OVP: Murphy's Romance (1985)

Film: Murphy's Romance (1985)

Stars: Sally Field, James Garner, Brian Kerwin, Corey Haim

Director: Martin Ritt

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actor-James Garner, Cinematography)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Sally Field: click here to learn more about Ms. Field (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Coming off of her second Oscar, Field felt a bit of the "Best Actress Curse" when it came to her career.  She continued to get lead roles, but not hits.  Both Punchline with Tom Hanks and Surrender with Michael Caine fell flat with critics, and her only mild success was Murphy's Romance, our film today, one that got her costar an Oscar nomination, not Field herself.  By the end of the decade, Field needed a win, and she got one in one of the most unlikely of places: an ensemble film starring a group of aging women.  In 1989, this wasn't a thing that happened very often (all-female ensembles were rare at the movies, and even rarer to be big hits), but Steel Magnolias was a runaway success.  In a year with Batman and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ushering in a new era of blockbusters, Steel Magnolias made a very sizable $83 million, putting it in similar company to The Little Mermaid and When Harry Met Sally.  Field would not win an Oscar nomination for it (in fact, that would go to her costar Julia Roberts, who was about to usurp her crown as America's Sweetheart), but it was a much-needed hit for the actress.  As I have seen Steel Magnolias before, we won't review it today, but know that that was the movie that Field had been praying for in the late 1980's.

(Spoilers Ahead) Instead we'll talk Murphy's Romance, a movie about Emma Moriarty (Field), a divorced mother trying to make ends meet on an Arizona ranch where she raises & trains horses.  She's broke, and can't get a loan given her status as an unmarried woman, but also has moxie, which catches the admiration of the local pharmacist Murphy Jones (Garner).  The two strike up a relationship, one that might be romantic despite the age difference, but it's interrupted when Emma's ex-husband Bobby Jack (Kerwin) enters the picture.  This sets up a love triangle between the respectable-but-aging Murphy, and the age appropriate-but-irresponsible Bobby Jack, one that is ended when Bobby Jack's 18-year-old girlfriend shows up with his twin sons.  As he leaves, this allows Emma & Murphy to end up together before the credits roll.

I'm not against the concept of the May/December romance onscreen (I'm not a prudish Gen Z-er who thinks that women can never reach autonomy with a man older than them), so that isn't my problem here.  My problem is more with the way that the script is written.  Field's Emma is poorly drawn, as if she's changing her entire personality from scene-to-scene.  In some moments she's an adult who understands the compromises that come with life, and in the next scene she's acting like a petulant child, willing to throw away all of her gains for no reason.  She and Garner have chemistry, but her character is so inconsistent that it's hard to care.

The film won two Oscar nominations, one for the cinematography (occasionally fun & dusty, but too inconsistent, and it reads like Oscar wanted to go back to the many farm pictures it honored in 1984), and one for Best Actor.  James Garner is not noteworthy in this movie...he's honestly not even that good.  The nomination was the only one in his career, though, and it's hard not to think of this as a career nod for an aging actor who by all accounts was a pleasure to work with (most actors who worked with him spoke highly of him, including Field who called him the best onscreen kiss of her career), but come on-in 1985, there must've been better.

Pale Rider (1985)

Film: Pale Rider (1985)

Stars: Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Richard Dysart, Chris Penn, Sydney Penny

Director: Clint Eastwood

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Clint Eastwood: click here to learn more about Mr. Eastwood (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Clint Eastwood, to use Gen Z social media parlance, will "always be famous."  In the years after High Plains Drifter, Eastwood would have a few highs (specifically The Outlaw Josey Wales), but would arguably hit one of the bigger nadirs of his career.  The western went out of fashion in the wake of Heaven's Gate failing spectacularly, and so he was back to doing crime films, some of which would make money, but none of which are particularly memorable today.  His best-regarded of the movies that he'd make during the 1980's would be our film today (the first major Hollywood western to come after Heaven's Gate basically ended the genre as a Hollywood staple), but it wasn't until 1992, when Eastwood would make Unforgiven, his magnum opus as a director and one of the great westerns of all-time, that he'd fully cement his stardom for the ages, making one of the biggest movies of the year and gaining Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Director, & Actor (he'd win the former two).  But I've seen Unforgiven (it's absolutely brilliant), so to finish off our month with Eastwood, we're going to talk about the one major western he made in the 1980's, and one of his last takes on the "man with no name" subgenre, Pale Rider.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie follows the Preacher (Eastwood), a man who sits atop a pale white horse (hence the title), who comes into the lives of a group of prospectors who are up against Coy LaHood (Dysart), a mining baron who is trying to drive out independent prospectors, led by Hull Barret (Moriarty), who recruits the Preacher to help them with their cause.  The Preacher, whose ties to the cloth aren't particularly strong (it feels more costume than reality as the film wears on), not only starts to ingratiate himself into the community, but also into the hearts of several characters, including widow Sarah Wheeler (Snodgress), who is in love with both he & Hull, and her daughter Megan (Penny), who has a strange infatuation with the Preacher.  As the film goes on, you learn a little bit more about the Preacher, but mostly you get involved into the same plot we've seen most of this month-strange man comes to town, surrounded in myth, and saves the villagers from the evil atop their mount.

Pale Rider is the least of the five films we've watched of Eastwood's this month, and it's mostly because by 1985, Eastwood had been milking the "Man With No Name" routine for decades, and there wasn't a lot more to say.  While this film borrows heavily from High Plains Drifter, it also clearly wants to be Shane by introducing the character of Megan to the formula.  It forgets, however, that most of the magic of Shane is that Joey doesn't really understand what's happening (particularly the wrench that Shane is throwing into his parents' auto pilot marriage), and makes it far too opaque, with the Megan character becoming romantically infatuated with the Preacher rather than just having her want to become him like him as in Shane.

Eastwood's performance here also isn't as strong as High Plains Drifter.  Perhaps not wanting to take risks like United Artists did coming off of the disaster of Heaven's Gate, Warner Brothers kept things simple here, but without the villainous undertones of High Plains Drifter, Eastwood can't really sell the subplot romance with Snodgress, and it's not as clear here that he has a handle on the complicated backstory he's bringing to his part.  As you can tell this month, I'm a fan of Eastwood's, but I'm not a stan, and this one...he's been better.

And indeed, he would be better in the decades to come.  After Unforgiven, Eastwood would almost exclusively work with himself as a director (the last time he did a significant role in a film he didn't direct was Wolfgang Peterson's In the Line of Fire in 1993).   He'd make a number of Oscar-cited films (The Bridges of Madison County, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, American Sniper), many of them hits, and make an unfortunate move into partisan politics.  Always a Republican, his appearance at the 2012 Republican National Committee where he would debate Barack Obama in the guise of an empty chair, drew confusion from his fans & partisan allies alike (Eastwood would later say he regretted this speech).  Even today, he's still making movies-in 2021, Eastwood at the age of 91 became the oldest person ever to direct a major studio film with Warner Brothers' Cry Macho.  Next month, we're going to shift to another icon of the 1960's & 70's cinema, one who would appear in several key westerns, but would get a very long, lauded second life as a film director.

When Father Was Away on Business (1985)

Film: When Father Was Away on Business (1985)

Stars: Moreno de Bartoli, Miki Manojlovic, Mirjana Karanovic, Mira Furlan

Director: Emir Kusturica

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Foreign Language Film-Yugoslavia)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I decided to clear out the Netflix discs I had in the house, and Netflix decided to ship me When Father Was Away on Business.  I think the reasoning here was that I wanted to see it after the recent death of Mira Furlan, who died in January.  Furlan was the first major cast member from the television series Lost to pass away (unless I'm missing someone, correct me in the comments), and played the character of Danielle Rousseau for six seasons of the show.  If you know me at all (or have just visited this blog for the very first time), you know that I love the television series Lost more than pretty much anything, and as a result I wanted to honor her in some way, but alas in the pandemic my good intentions in January got deterred, so I wasn't able to relate this back to Furlan.  Better-late-than-never, though, and so today we're going talk about When Father Was Away on Business, which was Furlan's big break in Yugoslavian cinema, and won both the Palme d'Or at Cannes & was nominated for the Best Foreign Language film category at the Academy Awards.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in the early 1950's, right after World War II, in Yugoslavia.  We hear the story largely from the point-of-view of a young boy named Malik (de Bartoli), whose father Mesa (Manojlovac) is having an affair with a young air-pilot, Ankica (Furlan).  When Ankica accidentally makes a comment about her lover's politics, Mesa is sent to a work camp, aided by his brother-in-law who quickly shacks up with Ankica.  The film continues showing what his wife Sena (Karanovic) goes through as she raises two boys alone, and then in a work camp with her philandering husband.  The movie ends on a strange note, with Mesa finally free, and in some ways enacting revenge on his brother-in-law (recently diagnosed with diabetes, his drinking habits sure to doom him if his political misalliances don't), but not on Ankica, with whom he has an angry sexual congress with, which Malik sees, thus breaking the illusion of his father's "business trips."

The movie itself is a bit dry, and not particularly interesting in retrospect.  It's always hard to gage exactly how progressive a film is under a less democratic regime, which is what was happening in 1985 in Yugoslavia (I am not an expert on the country's politics).  After the death of Marshal Tito in 1980, the country entered into something of an authoritarian council, though it was trying to in some capacities to dismiss communism in favor of a more capitalistic approach (which had middling success, at least in the 1980's).  Either way, the film is not shy about criticizing the arbitrary nature of Tito's government & the way that it used scare tactics to stifle political discourse, though it does it in a funny way (think some of Milos Forman's films in Czechoslavakia in the 1960's).  Unfortunately, the comedy doesn't save the film, and the rest is a bit plodding, and way too long.

As for Furlan, she's given a nothing part.  Her character attempts suicide haphazardly near the end of the movie, with limited success (her doing so essentially just accidentally flushes the toilet...it's a weird scene).  The movie doesn't really know what to do with her, which is a pity as Furlan would grow into a fine actress.  Her work on Lost is some of my favorite side character work in the series, making a guest spot so memorable that fans would clamor for her & her mystery for years, eventually getting a backstory & even a final season reappearance.  Though I didn't love her in the film that made her known to cinephiles, her work on Lost will forever be in my heart.

OVP: Agnes of God (1985)

Film: Agnes of God (1985)

Stars: Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, Meg Tilly

Director: Norman Jewison

Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Actress-Anne Bancroft, Supporting Actress-Meg Tilly, Score)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We are continuing on our look at the category of Best Supporting Actress with a turn from the mid-1980's, and one that has a bit of history behind it.  Meg Tilly is not an actress we talk a lot about today, but she is part of a really good trivia question-Tilly and her older sister Jennifer are one of only three pairs of sisters to be nominated for acting Oscars, and they are the only ones to have been nominated without competing against each other (to date).  Infamously Joan Fontaine beat Olivia de Havilland at the 1941 Academy Awards, and (less infamously, since unlike Joan & Olivia they were lifelong friends), Lynn & Vanessa Redgrave both lost to Elizabeth Taylor at the 1966 Oscars.  While Jennifer would score a surprise nomination for 1994's Bullets Over Broadway, her younger sister won her nomination a decade earlier, for a more conventional role (by Oscar standards) in the filmed adaptation of the play Agnes of God.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers around three women.  The first, whom we meet in the opening scenes, is Sister Agnes (Tilly), a novice at a conservative nunnery who is found bleeding profusely after giving birth to a now stillborn baby.  It is unclear if Sister Agnes has killed her baby (or if she has miscarried), and so a court-appointed psychiatrist named Martha (Fonda) is assigned to investigate the case, under the watchful eye of Mother Miriam (Bancroft) who distrusts Martha & seemingly wants to protect Agnes.  This sets off a strange series of events, as the film encounters conversations about faith (Martha is a former believer, Agnes & Miriam are deeply entrenched in the church, frequently at the cost of Agnes's wellbeing, as she punishes herself through starvation & for getting her period).  We understand as the movie continues that it's likely that Agnes was raped, but after years of mental abuse by her mother didn't understand this & thought that it might be God who had had sex with her.  She is found not guilty (due to an insanity defense), and is left in the convent, the audience never knowing exactly who raped her or what Mother Miriam's true contribution to the death of the child is.

If that plot description feels a little sloppy, it's because this movie is pretty sloppy.  It feels like for the bulk of the movie that the writers don't have an answer as to why Agnes keeps exhibiting stigmata (seemingly out-of-nowhere), and who actually is the father of her baby.  It also doesn't feel like they (or Bancroft) know whether or not Mother Miriam intended to provide the tools for Agnes to kill either herself or the child, though Bancroft's guilt toward the end makes me believe that she knew there was a chance this mentally ill woman would kill her baby.

As a result, the film's Oscar nominations feel cheap.  Tilly's work is routine-she's asked to be beautiful & innocent, but she doesn't bring enough perspective to her work for my taste, and this feels like a flat creation.  The same can be said for Bancroft, who really gets a goose egg in her final Oscar-nominated role, particularly considering Bancroft had done very well with interpreting stage work to the screen before.  She always feels like she's showing her cards in this performance, as if she forgot "oh crap, this scene I'm supposed to act guilty."  Fonda, the only one of the three without an Oscar nomination, has the least showy role, but also doesn't find much to do here.  The only nomination that feels somewhat earned is Georges Delerue's chilling (but forgettable) score, giving the film an atmosphere that no one else seems able to match.

OVP: The Color Purple (1985)

Film: The Color Purple (1985)
Stars: Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Margaret Avery, Oprah Winfrey, Adolph Caesar, Rae Dawn Chong
Director: Steven Spielberg
Oscar History: Historical indeed-the film received a stunning 11 nominations, but no wins, a record that it holds with The Turning Point (Best Picture, Actress-Whoopi Goldberg, Supporting Actress-Margaret Avery, Supporting Actress-Oprah Winfrey, Original Song-"Miss Celie's Blues," Costume, Art Direction, Original Score, Makeup, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

How do you follow-up Ben-Hur?  By taking on another legendary (and multi-nominated) film, in this case the classic 1985 Spielberg film The Color Purple.  While Spielberg had managed to make at least four masterworks prior to this film's release, this was the first "serious" film that he had ever done, and apparently he didn't want to be the only first-timer, as future superstars Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey made their film debuts in the movie.  That freshness lends itself to a strong, vibrant film featuring three stirring performances by the nominated women, even if the movie teeters between emotionally pulling and overtly sentimental at times.

(SPOILERS ABOUND) The movie, for those unfamiliar with either it, the musical, or the renowned book by Alice Walker, is about a teenage girl (Celie, who as an adult is played by Goldberg), who is traded to a man referred to throughout the film primarily as Mister (Glover) as his wife, but he treats her as his maid.  Mister is abusive to Celie, as are her stepchildren, and the only person she loves in the world, her younger sister Nettie, is taken away from her after she scourns Mister's advances.  The film takes place over a series of decades, and along the way, Celie meets a bevy of characters, most notably her daughter-in-law Sophia (Winfrey), whose strong self-worth and confidence is the antithesis of Celie, and the wild and uninhibited Shug (played by Avery), who is the true love of Mister's life.

Though the film didn't win any of its Oscar nominations, it's hard to believe that if "Best Casting" were an award the movie wouldn't have taken it.  It's difficult to fathom a time before the world knew of Whoopi or Oprah, but it's clear from their opening scenes that they are naturals.  Goldberg, with a personality and persona like the lights of a marquee, is the opposite in her opening scenes, and does a marvelous job of portraying a battered, broken woman, whose sense of the world was taken away when she was forced to grow up at too young of an age by an abusive stepfather and, later, by Mister.  She carries that throughout the film, that stunted emotional development, even after she understands the ways of her own world.  Notice how often Goldberg hides her face whenever she's experiencing happiness or joy-hiding any real emotion from the world.  Goldberg's triumphant telling off of Glover's Mister at the dinner table toward the end of the movie wouldn't be nearly as "stand-up-and-cheer" if the audience hadn't truly felt that the moment may never come-Spielberg uses the film's rather extensive length to his advantage in this way, repeating Goldberg's heartbreaks so often that the audience assumes that a happy ending may never be coming.

Along the way, though, we get one of the more interesting aspects of the film.  As someone who has never read the book (I know, I know-it's on the list), I don't know how much the lesbian-nature of the relationship between Celie and Shug is played up, but it's very evident despite the film being made in 1985 (had it been made twenty years later, it likely would have been the center of the movie-twenty years earlier, it would have been implied in a Tennessee Williams sort of way).  You get to see Celie fall in love for the first time, and in an odd twist, it's the same woman that her husband is in love with as well.  Avery's performance has ebbs and flows, with her best moments oddly coming from her shattered relationship with her father (who has branded her a harlot and refuses to speak to her) than with either Goldberg or Glover.  Avery lets Goldberg do most of the heavy-lifting in their scenes together, and she's just a vessel off which Goldberg projects curiosity, joy, and lust.  She does, however, get a dynamic song in the center of the film, "Miss Celie's Blues," that recalls Billie Holliday and Bessie Smith.

Winfrey, who only appeared sporadically in the years after this movie as an actress, gives the film a raw energy that would otherwise be lacking.  Every scene she's on film, you are drawn to her character and to her performance.  Sophia is not a woman to be trifled with, and a woman who will be honest, right to your face.  Her "you told Harpo to beat me" speech to Whoopi is electric, and a telling moment for Goldberg's character, as it's the first time that she sees someone who was not going to back down to abuse.  Her strong impression and gutsy nature make her fall, when she tells off the town's mayor when she asks Sofia to be her maid, all the more terrifying and mind-numbing.  It's impossible not to look at this performance in hindsight without the lens of Winfrey's celebrity, which adds to an already attention-grabbing role, but even if Winfrey had only made this film, it's difficult to think that our draw to this character would be reduced in any way.

Spielberg, who would go on to make a whole host of "serious" films, has a lot of his traditional touches in the film-the soaring melody, though not by John Williams (one of only two films they didn't do together, and the only film Spielberg solely directed that they didn't do together), is a cornerstone to the picture, and we get lots of wide shots of color and light.  The characters, like Spielberg is want to do, are drawn rather distinctively into "all-good" and "all-evil" for most of the films, but it lends itself strongly to the story.  I'm sure the book did this as well, but the ending falls into Spielberg's traps of sentimentality, with everyone getting a happy ending, which is great for the characters who have been through so much, but probably not nearly as realistic as the story should be.  And, just to clarify, these are small quibbles, and small quibbles around Spielberg, whom I adore (I've seen all but five of his pictures).  I just tend to like grownup Spielberg and love the Spielberg who deals with the worlds of adventure and "bumps in the night."

The film's eleven Oscars stunningly produced no wins, and while I've finished none of the categories, I can say there are a couple I'm leaning toward giving it.  The costumes, art direction, and cinematography are all strong, but can't quite compete with Out of Africa, and even moreso, Ran.  I'd probably say the same for the Best Picture trophy (sorry Steven) and the Best Writing.  Additionally, Quincy Jones score is memorable, but that "I had a farm in Africa" opening strings from John Barry haunts my dreams and still recalls that train, though I may give some consolation in the original song-I've seen none of its competitors yet, but its strong role within the context of the film and bluesy wail continues to vibrate long after Avery's done lip-synching.  Winfrey's makeup and in particular her hair is stunningly realistic as she ages in the film, but nothing can compare with Eric Stoltz in Mask.

No, where I think I'd most likely hand the statues would be in Best Actress and Supporting Actress.  Though I'm missing 5 performances in these categories (that of Anne Bancroft, Jessica Lange, Anjelica Huston, Amy Madigan, and Meg Tilly), Goldberg and Winfrey give 5-star performances that tower above the competition that I have seen.  I know that Huston in particular I'm looking forward to in the future (she did, of course, win the Oscar), but these two ladies start as strong frontrunners.

And now I'll turn it over to you-what are your thoughts on The Color Purple?  Do you feel that it deserved to win on any of its eleven nominations?  Who was best in show between Goldberg, Winfrey, and Avery?  And where does this rank amongst your personal list of favorite Spielberg films?