Foreword: In the past I have used this blog to record memories of my favorite things over these many years of life, including soda pop (Aug. 14, 2014), candy and gum (June 6, 2015), comic books (Aug. 29, 2015), hotels (March 26, 2016), eateries (Jan. 13, 2017), and radio programs (Nov. 11, 2017). It occurs to me that a list of favorite movies is in order in a similar march down memory lane. I have chosen to concentrate on just five, based partially on the criteria that I have seen them multiple times and would do so again. I have added a “second tier” with short comments.
Casablanca (1942): Let me join the millions of fans of this movie who consider it the best ever made. The story, the acting, and particularly the memorable lines keep running through my mind. In 1942 when it first was released, I was only seven years old and it was much too “adult” to be taken to see it. In ensuing years, however, I have viewed it at least a dozen times and see new things to like each time. For instance the symbolism of Rick hiding the “letters of transit” (truly mystery documents) in the piano.
The scene I can watch over and over is the final one when Rick (Humphrey Bogart) shoots the Nazi major just as Moroccan Police Chief Renault (Claude Raines) arrives on the scene knowing the killer but phoning his headquarters to “round up the usual suspects.” Up to that time Renault’s sympathies have been ambiguous but he signals his anti-German feeling in one brief shot where he picks up a bottle labeled “Vichy water,” Vichy being the name of the Nazi puppet government established in Southern France. Without a word he disdainfully drops the bottle into a waste basket, letting us know he is one of the good guys.
The Crosby-Hope “Road” Movies: Not just one movie but seven made between 1940 and 1962. One could argue that since each proceeded on the same formula, expected by the audience, they meld into one. These make the list as a holdover from my childhood when these films were considered family fare. Where ever the road was going, from Singapore or Morocco or the Yukon, Bing Crosby was the wise guy, who sang a song to two, and always seemed to get the girl. Bob Hope was the ignorant foil for his buddy, always in trouble. The pair were teamed with Dorothy Lamour (born Mary Leta Slaton) who sang in each movie and whose acting skills were not her best asset.
These motion pictures opened up the silver screen to new techniques. For example, beginning with “Road to Singapore” the films also included in-joke references to other Hollywood actors and jabs at Paramount Pictures, the studio that released the films. There are also frequent instances in which Bob Hope breaks the so-called “fourth wall” to address the audience directly, such as in “Road to Bali,” in which he says, "[Crosby]'s gonna sing, folks. Now's the time to go out and get the popcorn.” They paved the way for actor/directors like Woody Allen in “Annie Hall.” One of my favorite bits was a paddy-cake routine between the two when they were about to escape capture by slugging their assailants.
High Society (1956). With a lifelong “soft spot” for movie musicals, this one takes top spot in the many times I have watched it. There are a number of treasured scenes from the opening number with “Satchmo” Armstrong singing on a bus with his band, to Grace Kelly’s greeting of two unwanted journalists, and the iconic moments on the sailing yacht as Bing Crosby and Kelly sing “True Love.”
My favorite scene occurs, however, in the library of Kelly’s palatial home.
There, having escaped a boring society party, Frank Sinatra, a reporter, and Crosby, a wealthy jazz enthusiast, find each other in escape. They sing a duet called “Did You Ever?” that ends each verse with “what a swell party this is.”
The interplay of these two major singing stars might have been difficult to pull off but these two do it seamlessly. There is even a bow to the “out of box” moments of the Road pictures when Crosby remarks on Sinatra’s “newer” way of crooning. When the the men finally emerge arm in arm from the library to the party it is a moment of sheer triumph over boredom.
Young Frankenstein (1974): Of all the Mel Brooks-made movies, his best to my mind is this riff on the old Mary Shelley story, shot in black-and-white as were all the old movies based around the mad doctor and his monster. Brooks “deconstructs” the original story and rebuilds it around a doctor who is an American descendant of the original Frankenstein. Gene Wilder pays the lead role with a comedic intensity that displays true genius. The surrounding cast is superb and Brook’s writing and directing mean non-stop laughter.
My favorite scene is the interplay of Wilder as young Frankenstein and Cloris Leachman who is eerily brilliant as “Frau Blucher,” the keeper of Frankenstein’s castle. We are introduced to her before she is seen by the frantic neighing and stomping of horses each time her name is mentioned. Frau Blucher gradually tempts the skeptical Wilder into the dark secrets of his ancestor. My favorite scene between them is Leachman playing a violin and leading Young F. to Dr. Frankenstein’s attic laboratory while intoning: “He vas my boyfriend.”
Tootsie (1982): Of a spate of comedies in which men play the part of women (“Some Like It Hot,” “Mrs. Doubtfire) my favorite is “Tootsie.” It is the story of a down and out actor who succeeds in getting a starring role in a daytime serial dressed as a woman. The part is played by Dustin Hoffman, one of the master actors of the last fifty years. The supporting cast is excellent. I fell in love with Jessica Lange at first sight. Teri Garr stars in this movie as she did in “Young Frankenstein.”
My favorite moment in this picture is the denouement when Tootsie/Hoffman descends a staircase as the live screened show is rolling to disclose that he is not “Emily” but Edward, Emily's twin brother who took her place to avenge her.
Watching the man who became a woman become a man again before a startled cast and assumed viewing public is delicious. Hoffman does his striptease with infinite skill, worth watching again and again.
As part of a “second tier,” I will mention three movies briefly. “Beat the Devil” (1953)is a spoof of spy films directed by John Huston with an all-star cast that includes Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, and Peter Lorre (also in Casablanca). Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” (1959) is memorable to me not for the iconic scenes of Cary Grant chased by an airplane or scrambling over Mt. Rushmore, but for the stunning beauty of Eva Marie Saint in a scene where he meets her in a dining car. (She is living, 97 years old.) Last, the Coen Brothers “O Brother Where Art Thou?”(2001), a film chronicling the misadventures of George Clooney and two other convicts on the lam amid an avalanche of hilllbilly music.
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