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 #203: Caravaggio (1986)

Director: Derek Jarman
Writer: Suso Cecchi d'Amico (uncredited), Nicholas Ward Jackson,Derek Jarman
Composer: Simon Fisher-Turner
AFI Rank:  -
BFI Rank: 93

      78%
     

If the BFI is looking for quotes to put on its upcoming Blu Ray release of Caravaggio may I humbly suggest they go with “Like Watching Paint Dry!” (Crucial Cinema).

Cheap jokes aside, much of this movie does actually involve watching paint dry but more on that later. You cannot fault Jarman for his vision and direction. What he manages to put on film is the life of Caravaggio in Caravaggio’s own style. Many scenes are delivered as if directly from one of his paintings giving it the feeling of a filmed stage production, with Caravaggio himself painting that same scene in many cases (hence the unique opportunity to watch paint dry). A passing familiarity with Caravaggio’s work while not essential will definitely let you get more out of this picture than you otherwise would. Recognizing why for example he is holding a painted Medussa shield in an early scene.

This all results in Caravaggio’s life being delivered almost as a passion play, and perhaps fittingly so. It plays to both Caravaggio’s life and the religious content which was the subject of most of his works.

It is for all those reasons I can see why it made the BFI Top 100, especially if voted for by those who saw it when it originally came out. Unfortunately for me that doesn’t make it an enjoyable film to watch. It has a decidedly eighties made for channel 4 feel about it and perhaps being from that generation I just find it more cringworthy than the older or younger viewer might. The real issue for me is the performances. These are all great actors in their debut or at least very earliest roles and although we all love their work now it is a little hard to watch here. Sean Bean is especially painful to watch. The stand out performance comes from Nigel Terry as Caravaggio himself, perhaps because of the theater like nature of the production.

Although Caravaggio received only a couple of film festival awards it does deserve it’s place in film history. Ultimately for me however it is simply not Crucial Cinema and if you have not seen it then I don’t suggest you go out of your way to do so.

        

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 #205: The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954)

Director: Frank Launder
Writer: Frank Launder, Sidney Gilliat, Val Valentine
Composer: Malcolm Arnold
AFI Rank:  -
BFI Rank: 94


      No Score Yet...
     

To anybody under the age of 40 this is going to be a hard sell. The first and best entry in the series was made nearly 60 years ago and was based on the cartoons of Ronald Searle. Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat wrote, directed and produced over 40 films together but they will mainly be remembered for the St Trinian's films. The comedy may come thick and fast but it is gentle by today's standards and a younger audience may have trouble understanding what all the fuss is about. Like many classic british comedies you need to watch with a little pinch of nostalgia. Although people slam the modern St Trinian's and Carry On remakes it is hard to argue that they are truly that different. The formula is the same but they don't have the benefit of that nostalgia and as a result seem dated and flat, unlike their revered originals.

If I could make an argument for watching Belles then it would have to be the outstanding cast and superb performances. A who's who of british comedy led by the incomparable Alastair Sim in dual roles (Alec Guinness channelled him in The Ladykillers and was also brilliant in his own multi-role celluloid excursions), with Joyce Grenfell, George Cole, Beryl Reid, Irene Handl, Joan Sims and Sid James, all showing the expert comedic timing and delivery that made each of them a household name.

Sim was also Cole's off screen mentor

Launder had previously directed The Happiest Days of Your Life four years earlier with Sim, Grenfell and Cole and Belles owes a great deal to its predecessor. It is less risque than you might imagine, although for the time it probably raised a few eyebrows, especially the depiction of the sixth form girls. It is the youngest girls that are the real terrors though and are closer to Searle's strips. They never had nitroglycerin in my chemistry lab... 

It used to be very hard to get a copy of this in the US but that is no longer the case. I watched the US DVD release from Netflix and it looked pretty good for it's age. Amazon also has it for streaming in SD if that is your thing. Overall Belles is still a highly entertaining film and a perfect Sunday afternoon movie. It is vintage british comedy at its best.

        

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.