Reviews

They say that behind every great man there is a woman supporting him. Well, "Woman of the Year" demonstrates that behind every great woman there is a man sabotaging her.

Spencer Tracy plays a husband who can't handle being married to a great person. He's a sports columnist and she is an international journalist and humanitarian, yet the script manages to equate in importance his coverage of ballgames with her coverage of World War II. Kate's work is trivialized not because it is trivial work, but because it is performed by a woman, who should instead be attending to the selfish needs of her petulant husband.

Spencer Tracy's character never shows one ounce of interest in or appreciation for his wife's work. He shows no sympathy even with her concern for a Slavic statesman, and dear friend, trying to escape from the Nazis. In fact, his disdain for her demanding work is the only constant in the movie. Poor Kate shows more openness to his work, actually attends a baseball game with him and ends up really getting into the spirit of a silly ball game, while he can't ever get into the spirit of what she is trying to accomplish for the free world in her work. Not once does he compliment her on her commitment, on her accomplishments, on the important impact of what she does. He makes me want to steal a line from "Gone With the Wind" and shout, "Don't you know there's a WAR on, Spencer?" Kate is trying to keep up with the frenzied pace of the Nazi overrun of Europe and can't miss a beat, while Spencer is watching a ballgame and eating peanuts. Yet somehow we are supposed to feel sympathy for him and not for Kate, who is burdened with dragging this unappreciative lout along with her.

Picture Walter Cronkite with a whiny wife who is a fashion columnist and who resents his commitment to his internationally important work. How far would he have gotten with a spouse who undermined him the way Spencer did to Kate in this movie? Picture Walter Cronkite's petulant, immature wife boycotting his "Freedom of the Press" Award the way Spencer boycotted Kate's award. This "loving" husband negates her worth and value as an international humanitarian. And instead of dumping him after this selfish, childish demonstration of his lack of support for her, Kate BEGS him to take HER back, as if SHE were in the wrong! Only in the dreams of a male script-writer would a woman like that ever beg a man like that to take her back.

Okay, Walter Cronkite! Beg that silly fashion columnist to take you back! Vow to quit your job, to spend your life marinating in your spouse's silly, selfish demands! Efface yourself in every possible way, even to demonstrating that you are such an idiot that you can't, as Robert Osborn said, even "make coffee or pour orange juice."

And in the end, we are supposed to pat Spencer's character on the back for condescending to take back a begging, groveling, sniveling Kate. This was 1940s Hollywood's idea of a compromise. For women, there has always been a fine line between compromise and self-betrayal. "Woman of the Year" is an exercise in female self-betrayal, and in male contempt for female accomplishments.

Well, what can we expect from the man who gave us the movie MASH? Ring Lardner Jr. got ramped up humiliating powerful women on screen at an early age – he was 27 when he wrote Woman of the Year. By the time he wrote MASH, he was a no-holds-barred woman hater who conceived of vicious fantasies for humiliating powerful women and used the media to project his fantasies on America. And here is where it all started, folks.

Carlos Mencia continually, violently, hatefully screaming "B**ch!" at women is like screaming "N**ger!" at black people, except it's worse. Remember, the B word, unlike the N word, is the only pejorative term that is still associated on a daily basis with violence. "B**ch!" is the last thing women hear before they are raped, beaten, or murdered. This guy is perpetuating violence by hatefully using the language of violence. Sounds like he may be a gay guy trying to cover by woman-bashing, so that he will sound like a hetero. And how about all the Nazi white guys in his audience giving the fascist salutes while their stupid little bimbo white women whimper tee hee hee at their side, clearly terrified to protest this tidal wave of woman-hating. Tee hee hee. Bet Mencia doesn't believe or support free speech for THEM! Come on, Carlos – do you want women to have the free speech to b**ch-slap you as loudly and violently and big-mouthed as you do, or do you think "free speech" is only for men to crap on women???

I just saw this film and now realize that Sly Stallone must have watched it about a hundred times before staging the fight scenes in Rocky – he even recreated the subtle touch when Toro's coach cuts his eyelid in the fight to release the built-up blood (except in this film, you only see him go for the eye with a scalpel but don't see him actually cut it as you do in Rocky). The final fight at the end of this movie is THE most gruesome fight ever filmed. Stallone tried to capture this in Rocky, but it has nowhere NEAR the realism of the fight in The Harder They Fall. This is partly because it is shot in black and white, which for some reason makes everything seem more gruesome than color; partly because of the foggy, staggering way it is shot, as if you are seeing the punches through the groggy boxer's eyes; and partly because the actor who played Toro was not a star like Stallone or DeNiro in Raging Bull – they could make him look like a true wreck, a distorted, disfigured wreck – without fear of diminishing his "star" quality handsomeness.

My favorite line in this movie is when Bogart angrily asks Steiger how he'd like to have his jaw broken like Toro's. Steiger's henchmen immediately start to converge on Bogart, who says, "He didn't have 5 guys in the ring with him." It's a great line that brings home how the powerful are protected from the very pain they inflict on others.

The movie's title, from the old saying, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall," is also very ironic, because the "big" guys – Steiger and the corrupt fight backers – actually never "fall" – it is only the "little" guys, like Toro, who fall the hardest.

By the way, it was really spooky seeing Max Baer himself re-create his historic fight with Primo Carnera in this film, which is based on Max Baer's historic fight with Primo Carnera! You can see a film of this 1934 fight online, in which Baer knocks Carnera down 11 times in 11 rounds. By round 2, Baer was actually chasing Carnera around the ring, and at least 3 times he knocked him down so hard that he actually fell on top of him!

Chow Yun Fat definitely found his niche as a romantic lead in "Anna and the King." Apparently he has made many romantic movies in China --you definitely got the feeling that he has done this before! There is a world of experience in his charm.

Personally, I have never before seen a movie in which I wanted to make love to the star so badly as I wanted Chow Yun Fat in this movie! He is the perfect man, from his wise, merry eyes to his exquisite, classically chiseled face, to his warm, intoxicating smile. What woman could resist him? The man was born to be a romantic lead -- why was he wasted on so many silly Hollywood action films? He is absolutely flawless.

As the saying goes, I wouldn't throw him out of bed for eating crackers.

Of all the popular overblown, oversexed "coming of age" movies (mostly about male coming of age - starting with "The Summer of '42"), none has the honesty and truth of "Lili". Why? Because coming of age has less to do with sex (as most men think) than it has to do with an awareness of evil. The most telling line in the film is spoken by Paul's partner, who chides Paul for slapping Lili and says, "She is realizing that there is cruelty in the world, and she is learning to protect herself from it." Like Eve in the Garden of Eden, Lili's loss of innocence comes with her knowledge of evil, not her loss of virginity.

And unlike other coming of age movies that have the young actors tossing around "cute" sexual comments that don't ring true for a callow young person (because they were obviously scripted by a jaded 50-year-old male), "Lili" rings true with every note (as Paul says, "She's like a little bell that gives off a pure sound every time you strike it."). Her naivety is far more true to form -- when she is warned by one of the puppets that the lecherous puppet Renaldo "is a wolf", the innocent Lili replies, "I thought he was a fox." This is exactly the way a kid would really respond -- not "getting" the sexual reference and thinking that the comment was about the species of the animal.

I understand Audrey Hepburn beat out Leslie Caron for the Oscar that year with her amateurish performance in "Roman Holiday" -- what a travesty that was, since Audrey's performance had none of the depth and exquisite vulnerability of Leslie's performance in "Lili".

If you really want to see true vulnerability, watch Marilyn Monroe in the 1952 "Don't Bother to Knock" opposite Richard Widmark and Anne Bancroft. She plays a disturbed girl and at one point she comes down in the elevator, and when the door opens, her face alone will break your heart.

Anne Bancroft was interviewed about Marilyn and said that she had not been expecting the reaction she would have to that scene. She said when those elevator doors opened and Marilyn came out of the elevator, it stunned her and the rest of the cast and crew to watch her, she seemed so authentically confused and lost and vulnerable. Bancroft said it was the hardest scene she has ever had to watch, because you felt it was really happening to Marilyn herself.

She truly was a "candle in the wind".

This movie is full of funny switches -- it not only switched Hollywood's most macho man into a perfect pregnant mom, it also switched one of the most serious actresses into a great and silly comedienne! I don't think there is another actor in Hollywood who could carry off the role of a pregnant man with more panache than Arnold Schwartzenegger. I give him so much credit for taking this role, but he has always taken roles in which he makes fun of his own macho image -- that's what I like best about him. In fact, movies like this one and Twins and Jingle All the Way and Kindergarden Cop ("It's nod a tumah!") demonstrate that Arnold has been wasted on silly action films -- his true genius is for silly comedy! And who would have thought that classically-trained Emma Thompson, serious heroine of Jane Austen stories, could be such a fantastic slap-stick klutz comedienne! When her shoe flies across the room with the toilet paper stuck to it, I couldn't stop laughing. She definitely does not stand on her dignity in this movie! I really give her credit too for taking this role. And Danny DeVito is, of course, always great. He and Arnold are my favorite "opposite buddies" in movies, with the possible exception of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in the "Rush Hour" movies -- and, of course, Alan Arkin and Peter Falk in the original 1979 version of "The In-Laws"!

All Quiet On the Western Front retains its authenticity today because it truthfully portrays the real foot soldier -- not the hyped-up John Wayne/Sly Stallone/Arnold Schwartznegger phony bragging, swaggering, fearless, ruthless, heartless, bullet-proof, muscle-bound, nail-spitting, bully-boy soldiers of later American war movies, but the simple naive kids of a sheltered era. The movie is also completely devoid of background music to artificially stir the audience, allowing the quiet dignity of the boys themselves to be the sole focus.

This movie could never be made today because American filmmakers (and film-goers) would expect to impose 21st Century cunning and bravado onto what was a very innocent generation of kids who had never traveled more that a mile or two from their farms or towns and who found themselves in an overwhelming nightmare of mud-sucking trenches, mustard gas, and mortar shells, who died without glory and without their mother's comfort. The movie was made 12 years after the war ended, reflecting a less complicated Germany, and could not even have been made a few years later, after Hitler perfected hatred and killing as a national sport.

It may be hard for us raised on pro-war anti-Nazi movies to believe that the German soldier could be so tender as this – but consider the German-initiated, unofficial Christmas truce of 1914, when German and British troops defied their officers and ventured into no man's land between the trenches to exchange Christmas trees, gifts, beer, food, photos, and even addresses with promises to write each other when the war ended! They even played an impromptu game of soccer and sang Christmas carols together. There was probably less hatred between the German soldier and his enemies in WWI than there was between Americans in the American Civil War.

Remember, too, that this was the last major war between Christian countries, when Christian values and old-world chivalry made their last stand on the battlefield. (Another great WWI film, also made in the thirties, that reflects this chivalry is Jean Renoir's "The Grand Illusion.") Later opponents of the U.S. were either atheists (Nazis & communists), Buddhists (Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese), or Muslims (Iraqis), none of whom would ever wax warm and fuzzy over Christmas or come singing across the battlefield to the tune of "Stille Nacht." So the enemy armies of WWI had a lot in common and no real reason to hate each other. In later wars, Americans have found it easier to dehumanize and even "demonize" the enemy because he is not Christian and therefore not "like us." All Quiet On the Western Front reminds us that ALL our enemies are "like us".

Above all, All Quiet On the Western Front is a damning indictment against war, not by preaching or pontificating, but by the stunning, haunting, utterly silent ending image of all the dead boys who walk silently away at the end, each looking back at us over his shoulder with an accusing look -- accusing the audience, accusing us, for their deaths.

I was so glad to see so many reviewers say that this is their favorite movie of all time, because it is mine too -- but I always thought I was the only one who felt this way about it! A large part of my sentimental reaction to this movie comes from the fact that Charles Boyer looked so much like my father did at that age, and this was also the last video my dad and I watched together before he died. When Marius comes out of the café to go to sea, his father is standing on the waterfront watching the ship. There is a stunning fast zoom-in to the back of his father's head that stops my heart, not just because I feel Marius' shock at the realization that he will not see his father again for five years, but also because Boyer looks so much like my own father in that scene. Strangely, when my dad and I watched this together, he caught his breath at this same scene, and said that Boyer looked so much like HIS father!

When Marius says goodnight to his father (Boyer) the night before he plans to run away to sea, there is a beautiful scene in which Boyer is walking up the stairs, then turns and says to his son, "You know, I always tell you that you have ruined my life, but ..." at which point Boyer clutches his chest and becomes so choked up that he can barely continue, and croaks out the line, "it's not true!" It's the most touching, understated scene between a father and son I have ever seen in a movie. (Tragically, Boyer's own son committed suicide four years after this movie was made -- it makes me wonder whether the poignancy of his acting in this scene sprung from his real-life feelings about his own son.)

And who can forget the loving, gentle lecture he gives his son later, when he comes back from sea and wants to take his baby back from Panisse. Boyer tells him that "love is like cigarette smoke -- it doesn't weigh very much -- it takes a lot of love to make 23 pounds" and that Panisse gave the bulk of it to the baby.

And what about Cesar's (Boyer) math skills when he tries to show his son how to make a drink and tells him to use 1/3 each of four ingredients. When his son says, "but a glass only holds three thirds!" Boyer shouts, "It depends on the SIZE of the thirds!"

From start to finish, this film depicts the gentle pathos and kindness of people who all know and love each other (as Marius says, "people who maybe love me too much!"). There are no villains. Even when Panisse (Maurice Chevalier) storms out of the café in a huff, saying that his lifelong friend Cesar (Boyer) has insulted him and that he will never set foot in Cesar's café again -- when someone asks, "What about our card game tonight?" Panisse gives a typically Gallic shrug and replies, "But of course I will be back for that -- what has one thing to do with the other?"

A warm, funny, and amazingly insightful movie, and a rare opportunity to see two French greats -- Charles Boyer and Maurice Chevalier -- play off each other and steal scene after scene from the young people!

One of my favorite movies, based on one of my favorite books. Henry James sitting in the audience would have been proud of this insightful filming of his novel, "Washington Square," because the film retains so much of the subtlety of his own writing. Usually, Hollywood eliminates any of the subtlety of a great author's voice (see the recent remake of "Washington Square" if you want to see a real Hollywoodization of a novel – it actually depicts a young Catherine peeing her pants in public – an inane "Animal House"-type Hollywood requirement that degrading a woman by showing her peeing is an erotic boost for any movie). But "The Heiress" is pure James. Olivia de Havilland is perfect as James' unlikely heroine, going from an awkward gawky girl eager to please her beloved father, to a simple, loving young woman who steadfastly stands by her lover, to an embittered middle-aged woman who understands that, as Henry James says, "the great facts of her career were that Morris Townsend had trifled with her affection, and that her father had broken its spring."

If you liked this movie, read the novel. Listen to James' descriptions of Catherine and her father and see if this isn't exactly what Ralph Richardson and Olivia deHavilland portrayed:

"Doctor Sloper would have liked to be proud of his daughter; but there was nothing to be proud of in poor Catherine."

"Love demands certain things as a right; but Catherine had no sense of her rights; she had only a consciousness of immense and unexpected favors."

" 'She is so soft, so simple-minded, she would be such an easy victim! A bad husband would have remarkable facilities for making her miserable; for she would have neither the intelligence nor the resolution to get the better of him.' "

"She was conscious of no aptitude for organized resentment."

"In reality, she was the softest creature in the world."

"She had been so humble in her youth that she could now afford to have a little pride . . . Poor Catherine's dignity was not aggressive; it never sat in state; but if you pushed far enough you could find it. Her father had pushed very far."

Clifton Fadiman, in his introduction to "Washington Square," says that the novel's moral is: "to be right is not enough. Dr. Sloper is 'right'; he is right about the character of Townsend, he is right about his own character, he is right about the character of Catherine. But because he can offer only the insufficient truth of irony where the sufficient truth of love is required, he partly ruins his daughter's life, and lives out his own in spiritual poverty."

Dr. Sloper's contemptuous "rightness," penetrating and accurate as it is, is no substitute for the kindness and love his adoring daughter craves from him. In "The Rainmaker," a great Katharine Hepburn movie, also about a plain woman seeking love, only this time with a loving father, the character of Hepburn's father sums up this moral that "to be right is not enough" when he says to his self-righteous son: "Noah, you're so full of what's right that you can't see what's good!"