AFI/BFI #197: My Fair Lady (1964)

Director: George Cukor
Writer: Alan Jay Lerner, George Bernard Shaw
Composer: Alan Jay Lerner
AFI Rank:  91 (1998), - (2007)
BFI Rank: -

       94%
     


My Fair Lady was already a phenomenal success on broadway when Jack Warner purchased the rights to bring it to the big screen. Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews and Stanley Holloway had originated the key roles and were all keen to star in the film but the casting of the film would be anything but simple. Jack Warner had seen Harrison in Cleopatra and felt him too old to play the part of Higgins. Cary Grant turned down the role claiming that not only would he not do it but he would not even see the picture if Harrison was not cast. Holloway got the part after James Cagney pulled out at the last minute. Andrews was not as lucky. Harrison had pushed for her even though he had initially had problems with her grasp of the cockney accent in rehearsals for the stage production. Ironically he felt Hepburn would have even more trouble but she surprised everyone delivering an iconic performance and Harrison later referred to her as his favorite leading lady. Hepburn's performance did not even get an oscar nomination but is perhaps less surprising given the popularity of Andrews in the broadway production and Marni Nixon's dubbing of all of Hepburn's numbers on screen. Andrews actually got the Oscar that year for Mary Poppins just to add salt to the wound. Surpisingly Marni is american and also had to get her chops around the accent but she had already proven herself dubbing Deborah Kerr and Natalie Wood in West Side Story (only on "Tonight") and The King and I. Marni has spent most of her career off camera including Mulan's grandmother in 1998. Ironically she did get a small part in Andrews breakout film just a year later, a little picture called The Sound of Music. Jeremy Brett was brought in to make Hepburn seem younger. He was 30 at the time while Freddy is 20. He too suffered the fate of overdub, this time by another american Bill Shirley.

The most striking thing about My Fair Lady is that the entire movie was filmed inside, specifically on a staggering 26 sound stages at Warner Brothers' Burbank studios. Coming on the back of the budget busting Cleopatra which was filmed on location in Rome, the decision was to keep the filming in Hollywood. All told it still became the most expensive Warner brothers film at that time coming in at $17m. There was absolutely no location filming, something that annoyed creator Alan Jay Lerner. The lack of any real exterior locations creates an interesting and almost claustrophobic stage set feel to the whole picture. This is particularly evident during the Ascot scenes which take on a surreal almost anachronistic quality making them more Logan's Run than Sound of Music. David Hall's choreography certainly adds to this and the result is perhaps more iconic than had it been filmed on location in the UK.

Beaton's oscar winning costume designs for the Royal Ascot scenes

George Cukor was already an established and respected director by the time he came to helm My Fair Lady. He had started on broadway and was especially skilled at bringing stage productions to the big screen. He did uncredited work on some of my all time favorite movies including Lust for Life, The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind (which he was fired from).

My Fair Lady swept the oscars in 1965. It garnered 12 nominations and won 8 including Harrison for best actor, Cecil Beaton's incredible costume design, Gene Allen's incredible sets, sound, music, cinematography and most importantly of all best picture. In what has become a good indicator of oscar success Cukor had gotten the DGA award earlier in the year and went on to take the oscar too. It was an interesting year at the oscars with competition from Mary Poppins, Zorba The Greek, Becket and Kubrick's masterpiece Dr. Strangelove. Seller's was also on screen and stealing most of the scenes in The Pink Panther which only received a music nomination. Another of my favorite movies managed a visual effects nomination and a honorary makeup award for William Tuttle, George Pal's superbly quirky 7 Faces of Dr. Lao.

I had been holding off watching My Fair Lady as the blu ray was imminent and given the previous DVD restoration I had high expectations. The bad news is that this is not the hidef release everyone has been hoping and waiting for. Robert Harris covers the topic in great detail over at the Home Theater Forum. The bottom line is that if you have the DVD you don't need to upgrade, if renting then the blu ray is a fine option. My experience supports that. The blu ray is definitely a disappointment but not terrible relative to movies of the same age. It is just that expectations are higher for film of this profile.

The sixties was arguably the last decade of the great hollywood musical with the superb but commercial flop, Hello Dolly!, ushering in its end. Audiences of the seventies wanted gritty realism and even though there were some great musical pictures produced in that time including Grease, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, they were not from the same stable. If you don't like or don't get musicals then there is little I can do to change your mind except to say you are missing out on some of the greatest pictures ever made.

Surprisingly My Fair Lady was dropped from the AFI 100 in 2007 having made position 91 back in 1998 and hence its low showing in my combined list.

My Fair Lady is one of the greatest stage musicals ever produced, itself a musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, and a near perfect a big screen musical adaptation. It is unquestionably Crucial Cinema.

        

AFI/BFI #199: Sophie's Choice (1982)

Director: Alan J. Pakula
Writer: William Styron, Alan J. Pakula
Composer: Marvin Hamlisch
AFI Rank:  - (1998), 91 (2007)
BFI Rank: -

       81%
     


Sophie’s Choice was added to the AFI Top 100 in 2007 and after finally seeing it I can honestly say it’s absence from the original 1998 list was a injustice that has now been thankfully righted. As with many films I have watched so far from the AFI list, in both the viewing and the subsequent research I was a little embarrassed to admit I had never seen it. I was a fan of Pakula’s other films, especially All The President’s Men and The Pelican Brief, and had no idea he had not only directed Sophie’s Choice but adapted the screenplay also. Add to that the fact that it contains the strongest and earliest performances of three great actors, you cannot blame me for wondering why I hadn’t noticed the rock that I had obviously been living under for the last couple of decades.

If you have never seen the film, read William Styron’s book or heard about the choice that is at the center of the movie then stop reading and go watch it. Its as simple as that. If you need more convincing then read on.

There are many reasons that this film is on the AFI list, not least of which is the acting. Pakula understands his actors and he has directed eight of them in Oscar-nominated performances: Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Jason Robards, Jane Alexander, Richard Farnsworth, Jill Clayburgh, Candice Bergen and Meryl Streep. Three of them, Fonda, Robards and Streep, took one home, Streep’s for this picture. Her performance is simply astounding. Kline, in his first film role, is simply brilliant and Cleese cast him in A Fish Called Wanda based on this performance. I also came away with a new found respect for MacNicol. I have always thought of him as an average actor but what he delivers here makes him great.

Sophie’s Choice may have gotten Streep her Oscar but there was no nomination for the picture itself. It did receive nominations but no wins for cinematography, costume, music and screenplay. In 1983 it was up against some stiff competition to be fair: Gandhi, ET, Tootsie, An Office and a Gentleman, Das Boot and The Verdict. Plus some other great films but not so much Oscar competition including Tron, Poltergeist and a little film called Blade Runner.

Kline, Streep and MacNicol

It’s not all perfect. The pace is almost unbearably slow at times and you might be tempted to bail early. I highly recommend you don’t. As the story progresses you come to appreciate the time that was taken earlier on. If you have to watch it in a couple of sittings, but definitely finish it.

I watched the US DVD release of Sophie’s Choice as right now there is little alternative. The quality was as you would expect for an early eighties film which has seen little to no remastering. The picture quality, mostly overly soft, varies throughout and a good remaster and blu ray release is definitely required for such a classic film.

Sophie’s Choice is hands down Crucial Cinema.


        

AFI/BFI #200: A Place In The Sun (1951)

Director: George Stevens
Writer: Michael Wilson, Harry Brown
Cinematographer: William C. Mellor
Composer: Franz Waxman
AFI Rank:  92 (1998), - (2007)
BFI Rank: -


      75%

Theodore Dreiser’s parable on the myth of the American dream was published in 1925 and first commited to celluloid in 1931 with the same title. When George Stevens approached Paramount with the idea of filming another adaptation they were less than excited about a remake so soon after the original. It’s funny to think of 20 years as once being considered too soon for a remake in Hollywood. Stevens sued them for breach of contract and they finally let him make it and thank god they did. A Place In The Sun is as much a masterpiece of American cinema as the book is a classic of American literature.

Those new to the blog may not know that I detest reviews of films that give away the plot. The best way to see a movie is when you know absolutely nothing about it. Even the trailer can be too much. My goal is to get you to watch the picture and hopefully I occasionally succeed. A Place In The Sun is just one of those pictures. The less you know the better it will be.

What I can talk about is the cast. In 1949 Elizabeth Taylor was just 17 and her leading man, Montgomery Clift, was just shy of 30. A great child actor she had done little to suggest what she was capable of here and the studio took a risk that paid off and launched her career as a Hollywood icon. Shelley Winters had only played glamorous roles and taking this part in 1951 must have took incredible courage. The result is simply incredible, a film that is as good today as the day it was made.

Taylor and Clift relaxing on location at Lake Tahoe

The film took home 6 oscars for Best Cinematography, Costume Design, Direction, Film Editing, Music and Screenplay. Clift and Winter both got nominations as did the production itself for Best Picture. Impressive considering there was some serious competition that year from An American in Paris, Quo Vadis, A Streetcar Named Desire, the African Queen and Death of a Salesman.

It is a little surprising then that the AFI dropped it from their revised Top 100 in 2007 and that Rotten Tomatoes has it at a paltry 75%. The book is far better as usually the case, and the film is much lighter more melodramatic than its 1931 predecessor. Some critics feel it is now dated and that is most likely why it was dropped. I personally feel it has held up extremely well and is in my books at least, Crucial Cinema.

AFI/BFI #202: Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Director: Howard Hawks
Writer: Dudley Nichols, Hagar Wilde
Composer: Roy Webb (uncredited)
AFI Rank:  97 (1998), 88 (2007)
BFI Rank: -


       95%


 One of my favourite comedies of all time is Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? (1972). I knew going in to this viewing that Bogdanovich was paying homage to Bringing Up Baby but that really didn’t prepare me for just how much of What’s Up, Doc? dna was inherited from Hawks’ comedy classic.

For Grant and Hepburn this was their second of four movies together. Grant had already proven himself a great comedic actor but Hepburn came to the picture with no background in comedy. It is hard to imagine whilst watching her superb performance that she needed intensive coaching to get there. Much of her final performance was influenced by Walter Catlett, who Hawks kept on set to help Hepburn with her performance and also played Constable Slocum. The resulting on screen chemistry is simply brilliant and there are very few 70 year old movies that have made me laugh as hard and as often as Baby.

The writing team of Dudley Nichols and Hagar Wilde is clearly a match made in heaven, so much so that they actually fell in love while writing the screenplay. Nichols had taken home an Oscar three years earlier for The Informer and would pen Stagecoach the following year. This was Wilde’s first screenplay based on her own original short story published originally in Collier’s Weekly magazine. She would deliver a few more movie scripts including Hawks’ I Was A Male War Bride and Red, Hot and Blue before spending the rest of her career in TV. For me this is their best work and was way ahead of its time, perhaps why it stands up so well today.

There is heavy use of optical effects in the picture and they were delivered by a personal hero of mine Linwood G. Dunn, pioneer of the optical printer and visual effects in general. He worked on King Kong, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Citizen Kane and virtually every RKO production including compositing the original RKO logo.

Given all of this it is surprising that the film was such a box office failure in it’s day. Hawks was even fired from his next production at RKO. He felt he had failed at the time but how much of that was due to the poor reception is hard to tell. In retrospect it is possibly his greatest movie.

I watched Baby on DVD (Amazon also has it on streaming) and it looked about as good as you could expect for a 70 year old picture. The two disc set as some nice extras including a commentary from Bogdanovich which is worth a watch. There is currently no Blu ray release date.

To fully appreciate it you need to give it your full attention. Laptops and iPads away. Bringing Up Baby is without question Crucial Cinema and for fans of What’s Up, Doc? and madcap comedies it is essential viewing.

AFI/BFI #204: Goodfellas (1990)

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese
Composer: Various Artists
AFI Rank:  94 (1998), 92 (2007)
BFI Rank: -


      97%
     

I usually don't need an excuse to watch Goodfellas but the AFI/BFI list gave me one all the same. It is unimaginable that anybody who loves films and is reading this has never seen it. If you haven't then I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you have either been in some sort of coma, incarcerated in a Thai prison or simply avoiding the worlds greatest movies as an ill advised bet. Go buy it now and watch it immediately. You won't regret it.

Goodfellas was nominated for 6 Oscars but Joe Pesci was the only one to take one home as best supporting actor in his role as Tommy DeVito. It is an astonishing performance, of which there are several in this film. Up against Dances With Wolves, Awakenings, The Godfather: Part III and Ghost, it should have done much better and I personally think time has shown it to be the better picture. A fact the british knew even then as it fared much better at the Baftas winning 5 of its 7 nominations. It is interesting that it occupies such a high place on so many top movies lists and yet is all the way down in 92nd place in the AFI Top 100.

This is undoubtedly Ray Liotta's greatest performance, head and shoulders above anything else he has ever done. I would love to see him make a Micky Rourke like comeback because what he delivers in Goodfellas in nothing short of incredible. The whole cast is pitch perfect.

Pileggi and DeNiro deliver an astounding screenplay with perfect pacing that pulls of a difficult blend of dark humor, friendship and love with an ever present underlying threat of violence that bubbles over in several graphic scenes. Scorsese's intention was to show the real unglamorized world of the mob. That is all helped along by a generous 2 f-words per minute, most of them delivered by Joe Pesci. Gordon Ramsay eat you heart out. 

Joe Pesci's unforgettable contribution: Funny how? What's funny about it? 

This is all helped along by Thelma Schoonmaker's ever brilliant editing (the editing of the final sequence is astonishingly effective at creating a sense of irritation and unrest) and Scorsese's choice of music. Certain scenes play out as mini music videos and were even filmed with the music playing on set to help with the timing. You will never listen to Layla the same way again. On top of all of that you have the superb cinematography of long time Scorsese collaborator Michael Ballhaus. 

There are so many stand out set pieces in this movie it is hard to pick just a few. Watch for one of the longest single shots in film history as they enter the Copa. Breathtaking.

I watched the HD-DVD for this review and it was beautiful. Not overly enhanced with a fair amount of film grain. The blu ray is the same transfer but with a Dolby Digital soundtrack and would be my recommended way to see this if you can. Some great commentaries and some worthwhile, if a little stale, extras. You may not be the kind of person that usually watches the special features but this is one of those movies that leaves you wanting more. This is a true story, however fictionalized, and you will want to hear more about the real people and events behind these characters.

Goodfellas is without a shadow of a doubt Crucial Cinema and one of the greatest american movies ever made.

        

AFI/BFI #206: Pulp Fiction (1994)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer: Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary
Composer: Various Artists
AFI Rank:  95 (1998), 94 (2007)
BFI Rank: -


      94%
     

I remember buying the Pulp Fiction soundtrack and practically wearing it out, waiting for the film to finally hit rental so that I could watch it again. And I did, many many times. I had Jules' monologue memorized. I thought Tarantino was a genius. Hard to believe that was 17 years ago. The last time I watched Pulp Fiction was probably on Laserdisk in the late nineties. As I put in the disk to watch it for the first time in a decade I wondered to myself why I hadn't watched it more. Maybe it would be like the other things I loved back then, like the dueling guitar driven rush of Iron Maiden. Maybe I had outgrown it or didn't have the energy to enjoy it anymore. Some people call it maturing tastes but when it comes to music and film I am not sure it is as simple as that.

From the moment Honey Bunny climbed on the table and the first glorious twangs of Dick Dale's Misirlou blasted out the speakers I was transfixed. I can honestly say I enjoyed it even more than when I first saw it in 1994. Not only has it aged well but it has somehow gotten even better. I felt like an idiot for not watching it again sooner.

Tarantino brought virtually the whole crew from Reservoir Dogs onto Pulp Fiction. If Pulp changed the face of independent cinema then Dogs definitely set the stage. For me they form a trifecta with Inglorious Bastards as Quentin's greatest work. He is often attacked for being derivative and simply borrowing from years of popular, and more often less than popular, culture. I prefer to see it as cultural archaeology, bringing lost treasures back for a new generation. And he does it so very well. In the case of Pulp Fiction though he cannot take all the credit. Roger Avary was talked out of a co-writing credit and contributed significantly to the story. Quentin may be known for his dialogue but what lifts Pulp Fiction above his other films is the intertwining plots and exceptional story telling.

Pulp Fiction's place in popular culture is secured

The performances are as iconic as the set scenes. It was a shot of adrenalin straight to the heart for Travolta's career bringing it back from the brink of death and put Thurman, Jackson, Roth and Rhames on the A-list. It was a risk for Bruce Willis who was still a big star but had made some seriously bad diversions in the last few years. It not only put his career back on track but showed he was a much more capable actor than many had realized. Outstanding cameos by Christopher Walken and Harvey Keitel threaten to steal the whole show. 

The critics may have been split on Pulp Fiction but the awards committees were unusually quick in recognizing what they had on their hands. Pulp Fiction garnered seven oscar nominations and was either nominated or took home awards from every major organization including the Palme d'Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.

I had wanted to see it in HD on Blu Ray and was amazed to find it has not yet been released outside of Hong Kong, France, Denmark and Poland?!? Unbelievable for a movie of this caliber. I didn't order one of the imports and instead settled for the DVD. A perfectly fine transfer but the Blu ray is now at the top of my wish list. Rumours of a release later this year in the US and UK.

One of the goals of Crucial Cinema is to convince you to watch movies that you have never seen but in the case of Pulp Fiction I would be surprised if there are many of you out there other than recently awakened coma patients, nuns and children. But if like me you haven't seen it in over a decade then I strongly recommend a repeat viewing. Unquestionably Crucial Cinema for decades to come.