OVP: Tom Sawyer (1973)

Film: Tom Sawyer (1973)
Stars: Johnny Whitaker, Jodie Foster, Celeste Holm, Warren Oates, Jeff East, Kunu Hank
Director: Don Taylor
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Costume Design, Art Direction, Song Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

As we move forward with our five-day tribute to the films of 1973, we're going to move from Oscar winners to mere nominees, and not ones where we have an acting nominee in sight.  The works of Mark Twain have been countlessly told on the big-screen, but it doesn't appear Oscar cared for an installment of his bibliography more than 1973's Tom Sawyer.  The film is a pretty faithful adaptation to the original novel (which is good fun even if literary titans frequently dismiss it on the way to Huckleberry Finn), but with a catch-this is a musical.  Something I didn't know when I started watching it, to be honest-I assumed the Song Score citation was because we were going to get a bunch of 1800's classics played in the background, not because we'd see actually singing onscreen.  But that's what happened, and honestly-it just enhances the "good fun" angle.

(Spoilers Ahead) For those of you who somehow missed this tome in your childhoods, the story of Tom Sawyer goes as follows.  Tom (Whitaker) is a young scalawag, always into mischief, and being raised by his Aunt Polly (Holm) much to her consternation (even though she loves him).  Tom's only true friend is Huck Finn (East), an orphan boy that is even more on the outskirts of town than Tom.  The two boys witness the murder of the town's doctor, and know that the man accused of the murder, Muff Potter (Oates) was really innocent, and it was Joe (played by Hank, and yes in a sign this was written 150 years ago, his name in the movie comes with a racist moniker that I'm not going to repeat, so he'll be referred to simply as "Joe" in this article), a mean local man, who actually killed the doctor.  Tom eventually confesses despite a blood oath between the two, fraying their friendship, but endearing him to local girl Becky (Foster), who is his love interest.  The film ends with Joe getting arrested, Huck setting off on the Mississippi (the film would get a less critically-successful musical sequel about Huck), and Tom maturing into a young man.

The film, as I said, is really devoted to the original text-almost every major scene in the novel, from the whitewashing to Tom's "engagement" to Becky to Huck nearly being adopted are all there.  But they are set to music.  With one exception these are pretty inconsequential, though they're well-staged.  Celeste Holm and her two onscreen children singing "Tom Sawyer" is witty & delicious (who knew Celeste Holm would take so well to a musical?) and the entire "Gratification" number would make Oliver proud.  The best, though, is "River Song," which to me comes across as a classic-it's refrained multiple times, and is performed by country music star Charley Pride.  The score was written by John Williams (yes THAT John Williams) and the Sherman Brothers, and though it never quite makes it to the same level as "River Song," I enjoyed it.

The film's other two nominations were for Costume and Art Direction.  Neither of these is particularly special.  It's fun to see little Jodie Foster armed with light blonde hair (her hair looks so much like my childhood best friend and next door neighbor when I was growing up that I did a spit take when I first saw her onscreen) in random assorted outfits, but this is fitting if not all that interesting period work.  The art direction is the same-the best set designs were the steamship, which wasn't built for this film specifically (and apparently is something you can still tour/ride in Wisconsin), and the rolling hillsides, which, again, is more a location scout than an art director's job.  Still, this is good, wholesome fun.  Nothing groundbreaking, but enjoyable.

OVP: Come to the Stable (1949)

Film: Come to the Stable (1949)
Stars: Loretta Young, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Elsa Lanchester, Thomas Gomez
Director: Henry Koster
Oscar History: 7 nominations (Actress-Loretta Young, Supporting Actress-Elsa Lanchester, Supporting Actress-Celeste Holm, Cinematography, Art Direction, Original Song-"Through a Long and Sleepless Night," Motion Picture Story)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

As we've been taking this journey through Oscar's many, many decades of film, we've come across stars that stood the test of time (your Crawford's, your Garbo's), and yet more often than not, we spend time with the stars that highlighted a certain era with a stunning brightness, then slowly flickered out of the big screen and out of memory.  Since this is our first visit to 1949 (certainly not our last-I've got a load of missing films this particular year), that may explain why this is our first introduction to the lovely and talented and very sweet Loretta Young, and no review of Come to the Stable would be complete without first talking about Loretta.

For those unfamiliar, and I must say that I'm not an expert, having only seen this and her Oscar-winning work two years earlier in The Farmer's Daughter, I'm trying to find a modern-day counterpart, but am at a loss, as there's really nothing super modern about Loretta Young.  Yes, she's incredibly beautiful (those eyes, my god!), and yes, she's got acting chops, but her general calling card is that she's largely playing a saint, both on screen and off, in almost every role that she tackles.  With that, you know what you're expecting when you see her on-screen-altruism and truth, but with a spine of steel to go with it.  This authenticity might make her seem a bit pious and dated, but it also lends itself well to certain roles, in particular her work here.

Come to the Stable is the story of two nuns (Young and a woefully miscast Celeste Holm, but I'll get there in a second) who come from France to create a hospital for children in the middle of New England, but run into a bevy of problems, primarily that they have no money or land to speak of to create the hospital.  The film occasionally winks at this problem, particularly in the naivete of the nuns when they venture into New York City to secure the land or their frequent run-ins with the always welcome Dooley Wilson (though, being that he's there and that a beautiful piano-ready ballad features heavily in a subplot, Henry Koster missed a huge opportunity by not putting the two together). However, the occasional depths into slapstick, while fun, don't aid the fact that the plot is incredibly thin-come on, you know those nuns are going to overcome every obstacle to get the hospital made, particularly when everyone seems to bend over backward after admiring the glistening halo the cinematographer seems to perch over Loretta Young's head, so awash in light is she throughout the film.

The problem, and I'm sorry to say this, may have been just as much the casting director's fault as it is Koster's.  Young, it seems, is the only actor that doesn't seem out-of-place within the film.  This makes sense, as this was her big vehicle and she was a huge box office draw at the time, but that doesn't excuse, say, the many teeterings and totterings of Hugh Marlowe's character, not sure if he's a villain or just annoyed, and since his character arch is so crucial to the film, it seems weird that he's missing for half of it.  Additionally, there's Elsa Lanchester, as the doddering Ms. Potts, who can't decide if she's kooky or meek or just in awe of the crazy antics of the nuns, but she spends a lot of time with her mouth gaping open.  And then, of course, is the very talented Celeste Holm, who dons a "now you hear it, now you don't" French accent and her job description seems merely to agree with whatever Young's character says.  This is fine, were it not for the facts that Holm got an Oscar nomination for this one-note role, that Holm is a superb actress who can do great things given the opportunity, and that Holm and Hugh Marlowe would just one year later have bitingly good chemistry in one of the great films, All About Eve.

Come to the Stable received seven Academy Award nominations, and like I said previously, the Holm and Lanchester ones in particular are hard to swallow.  I'm also not a huge fan of Young's nomination, though it is understandable considering she does saintly well, though she can't compete with ultimate winner Olivia de Havilland in her march toward bitterness in The Heiress.  I'm still waiting to see Pinky from 1949, which also featured three nominated women, and am hoping I will respond better to that film.  As for the techs, the art direction nomination seems generous considering the limited sets and how little interaction the cast has with the interchangeable New England cottages, but the Cinematography is strong and the original song, so lush and torchlit, may be unnecessary to the plot, but is probably the best of the Academy-recognized attributes.

What about you-are you a fan of this film, or Young's in particular?  Do you think that any of the three ladies deserved mention against the competition in 1949 (or that the film deserved a win for its rather high nomination count, which featured no victories)?  And is there a modern day equivalent of Young that I'm not thinking of?

86. Celeste Holm (All About Eve)

86. One of the things I'm enjoying about this countdown is that I don't always remember who I put on the list-I have the list, and only check it once a day, to find out whose performance we will be viewing that day will be. I had completely forgotten about this fine actress, number 86, and one of the most unsung performances in a film brimming with some fantastic thespians.

The great thing about Celeste Holm in All About Eve is that she doesn't, in fact grate. Struggling for screen charisma opposite the likes of Anne Baxter's witchy Eve Harrington, George Sanders' irrepressible diva, and, well, Bette Davis (did Davis ever let someone else take one of her scenes?), Holm could have gone the easy route of making Karen Richards a whiny, loud-mouth scene stealer.

Instead, Mankiewicz has a better idea for Holm. While everyone else is traipsing around with abomination, Holm becomes the meddler with her conscience conflicting with her better judgment. When she betrays Margo, she feels bad, but she doesn't have the foolishness to tell the grand Bette Davis. Holm lets her eyes and overly calm demeanor represent her. You know she's more than what she seems, but you can't tell quite what Karen Richards is capable of. It's that threat of what could come, what lies behind the "lowest kind of celebrity" that brings about the finest form of acting: the kind that doesn't need temper tantrums and threats to appear intimidating.

I haven't seen hardly any of Celeste Holm's movies, so instead I'm going to represent that you accompany Holm's theater wife with Jane Darwell's powerful matriarch in The Grapes of Wrath and Virginia Madsen's sweet-tempered waitress in Sideways. All are down-to-earth, really special performances in grand cinema.