kris to steer undecided kids toward Macy's overstocked, expensive toys, Kris instead tells kids and parents where the best priced toys are even if it means going to Macy's rival Gimbel's. This public service makes Kris and Macy's even more popular. Kris also tries to bring back the spirit of Christmas to Doris and her young daughter Susan (Natalie Wood, in just her third film credit). Susan doesn't believe in Santa Claus, even though their handsome neighbor, attorney Fred Gailey (John Payne) tries to change Susan's mind by taking her to meet Kris. Although impressed Kris can speak multiple languages and has a real beard, Susan will only believe in Santa if he gets her a house in the country where she wants to live with her mother.

But Kris gets on the wrong side of the store psychiatrist Granville Sawyer (Porter Hall) who wants Kris committed, believing Kris is delusional because he says he's from the North Pole and his next of kin include Prancer and Vixen. After Sawyer dispenses some poor advice to Alfred (Alvin Greenman), a young man Kris befriended who also enjoys dressing up as Santa at the local YMCA, Kris scolds Sawyer and raps him on the head with an umbrella. Sawyer with a reluctant Shellhammer has Kris sent to Bellevue Hospital for observation. Kris is resigned to staying there, even deliberately failing a test. Gailey comes to visit Kris and decides to take up Kris's case. Gailey's a believer. "Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to," Gailey says.

The case falls into the lap of Judge Henry X. Harper (Gene Lockhart), who happens to be up for reelection soon. District Attorney Thomas Mara (Jerome Cowan) tells Harper it should be an open and shut case until Gailey walks in, representing Kris Kringle. The case goes to court, "Santa  Claus on trial for lunacy!" exclaims one newspaper's headline. Gailey defends Kris and to a greater extent, the spirit of Christmas.  "It's not just Kris that's on trial, it's everything he stands for. It's kindness and joy and love and all the other intangibles." In the end, Harper has to make a decision that all children in New York and around the world await.  Is there or is there not a Santa Claus? Harper will make the right decision.

Because MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET is in black and white, the film takes on a documentary-like feel that makes the story more realistic. Director Seaton shoots many scenes on the sidewalks of New York, inside bustling Macy's Department Store, and even amongst the hundreds of mail sorters at the U.S. Post Office giving the film an organic authenticity. Seaton treats Santa Claus as a real human being.  There is no magic, no flying reindeer, no special effects, just Kris Kringle with his white beard, twinkling eyes, and red suit.

Director Seaton was a screenwriter before adding directing to his resume. Seaton wrote the Marx Brothers comedy A DAY AT THE RACES (1937) and MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET has many memorable pieces of dialogue and jokes. But the film is very well structured and takes its topic seriously, never resulting to slapstick. The film's conclusion where Gailey defends Kris from being institutionalized and comes up with how to save the case against Kris is clever. After watching many Maureen O'Hara films where she's always the tough, strong woman, her performance in MIRACLE as the disbelieving Doris Walker is refreshing. O'Hara can play vulnerable just as well. The rest of the cast is fine with Gwenn playing the role of a lifetime as Kris Kringle. John Payne as Gailey isn't the typical strong leading man but he's at ease with comedy and his friendship with Kris even letting him live with him is touching.  Look for William Frawley (I LOVE LUCY'S neighbor Fred Mertz) at the end of the film as Judge Harper's campaign strategist Charlie Halloran.

I had entirely forgotten that director Les Mayfield and Producer John Hughes (yes, the John Hughes of THE BREAKFAST CLUB and FERRIE BUELLER'S DAY OFF fame) had dared to remake MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET in 1994. I barely remember any reviews but my guess is Hughes (who gets a screenwriting credit with George Seaton) was probably attracted to the young Susan Walker character. Cast in that role was a spunky newcomer named Mara Wilson who previously had been in MRS. DOUBTFIRE (1994). Wilson is no Macauley Culkin in HOME ALONE (another Hughes penned film) but Hughes writes some humorous lines for her that sound like they're coming from a young Ferris Bueller. Although little Natalie Wood was a cuter version of Susan in the original, Mara Wilson's big eyes and interesting voice coupled with Hughes' dialogue make her stand out in this updated film.

The 1994 version of MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET doesn't veer too far away from the original. Once again, Kris Kringle (Richard Attenborough), semi-retired and living in Manhattan, is recruited by Dorey Walker (Elizabeth Perkins) to replace a drunk Santa (Mike Bacarella) at the last moment at the Cole's Thanksgiving Parade. Dorey is a single working mother who lives with her daughter Susan Walker (Mara Wilson) in a nice but small New York apartment. Living next door and seemingly always available to watch Susan is handsome and single lawyer Bryan Bedford (Dylan McDermott). Kris is a huge hit as Santa Claus at the parade that Dorey asks him to be the Cole's Santa at their department store. Kris accepts.

The subplot in the newer version has Cole's rival store Shoppers Express looking to takeover the struggling Cole's. Victor Landbergh (Joss Ackland), Shopper's CEO sends his two top executives Jack Duff (James Remar) and Alberta Leonard (Jane Leeves) to close the deal. When Kris comes up with the idea of Cole's helping shoppers find toys even at their competitors, Duff and Leonard try to woo Kris away, first offering him more money to be Santa at Shoppers Express. When Kris turns down their offer, they set Kris up, causing him to strike the drunk Santa who's job Kris took.  Kris is locked up, considered a threat to harm others.

Naturally, Bedford comes to Kris's rescue.  He believes in Kris and knows Dorey and Susan were slowly coming around to the old man as well. Bedford represents Kris in court, the trial presided by  Judge Henry Harper (Robert Prosky) with D.A. Ed Collins (J.T. Walsh) reluctantly prosecuting the man who says he's Santa Claus. This MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET takes a slightly less compelling approach to proving Kris isn't Santa Claus but don't worry kids. Santa does not get locked up in Sing Sing.

The casting of this MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET is very clever and in some instances, the new actors slightly resemble the original ones.  Elizabeth Perkins as Dorey seems to channel the aura of Maureen O'Hara and their facial structure even struck me as similar (although Perkins doesn't have O'Hara's red hair). Dylan McDermott as the lawyer Bedford (his last name a wink to Bedford Falls, the town Jimmy Stewart lived in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE) is tall and lanky like John Payne and again, their long faces and dark hair are similar.  Richard Attenborough seems born to have played Kris Kringle with his gentle laugh. Both Attenborough and the original Gwenn are English and it seems right that Santa should have that dignified accent.

The best casting is saved for the villains and director Mayfield chooses wisely with a Rogues Gallery of heavies including Joss Acklund (LETHAL WEAPON 2), J.T. Walsh (THE GRIFTERS) , and James Remar (48 HOURS). They are the perfect bad guys to try to corrupt or put Santa behind bars. Even Robert Prosky as Judge Harper, given the tough task of ruling if Santa Claus exists or not has played baddies before like in THE NATURAL (1984) so we're not quite sure of his intentions although Prosky plays him as a gruff but ultimately kind-hearted judge.

The new MIRACLE doesn't play it too sentimental which is refreshing. Hughes and Mayfield treat the source material with respect. One small pet peeve is how cinematographer Julio Macat photographs the actors with a backlight, giving everyone's head a Christmas glow. He's going for a romanticized effect but I found it irritating. Interestingly, the real Macy's refused to allow their name to be used for the remake so the name Cole's was chosen as it's replacement. I don't think I blame Macy's as the original MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET is so interconnected with them.

When you get the opportunity to watch MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, watch the original 1947 one and make sure you're watching it in black and white. Imagine that Santa's suit is red. For those who don't like black and white films (like my teenage children), the 1994 MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET will give you color and a decent remake of a classic holiday film.  In either case, the answer is yes Virginia and New York and Holland and London and Oregon and all around the world, there is a Santa Claus. Don't ever stop believing it.