1981 Oscar Viewing Project

We are officially announcing our 30th completed Oscar Viewing Project.  As of yesterday, I have officially seen all of the narrative, feature-length nominees from the ceremony, and as we do here, we'll be ranking all of the major categories.  You'll note with this list that part of the reason that I got some of these completed was that 1981 is one of the most repetitive Oscars ever-all five of the Best Picture nominees got Best Director nominations, and they produced half of the acting nominations (in the pre-2009 era, this was a pretty high metric).  In terms of the box office, though, this is who led the field:

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. On Golden Pond

3. Superman II

4. Arthur

5. Stripes

6. The Cannonball Run

7. Chariots of Fire

8. For Your Eyes Only

9. The Four Seasons

10. Time Bandits

Of these, I have seen only five of the top box office draws of the year.  The 1980's, especially the early 1980's, were still in the era where box office and Oscar's tastes were pretty much synonymous, so this is a relatively light list for Oscar nominees (as the only five films that I've seen are the five that are listed below).  I will for sure see Superman II & The Four Seasons before I complete the year for the My Ballot (where I pick the nominees...hopefully should complete that here by early June, though we'll do the 1957 My Ballot next)...the remainder are more of a question mark (make your cases for them in the comments).  If you're new here, also, look at the bottom of the page for links to all of our past 29 OVP's.

With that said, it's time to start impressing Jodie Foster, firing up your IBM computer, & wanting your MTV.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

(Note: Raiders of the Lost Ark received a Best Sound Editing Oscar at the ceremony as a special prize.  Given its nominations in other categories, I obviously saw this film, but wanted to make sure to note it-when we get to the My Ballot in the next two months for 1981, I will have this be a competitive race)

Note from John: When I did this series during the time when I wrote individual articles, and had this blog be a daily part of my life, I made a point of highlighting each nominee in my many write-ups.  While I will be writing these every time I complete a year (we'll have at least one OVP and/or My Ballot every month going forward), I can't make that time commitment, either in terms of number of articles or in terms of giving each nominee their due with a mention.  I promise, though, that I have given each nominee their due under the confines of the specific category while making my rankings (and of course I've seen every single nominated picture), including giving higher rankings to movies I didn't like if the craft was better than ones I did like (Oscar should consider that!).  Hopefully you enjoy the trimmed-down, but still devoted to the original concept version of the OVP we'll have going forward!

Picture

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. Reds

3. On Golden Pond

4. Chariots of Fire

5. Atlantic City

The Lowdown: This is, all things considered, one of the best Best Picture lineups that Oscar assembled during the 1980's, an era of moviemaking I generally find a bit underwhelming.  None of these movies is bad, but the two truly great ones of the lineup are Raiders and Reds, both from directors at the peak of their creative powers.  I'm going to favor Spielberg's Raiders.  It's less in Oscar's wheelhouse (but these are my choices for a reason), but I think that it is a tighter film, and defines the action-adventure genre.  Reds will be showing up again though (and as you'll see in the coming categories, is a movie I loved).

Director

1. Steven Spielberg (Raiders of the Lost Ark)

2. Warren Beatty (Reds)

3. Mark Rydell (On Golden Pond)

4. Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire)

5. Louis Malle (Atlantic City

The Lowdown: We're also going to give Spielberg his second OVP statue for Best Director, once again for a movie he didn't actually win for (can't stress enough how the links to the years we've covered are at the bottom of this page).  It's such a perfectly shot movie, giving us Harrison Ford's iconic archaeologist and a series of flawless adventure sequences.  Beatty's breathtaking too, though, particularly that effortlessly romantic scene at the train station.

Actor

1. Warren Beatty (Reds)

2. Henry Fonda (On Golden Pond)

3. Paul Newman (Absence of Malice)

4. Burt Lancaster (Atlantic City)

5. Dudley Moore (Arthur)

The Lowdown: Don't feel too bad for Beatty, though, as he's going to get a Best Actor statue for our OVP next.  The big fight here for me is between Beatty, whose John Reed is such an impassioned, imperfect example of a revolutionary (pun intended) man, bitter about his inability to be everything he dreamed (but still accomplishing true greatness).  Fonda is excellent in On Golden Pond, wrapping up a career that surely should've gotten an Oscar by then, but as a reminder we pick these winners in a vacuum, so it's possible that we're turning down Fonda's only shot at an OVP win from me, but objectively Beatty is stronger.

Actress

1. Diane Keaton (Reds)

2. Meryl Streep (The French Lieutenant's Woman)

3. Katharine Hepburn (On Golden Pond)

4. Marsha Mason (Only When I Laugh)

5. Susan Sarandon (Atlantic City)

The Lowdown: With the exception of Sarandon (who I think doesn't get Malle's tricky material) this is an underrated "all-timer" lineup, including the best thing I've seen (to date) from Marsha Mason.  For the win, though, it's between Streep and Keaton.  Streep's French Lieutenant's Woman has its detractors (including Streep herself), but I love what she does here, defining two women in similar fashions, both controlled by the same man.  There was a time I considered giving this to Streep (whom, it should be noted, has yet to win one of our OVP's or My Ballot's), but Keaton's sensational here, and giving the best dramatic performance of her career (don't you wish she'd do this instead of yet another spin on Annie Hall just once more?).

Supporting Actor

1. Jack Nicholson (Reds)

2. John Gielgud (Arthur)

3. Howard Rollins, Jr. (Ragtime)

4. Ian Holm (Chariots of Fire)

5. James Coco (Only When I Laugh)

The Lowdown: A lot of first-time OVP rendezvous this year with actors like Hepburn, Mason, Sarandon, Lancaster, & Newman, but it's hard not to think getting to talk about Jack for the first time is the biggest highlight of the bunch.  One of my all-time favorite actors, and you see why here.  His Eugene O'Neill is ruthless, him taking on the role of the "scorned lover" so deliciously ("you're a cheap gutter whore from Portland" being one of the most quotable lines he nails here).  Gielgud is delightful in Arthur and Rollins is the best part of Ragtime, but I am going to give this to Jack (who is definitely in the running to get the most total OVP and My Ballot acting statues before this is over).

Supporting Actress

1. Maureen Stapleton (Reds)

2. Melinda Dillon (Absence of Malice)

3. Elizabeth McGovern (Ragtime)

4. Jane Fonda (On Golden Pond)

5. Joan Hackett (Only When I Laugh)

The Lowdown: Yes, you're reading that right.  For the first (and perhaps only?) time, we are giving all four of the OVP acting statues to the same film, a movie that wasn't able to win Best Picture.  Unlike the other three acting categories, though, Stapleton doesn't have a lot of nearby options that would be respectable choices to beat her.  She nails this part, giving her Emma Goldman an electricity that makes you understand her importance in every scene she's in.  Dillon, McGovern, & Fonda all have their moments, and are roughly on-par (without Stapleton this would've been a more competitive field), but Stapleton being there makes it easy.

Adapted Screenplay

1. The French Lieutenant's Woman

2. On Golden Pond

3. Prince of the City

4. Pennies from Heaven

5. Ragtime

The Lowdown: A particularly weak lineup that isn't entirely Oscar's fault (virtually all of the best films of 1981 were original ideas, unimaginable today), for me it's a contest between the first two, as I thought the screenplays on the remaining pictures were a yawn.  I'm going to give it to The French Lieutenant's Woman, though.  While On Golden Pond had far more quotable lines ("you're my knight in shining armor..." being a classic speech), I think that it doesn't tread deeply enough in the relationship between real-life father-and-daughter Hank & Jane, and I was totally sold on the gimmick of The French Lieutenant's Woman being both a story within a story, something that wasn't in the John Fowles' novel.

Original Screenplay

1. Reds

2. Atlantic City

3. Chariots of Fire

4. Arthur

5. Absence of Malice

The Lowdown: On the flip side, while this isn't that great of a lineup, it at least has one terrific script in the bunch.  Reds is phenomenal, and rises above the cost of an epic (i.e. that the screenplay is regularly the weakest part of it) by giving us a genuine, enthralling love story between two people who can't seem to live without each other (even if they might have to).  Atlantic City has a lovely gimmick, and Chariots of Fire is moving (and Arthur, specifically the parts with Gielgud, can be funny), but none of them can compete with Reds, the one triumph in this field (that should've included Raiders of the Lost Ark).

Foreign Language Film

1. Mephisto (Hungary)

2. Muddy River (Japan)

3. The Boat is Full (Switzerland)

4. Man of Iron (Poland)

5. Three Brothers (Italy)

The Lowdown: One of those years where the Foreign Language Film (now the International Feature Film) category features movies that were only cited for this prize, and nowhere else, so this is your only chance to speak about any of the contenders.  The best of this bunch are Mephisto, a spin on the Faust concept (literally...the main character is an actor best known for playing the devil), and Muddy River, a moving look at friendship across income levels through the eyes of a child.  I'm going with Mephisto, because I think it's grander and has a better central performance from Klaus Marie Brandeur (it also won the Oscar), but Muddy River is not far off and really worth your time if you've never heard of it.

Original Score

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. Chariots of Fire

3. On Golden Pond

4. Ragtime

5. Dragonslayer

The Lowdown: Honestly, in a normal year this would be a slam dunk for something like On Golden Pond, a superb score that can barely muster a bronze here.  Raiders and Chariots are two of the most iconic film scores for a reason, and it's hard to argue with either of them (fun fact: I played "Hymne" by Vangelis for a piano recital when I was in middle school and still have the sheet music for it, even though I don't even have a piano).  I'm going to go with Raiders because I have more of an emotional connection to it, and because I think it's most consistent throughout the actual movie, but this is a coin toss race.

Original Song

1. "Endless Love" (Endless Love)

2. "For Your Eyes Only" (For Your Eyes Only)

3. "Arthur's Theme" (Arthur)

4. "The First Time It Happens" (The Great Muppet Caper)

5. "One More Hour" (Ragtime)

The Lowdown: If you look just at the movie titles here, I'm definitely not picking the best films of the bunch.  Bette Midler quite famously did a send-up of how bad the movies were in this lineup when she presented it (check it out if you haven't seen it...it was the funniest moment in an otherwise pretty tepid ceremony, comically speaking), and both of the Top 2 got the worst of it.  But I don't really connect with Christopher Cross, and I think "Endless Love" is both a moving little ballad, and one that fits the saccharine movie it's housing, just a bit better than the also good "For Your Eyes Only."  Had "Hey a Movie" gotten in from The Great Muppet Caper, we'd be having a reranking here as I always love the Muppets onscreen.

Sound

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. Reds

3. Pennies from Heaven

4. Outland

5. On Golden Pond

The Lowdown: We are once again pitting Raiders vs. Reds, and once again Raiders is coming out on top.  It's just hard to argue with the play on the Saturday morning adventure serial, but now in the mold of a giant movie blockbuster.  Reds is subtler with its sound work, and would make a fine win as well...particularly the crowd scenes feel authentic, melded with the music, but still have a grand aura.  Pennies from Heaven, the token musical that always shows up for Sound...is fine.

Art Direction

1. Heaven's Gate

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark

3. Reds

4. The French Lieutenant's Woman

5. Ragtime

The Lowdown: The best lineup of the bunch, there is not a single bad nominee in this group, and any of them would work as a winner.  I loved the shifts in time being played with in French Lieutenant's Woman, the over-abundance of sets in Ragtime (you understand why this became a musical), the book-laden interiors of Reds, and the continental jumping of Raiders.  But if I have to pick a winner, it needs to be Heaven's Gate, a really grand movie that was (at the time) one of the most famous flops ever made, but it looks spectacular, and I love the shifting stages & devotion to the western on display.

Cinematography

1. Reds

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark

3. Excalibur

4. On Golden Pond

5. Ragtime

The Lowdown: For the first (and only) time in this article, you will see me ever so slightly favor Reds over Raiders.  Despite loving them both, this is the only Oscar contest that I feel Beatty's film exceeds.  I love the camerawork in Raiders (that rolling boulder...come on now, it's iconic for a reason), but I can't help but feel that the use of temperature (you can practically feel the warmth & cold emanating off of the screen in Reds), plus the famous train scene, are impossible to deny.  Kudos also to Excalibur, which has the feel of a shoe-string budget but still gives us glorious looks at Nicol Williamson & Helen Mirren in their entrancing witchiness.

Costume

1. Reds

2. The French Lieutenant's Woman

3. Ragtime

4. Pennies from Heaven

5. Chariots of Fire

The Lowdown: With Indy's fedora left off the dais, it's a contest between the period work of Reds and the period work of The French Lieutenant's Woman (don't look at me like that-I have at least one contemporary film on the list currently for the My Ballot...it's Oscar that never goes there).  Of the two, I go with Reds because I think it is more consistent overall.  There's more care put into French Lieutenant's when it comes to the period stuff than the modern scenes, and Ragtime behind it doesn't break the mold in the way that the of-the-people looks in Reds achieve.

Film Editing

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. Reds

3. The French Lieutenant's Woman

4. Chariots of Fire

5. On Golden Pond

The Lowdown: Again, another Raiders & Reds contest (our final one), with everyone else just getting the scraps.  I think the editing exhibits why these two tower above.  Raiders is fast-paced, effortlessly so in a way that makes every scene feel timeless (which, after nearly 45 years of existence, it really is), while Reds gets a slow-burn, us investing continually as the movie finds its own romance.  The timelessness wins it for Raiders, though (kudos also to French Lieuentant's for working so well with the time jumps).

Makeup

1. An American Werewolf in London

2. Heartbeeps

The Lowdown: We have a pair of two-wide races to complete this year's Oscar's, starting with Makeup (for the record, both of these categories I'll go five-wide when I pick my personal choices).  This was the first year of the Best Makeup category, and they did something that would become commonplace at the Oscars: nominating Rick Baker (the maestro behind An American in Werewolf) and giving the title of "Oscar-nominated" to a truly heinous movie.  There are few films as bad as Heartbeeps, but what's worse is the makeup in it is bizarrely lazy, particularly when you had much better options nominated in 1981 (it's just Bernadette Peters & Andy Kaufman covered in a plastic sheen).  Conversely, An American Werewolf is one of the best achievements of Rick Baker's career, so an easy call for him to take this.

Visual Effects

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark

2. Dragonslayer

The Lowdown: A second category that is only two-wide, we have two films competing against each other in another lopsided victory where I definitely go with Oscar's choice.  At this point, anything George Lucas or Steven Spielberg were creating was foundational to the future of blockbuster cinema, and Raiders is a genius use of practical and special effects, particularly the face-melting scene when they open the Ark.  Dragonslayer, though, unlike Heartbeeps is a genuinely quality product and earned this spot (and will likely make my My Ballot as well for its great use of the imposing dragon in the picture).

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

Brute Force (1947)

Film: Brute Force (1947)

Stars: Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne de Carlo, Ann Blyth, Anita Colby

Director: Jules Dassin

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

While one theme of the titles of this year's Film Noir Month is focused on "finishing off filmographies" as we watch movies from actors and directors that I've seen almost all of their film noir pictures (or we're getting much deeper cuts than usual), there are still both important directors that I have seen very few of their movies, as well as actual film noir classics that I've never gotten around to.  Of our English-language titles this year, no film stands out more as an "I can't believe you haven't seen that yet" title than Brute Force, a 1947 drama that generally is considered a standout in the genre.  It's also made by Jules Dassin, who made a number of well-considered film noir movies during this time frame, and I had, before catching Brute Force, only seen one of his pictures (1950's Night and the City).  Dassin grew up in the New York Theater world before moving to Hollywood, getting jobs as a director-for-hire working on projects starring Joan Crawford and Charles Laughton, before in the late 1940's starting to make genuinely good movies like Brute Force.  He was blacklisted in the 1950's, and spent much of the decade making films in Europe, including the two movies he's best-known for today: Rififi and Never on Sunday, the latter of which won him Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay.

(Spoilers Ahead) We will be watching two films from Jules Dassin this month, both noirs made prior to him getting blacklisted, and we're starting, as I said, with Brute Force, which was a vehicle for Burt Lancaster, who at the time was regularly appearing in film noir movies.  This is about a prison break, where Lancaster is portraying Joe Collins, a man stuck in jail as his wife Ruth (Blyth) is dying from a cancer that she won't treat with surgery unless Joe is by her side.  Given that he'll never escape the sadistic Captain Munsey (Cronyn), he coordinates with some of his fellow inmates in the prison to escape, and in the process, they all share what caused them to be in jail, in many cases either wrongful convictions or being born "on the wrong side of the tracks."  The film ends with a bit of a twist for 1947.  The men do get to escape, or at least they come close, but in the process Munsey kills many of them, going mad with power, and in a fight both he and Joe die.  The movie doesn't end there though, but with a soliloquy from character actor Art Smith playing the prison doctor, breaking the fourth wall and talking about the damage of a prison industrial complex where "no one gets out."

I'll be honest-it kind of makes sense that Brute Force is made by an alleged Communist because it's very liberal with its politics.  The movie's attacks on the prison system in America, and the way that it profits off of what is basically slave labor, is really ahead of its time.  Most of Brute Force, in fact, is ahead of its time.  The way that the production design (absolutely wonderfully cavernous prison recreation) feels like we're stuck in this world as an audience (our only looks outside of it come in the memories the men have), and is detailed and rich, and I loved the ending, with it giving us a lot more sour than I was anticipating for a movie about a decent (if embittered) man trying to get home to his dying wife.

The only thing that doesn't work for me is Lancaster.  I have said this many times on this blog before, but Burt Lancaster is not my favorite, and I think that while he doesn't get in the way of the story, he doesn't add enough either-a better actor would've made the main character a bit more two-dimensional.  But there is a fine piece of acting in the movie, and that's Hume Cronyn.  He plays this part ruthlessly, and perhaps crucially, very, very gay.  It's 1947 so the Hayes Code isn't going to allow him to say this, but it's obvious that he is sexually obsessed with controlling Lancaster's sweaty, shirtless Joe, and is using his power as a proxy for getting to well, fuck him.  You think that's me just reading into the movie, but watch it-it's very obviously there, and Cronyn's increasing insanity at not being able to achieve his desires is what makes the ending work.  Really good stuff, and it makes me excited for our next Dassin picture, which we'll get to in a few days.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Born to Kill, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Cry Wolf, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Stranger on the Third Floor, They Drive By Night, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, Julie, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Lightning Strikes Twice, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Late Show, The Long Goodbye, Lost Highway, Night Moves, Nightcrawler, Le Samourai

Vera Cruz (1954)

Film: Vera Cruz (1954)

Stars: Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, Denise Darcel, Cesar Romero, Sara Montiel

Director: Robert Aldrich

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 Gary Cooper: click here to learn more about Mr. Cooper (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

I promised last week that I would talk this week about the personal relationships of Gary Cooper's life.  Cooper's personal life at this point has taken on a persona of its own.  Before his marriage in 1933 to actress Veronica Balfe (whom he would remain married to until his death in 1961), Cooper famously bedded half of Hollywood, including (allegedly) actresses Clara Bow, Carole Lombard, Marlene Dietrich, and most critically, actress Lupe Velez.  Velez, who at one point was the rare Latina leading lady of the Classical Hollywood Era, who killed herself after her career waned and she became pregnant while unmarried, is the source of the infamous (and cruel) urban legend that she died vomiting on a toilet.  In the decades since, there have been rumors that a rekindled romance with Cooper was the source of the baby, and his refusal to leave his wife & marry the devoutly Catholic Velez (who refused to get an abortion) was the reason that she killed herself.  Weirdly Velez isn't the only woman who has had her suicide associated with Cooper-costume designer Irene killed herself a year after Cooper's death, purportedly out of grief as the two had been having an affair.

A more substantiated Hollywood legend, and one that is associated bleakly with Cooper's memory, is his relationship with actress Patricia Neal.  While Cooper had (alleged) affairs throughout his marriage with actresses ranging from Ingrid Bergman to Grace Kelly, Neal publicly discussed the relationship, including the abortion that Cooper pressured her to have, and which she would later deeply regret, becoming an ardent supporter of the "Pro-Life" movement.  Another rumor about Cooper's personal life was that he was secretly bisexual, and his connection with actor Anderson Lawler, who was gay, is the name most frequently associated with these rumors.

(Spoilers Ahead) All of this is far more interesting than the movie we're discussing today, the 1954 western Vera Cruz, which happened in the wake of Cooper's second Oscar win for the western classic High Noon.  That film largely serves as a bookend to the success that the actor had had for 20+ years to that date, and also moved him into an era of diminishing returns as a star.  Vera Cruz is emblematic of the types of roles he would take during this time frame, frequently playing an older man competing with a younger figure or trying to rely upon his long-time reputation for "one last ride."  Here he is Ben Trane, who joins forces with the wily young gunslinger Joe Erin (Lancaster) to escort a countess (Darcel) to the city of Veracruz, Mexico, but along the way they realize they're also transporting $3 million in gold.  The film then proceeds to comic lengths to show how Joe & Ben will go about trying to backstab each other, with the more noble Ben winning out of the two.

The movie doesn't work for a couple of reasons.  For one, it's supposed to be funny, but it doesn't have enough jokes.  It's clear this was an early predecessor to the Spaghetti westerns of the late 1960's (which is one of my favorite eras in Hollywood, which made my antipathy toward this film disappointing), but it doesn't have the melodrama & stakes of those films.  Lancaster & Cooper also don't work together.  Neither of these two are actors I love, but together they don't balance at all-Lancaster has a tendency to overact in movies like this, while Cooper was usually dry, and needed costars who would let that shine through.  Together, Lancaster totally overpowers Cooper to the point where it feels like he's not in the movie, which is a problem since he's the hero.  Pairing Lancaster with someone with more charisma (like Clark Gable) or Cooper with someone more introspective (like Montgomery Clift) would've been better...or you could just watch Gable & Clift in The Misfits, a much better movie.

OVP: Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Film: Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey

Director: Anatole Litvak

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Actress-Barbara Stanwyck)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Barbara Stanwyck: click here to learn more about Ms. Stanwyck (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Barbara Stanwyck is arguably the greatest actress of Classical Hollywood to never win a competitive Academy Award.  Stanwyck would win an Honorary Oscar in 1982, giving a memorable speech paying tribute to William Holden (if you want to ever feel really angry about why we should have the Governor's Awards on with the primetime broadcast, go watch her speech and try not to cry).  But the actress never won a competitive award, despite repeated attempts.  Arguably the closest she got was 1944's Double Indemnity, where she would've won under normal circumstances but Ingrid Bergman's turn in Gaslight a year after she lost a close race to Jennifer Jones was too hard to best.  Today we're going to take a look at the last of Stanwyck's four Oscar nominations, arguably for the film least-remembered of those for which she was cited, the late 40's noir Sorry, Wrong Number.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film principally takes place through flashback (at one point there's literally a flashback within flashback!), and is about Leona Stevenson (Stanwyck), a spoiled, bitter socialite who is prone to bouts of sickness, especially whenever her husband Henry (Lancaster) is trying to do something she doesn't want him to do.  We find out through the flashbacks that Leona married Henry against her father's wishes, and in trying to prove himself more than a trophy boy, Henry has gotten involved in an illegal drug trafficking business, and the only way to pay down his debt is essentially to trade on his wife's life insurance policy.  A hit is put out on Leona, but before it's executed, the man Henry owes the money to is arrested, seemingly ending the debt.  However, Henry cannot get to Leona in time...the final moments of the movie are of her, her hypochondria so crippling she can't call out for help, being murdered while Henry desperately tries to stop the murder on the phone.  The film's last line is the killer proclaiming "sorry, wrong number" as Henry realizes he's too late, and his wife is dead.

The ending is really what makes Sorry, Wrong Number.  The rest of the movie is too much-the flashbacks are overwhelming, the Hays Code makes the storyline about Henry's involvement with drug traffickers confusing (which I'm honestly surprised got included at all given the sensitivities at the time), and Stanwyck is bedridden for much of the performance, acting against herself to mixed returns.  But the ending works really well.  You don't expect it-even though both Lancaster & Stanwyck are terrible people, they're also two of the biggest stars of the era-it's rare that you witness a movie where one of them dies onscreen.  The finale honestly gets me the thumbs up-it wasn't headed that direction otherwise, so I'l go with 3-stars.

In terms of if Stanwyck deserved to win the Oscar, I'll let you know in a performance or two.  This is the least of Stanwyck's Oscar-nominated roles, both in terms of films & performance, but she is good in it.  It's lacking some of the killer verve you expect from Stanwyck, who generally played an actress totally in control of her surroundings.  That said, 1948 is both a brilliant year for movies (possibly my favorite year of the 1940's, give or take 1944) and one where Oscar largely botched its lineup.  I still haven't seen Irene Dunne or Olivia de Havilland from that lineup (the latter generally considered by my friends-in-the-know to be the best of these five performances), but against Wyman & Bergman...yeah, Stanwyck's currently in the lead.

Criss Cross (1949)

Film: Criss Cross (1949)

Stars: Burt Lancaster, Yvonne de Carlo, Dan Duryea

Director: Robert Siodmak

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Throughout the month of June, in honor of the 10th Anniversary of The Many Rantings of John, we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

One of the unique things, and perhaps one of the reasons I'm so drawn to the genre, about film noir is that I generally like the mainstay actors involved.  This isn't the case for westerns, which is my other favorite genre of the 1940's & 50's.  I would rarely name-check actors like John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Gene Autry, & Roy Rogers as amongst my favorites, but with noir you get Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart...these are actors that I love.  But every exception has a rule, and one of the big ones for me is Burt Lancaster.  Lancaster has his fans, and he certainly can find a role or two where his appeal is obvious (Sweet Smell of Success being the one where even I am giving the thumbs up), but he isn't for me & he is in a lot of noted film noirs.  He's too bombastic, too over-the-top, and rarely matches the tone of his picture.  This is clear in Criss Cross, a classic film largely due to its unusually-filmed ending, but one that gets lost far before that ingenuity will pay off.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is strangely-structured, not because it is told in flashback (this is a common trope of film noir), but because it is paced oddly when it gets to the flashback.  We see maybe 10-15 minutes of the present day, then go back to the original story of how Steve Thompson (Lancaster), a hood who was madly in love with a woman named Anna (de Carlo) ended up losing her to his rival Slim Dundee (Duryea), a ruthless criminal whom we see him fighting with in the film's opening scenes.  The two team up on a robbery, but it is bungled badly when Slim double-crosses him and leaves Steve clearly carrying the bag for the crime.  The film's final third is Steve seeking out Anna, wanting to run away with her after he escapes from the hospital that he's in (and it's clear he's about to be jailed).  But it's Anna who is actually doing the titular "criss cross," deciding to run away without the injured Steve and using the money to start her own life free of both men.  Before she can do this, though, Slim comes in and kills them both, with Thompson holding the woman he loved as they both perish...knowing she never truly loved him the way he loved her.

The plot sounds good, right?  Revenge, lust, betrayal...all the cornerstones of a great film noir.  But it doesn't work that way in practice.  The flashbacks last too long, and are honestly a bit confusing.  I get the point of Anna not really loving any man (she is more in it for self-preservation), but they telegraph that poorly, making it seem just that Anna is confused.  De Carlo, who would eventually be famous for her work on The Munsters and in the original cast of Follies (she was the original vocalist for the Sondheim classic "I'm Still Here,") was at this point best known for her scandalous performance in the film Salome.  A great beauty, she was not a particularly good actress in her youth, and it shows in the way she can't handle this part, frequently making it seem like she's "trying again" on Anna every time she is in a new scene...Ava Gardner or Lana Turner would've been better.

But it's not de Carlo who is totally to blame here.  Lancaster is scenery-chewing in every corner of the screen, and Duryea (who is the best actor of the three, and always a welcome addition), isn't in enough of the movie to lift from the sidelines.  The movie isn't all bad-I loved the cinematography, which feels amateurish in the best way as the characters are almost begging the audience in a fourth-wall break they're so often looking at the camera-but this should've been better given its reputation & solid story idea.

Previous Films in the Series: Murder My Sweet, The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, The Killers, The Big Sleep, Daisy Kenyon, Nightmare Alley, Ride the Pink Horse, The Woman on the Beach, Brighton Rock, Night and the City, They Live By Night, Gun Crazy, In a Lonely Place, Sweet Smell of Success, The Big Heat, Pickup on South Street, The Killing, The Long Goodbye, Body Heat

Trapeze (1956)

Film: Trapeze (1956)
Stars: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Gina Lollobrigida, Kay Jurado, Thomas Gomez
Director: Carol Reed
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Gina Lollobrigida-click here to learn more about Ms. Lollobrigida (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

One of the reasons that Sophia Loren translated a few years after Gina Lollobrigida in a way that the latter never did (though she enjoyed immense international stardom) might have had something to do with Howard Hughes, and it would be irresponsible to not at least mention Lollobrigida's complicated relationship with Hughes in one of these articles so we're going to do that today.  Hughes met Lollobrigida early in her career, and despite her being married, tried (unsuccessfully) to sleep with her.  Hughes did, however, successfully get Lollobrigida into a contract, that he maintained for seven years, from the early 1950's until 1959, which made it impossible for Lollobrigida to make films in the United States during that time frame unless Hughes approved (which he never did-Hughes was famous for signing actresses to contracts and then never having projects for them).  As a result, all of Lollobrigida's major English-language successes that decade had to be filmed in Europe, rather than Loren, who was able to make movies like Houseboat domestically.  Despite this limitation, Lollobrigida did have some big hits during the heyday of her career, and one of the highest-flying (pun intended) was the United Artists smash Trapeze, filmed in Paris.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place at a circus, where Mike Ribble (Lancaster) once was the main attraction, able to execute a triple somersault mid-air.  Ribble, however, injured and nearly killed himself doing this, and hasn't been doing trapeze since because he's now unable to be the main attraction rather than the "tosser."  A brash young newcomer with real talent, Tino Orsini (Curtis) comes trying to learn from Ribble, and while Ribble doesn't want to teach him, he sees Orsini's talent and reluctantly accepts.  While they are making strong progress, they are interrupted by a beautiful woman who wants stardom, and sees an opportunity to get it, Lola (Lollobrigida), who is obviously in love with Ribble, but knows that she must romance Orsini to get into the act as Ribble sees through her seduction.  As the film progresses, the two men are at odds, as neither wants to give in with Lola, as it's clear Ribble's initial ability to seduce Lola has turned into love on his side as well.  In the end, the two men are able to execute the triple, but not maintain the partnership as Orsini becomes a star, and Ribble goes back into retirement, likely to romance the other woman who has been pining for him from the start, Katy Jurado's Rosa.

The movie's lack of Oscar nominations kind of confuses me.  This isn't a great movie, but it's not a bad one, and it made a fortune for United Artists, so you'd think there would have been at least some push to get it nominated for the one asset it clearly has a full deck on-the cinematography.  Robert Krasker had won an Oscar just a few years earlier for working with Carol Reed on the masterpiece The Third Man, and here shows that his technical skill didn't diminish in color.  The movie is beautifully shot, with great aerial swings from Lancaster (a former circus performer) and the stunt team, and Lollobrigida looks hauntingly beautiful in scenes where you can just see her magnetic eyes flashing at the camera.  It's the biggest triumph of the film, which like I said is a solid movie, but one that falls into repetitive trappings with the love story.

As for Lollobrigida, she's good but the script doesn't entirely know what to do with her.  This may be because the book that it's adapted from has a very dark ending, and one that wouldn't have been suitable for 1956, though it'd be intriguing now (essentially we find that Ribble was in love with Orsini, and murdered the Lola character in hopes of being with him, but the plan backfires when Orsini is executed for the crime instead).  As a result, we don't always know when Lola is acting, as the only time she seems to be telling the truth is to Thomas Gomez's circus owner, and their scenes aren't plentiful in the back-half of the movie.  As a result, what could have been a truly intriguing ending, with Ribble getting his chance at glory (even if it's given to someone else) gets confused by an over-complicated love triangle.

OVP: Separate Tables (1958)

Film: Separate Tables (1958)
Stars: Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Burt Lancaster, Wendy Hiller, Gladys Cooper, Rod Taylor
Director: Delbert Mann
Oscar History: 7 nominations/2 wins (Best Picture, Actor-David Niven*, Actress-Deborah Kerr, Supporting Actress-Wendy Hiller*, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Score)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Rita Hayworth-click here to learn more about Ms. Hayworth (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Rita Hayworth's final years in show business were the stuff of nightmares for her personally.  She continued to act well into her forties, a time period many other actresses known principally for their beauty might have disappeared (it helped that Hayworth always looked younger than she actually was onscreen).  Her marriages during the 1950's were terrible even judging on her own crumby scale, with actor Dick Haymes squandering her money on his own debts, and producer James Hill, her final husband, emotionally abusing her, frequently in front of crowds, until she was to the point of tears (Charlton Heston once claimed that he was "ashamed" of not slugging Hill for how he treated Hayworth in front of him).  During this time, though, she made perhaps the last great film of her career, Separate Tables, that put her front-and-center with acting titans like Burt Lancaster & Deborah Kerr.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is an ensemble piece, the type that occasionally comes back en vogue and is favored by certain modern directors (Robert Altman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Garry Marshall).  The entire film takes place over a 24-hour period at a hotel, and the film gains its name from the fact that the residents sit at "separate tables" when they eat meals.  There are two driving catalysts in the film.  The first is a beautiful woman Anne (Hayworth) showing up late in the evening looking for a room, with clear links to John Malcolm (Lancaster) (it turns out they used to be married and are still very much in love, though they also haven't forgiven each other for the past), who is having an affair with the hotel's proprietress Ms. Cooper (Hiller).  The second is that the rather bombastic Major Pollock (Niven) has been involved in a scandal, indicating that he lied about his war record, and more damning, had sexual improprieties with women at a local theater.  Mrs. Railton-Bell (Cooper) insists that they drive Major Pollock out, bullying the other residents into agreeing with her, including her daughter Sibyl (Kerr) who has a fondness for Major Pollock.  The film ends with these stories being tied up.  Despite his offenses, the people want to keep a repentant Major Pollock on at the hotel, Sibyl stands up to her mother, and Anne & John tentatively reunite, with Ms. Cooper left to have the hotel and its guests be her insurance against not being lonely as she creeps into old age.

The film in a lot of ways reminds me of Grand Hotel more than the melodramas of the 1950's (think the Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams plays that dominated cultural discussions during the era).  The film lives-or-dies not just on our investment in the drama of the picture, but in the acting onscreen, and both are marvelous.  The film probably would have gained a wee bit from the original stage production, which gave more background to the Sibyl/Major relationship (this was also in the original script, but producer Burt Lancaster wanted more screen-time for his character, a decision that Delbert Mann claimed "cost Deborah Kerr the Oscar"); it also makes more sense if the Major is homosexual, which is what the original stage script insinuated.

However, these are small trifles to have with a movie this good.  The acting is terrific.  The film was nominated for three acting trophies, and at least the winners richly deserved these citations.  Hiller finds a sort of quiet steel in her character.  She never gets a great big scene where she confesses her loneliness & how she's certain that if she does the "right thing" by Anne, she'll likely lose her own happiness, possibly forever, but it's there in her tense posture and pleading eyes.  She wants John to stay with her, but knows that he'll never forgive her if he doesn't make the decision to leave Anne on his own, and so she must watch as he retreats to a woman whose beauty and advantage are things she's never been given.  Matching her is David Niven, giving arguably the shortest film performance ever to win a lead Oscar (different sites argue whether it's him or Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs).  He plays the Major as a man bereft of emotional connection, someone who has struggled to be taken seriously so he has invented reasons to do so.  His scenes with Kerr are odd (again, there needs more grounding here or for him to be gay to properly define their friendship as platonic or romantic), and Kerr occasionally overplays them, but I don't think I've seen Niven be this good before, and with a drama of all things!

As for Hayworth, she's spellbinding per usual.  Kerr won the Best Actress nod, but if they were going to go with someone from this film for that category it should have been Hayworth who gets the more difficult part and the more humiliating scenes.  She has to basically watch as John shoves her 40-year-old face under a lamp, showing the starts of aging on a woman who has demanded (and received) everything due to her looks for years, and the final scenes, where it's clear she's looking at either forgiveness or suicide as her options, are devastating, as is the ambiguity of what happens next for the couple.  While she'd make a few more pictures, including a Golden Globe-nominated turn in Circus World, and work in television shows like Laugh-In and The Carol Burnett Show, this was the last important film of her career, and once again, she went home empty-handed from the Academy.  By the 1970's, her alcoholism and years of emotional abuse were masking what would ultimately kill her: Alzheimer's Disease, of which she would die at the age of 68 in 1987.

Next month we will take a look at a woman who rivaled Hayworth's stardom for almost the entire run of both of their careers, and whose personal life & seismic beauty demanded far more headlines than her films ever did, but who (unlike Hayworth) the Oscars found room for just once...in what would lead to one of the most notorious chapters in the Academy's history.  Stay tuned to find out to whom I'm referring on Friday as we kick off another month of Saturdays with the Stars.

OVP: Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)

Film: Come Back, Little Sheba (1952)
Stars: Burt Lancaster, Shirley Booth, Terry Moore, Richard Jaeckel
Director: Daniel Mann
Oscar History: 3 nominations/1 win (Best Actress-Shirley Booth*, Supporting Actress-Terry Moore, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Because of the advent of "method" acting in the early 1950's, it's sometimes hard to judge performances.  We take this advantage today when "realism" is valued above else, and it's easy to judge films from the 1930's and 40's, when a star persona needed to always be cultivated, but the early 1950's were when those two styles merged, and as a result, you occasionally get something like Come Back, Little Sheba.  The film, with a weird title that premiered in 1952, starred Shirley Booth, a stage actress who was making her film debut.  Unlike a lot of stage performers of the era (think Jessica Tandy or Mary Martin), this role, which was a smash on Broadway, was not filled with a film actress with more cache above-the-title (a Bette Davis or Kate Hepburn, perhaps), but instead Booth was able to translate the role onto film.  This leaves us with an actress who was doing her film debut, in a movie that largely becomes a staged play, including the theatricality that comes with it.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about the troubled marriage of Lola (Booth) and Doc (Lancaster), a childless couple who are celebrating one year of Doc being sober.  Lola longs for her dog Little Sheba, who ran away months earlier, and still looks for him even though there's no indication that he's still alive (he shows up in her dreams).  They take on a pretty young tenant, Marie (Moore), whom they treat like a surrogate daughter even though she views them more as simply two older adults to be amused by.  She's juggling a long-distance boyfriend and an infatuation with a hot local athlete named Turk (Jaeckel), who desperately wants to have sex with her.  As the film goes, it's clear that Lola is miserable, and has internalized years of Doc's abusive alcoholism to a point where she sees no value in herself.  She had married him as a teenager because she was pregnant (but lost the baby through what appeared to be a miscarriage, though of course they never say the word), and had once been young-and-beautiful like Marie, desired by men; there's a strong indication that Doc doesn't think that the baby was even his, but he married Lola anyway.  The film's climax occurs when Doc decides to go back to drinking, and threatens Lola with her life.  Afterward, he apologizes, and Lola admits that she's given up on Little Sheba coming back, and the two decide to be enough for each other.

A lot of your opinion of the film is going to rely upon your interpretation of the ending.  For much of the film, Lancaster's character has been obsessed with Marie.  Initially you kind of assume it's a sexual frustration-that he wants to have sex with this pretty young woman, but as the film progresses you learn that's not it.  Instead, Lancaster is pining for his own lost youth, the lost opportunities that he missed when he married the "pretty young girl" because he had to, giving up his opportunity to be a medical doctor (he's a chiropractor), and have children & a family.  Instead, he has a dependency on alcohol and a wife whom he sees as a joke, and someone that he can put all of his blame on.

Which makes the ending kind of harrowing if you don't look at it as an ending, but as the middle.  Hollywood wants you to believe that Lola & Doc live happily ever after, that with Marie moved out of their house, Doc won't be sexually frustrated and constantly regretful, but that's not really how it reads to a modern audience.  We know that Doc hasn't really addressed his anger and drug problems, and that Lola will continue to bear the brunt of it the next time he slips.  Instead, how it reads is that Lola is the one whose safety net has left.  She no longer has the potential respite of Little Sheba, someone who loves her unconditionally, and after talking to her mother, she realizes she can't go home.  There's a harrowing scene toward the end where, before she takes Doc back, she calls her mother seeing if she can move home, but her father, still betrayed by the pregnancy that Lola had as a youth out of wedlock, won't take her back.  Lola realizes that her only choices are taking her chances with Doc, or risk entering an unknown future, and unknowns have not been good to Lola.  If you take Come Back, Little Sheba by its surface-level finish, it's kind of a disappointment after posing interesting questions.  If you assume that this is the terrifying calm-of-the-storm, it has a more meaningful and darker ending, which is how I interpret it.

The film was nominated for three Oscars, and this is where I get back to the "acting styles" conversation from the beginning of this review.  I personally adored Shirley Booth in this role.  There are times this part might be over-played, and her stage roots show, but she inhabits Lola so fully and completely, especially in ensuring we have the opportunity for a "double meaning" in the ending, that it's easy to forgive.  She makes this woman feel authentic, even if she's the sort of well-meaning person you might avoid at the supermarket because she talks too much.  Moore's nomination is a bit more perplexing.  She has one good scene where her constant flirtation with Turk comes to a head, and Marie stops playing a part and we get to see the true frightened girl under the bravado, and I liked the way she seemed to have a different persona depending on who was in the room, confident in her beauty & youth winning over any situation, but it's not a particularly impressive piece of work.  The script calls for her simply to be pretty, which she is, but only the aforementioned moments feel like she's rising above the script.  The editing being cited is unusual-it's not a "Best Picture demands to be included" sort of nomination that you'd expect, and there's nothing particularly noteworthy here in the editing-it's basically a filmed play-so I'm not sure why it is we're seeing this nominated other than perhaps the final fight scene?  Either way, this is a worthwhile and curious little movie that I'm glad I finally caught.

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Film: Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Stars: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner, Barbara Nichols
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Throughout the Month of June, as a birthday present to myself, we'll be profiling 15 famous film noir movies I've never seen (my favorite film genre).  Look at the bottom of this review for some of the other movies we've profiled.

We've now made it through over a dozen film noir movies in our series, and so you might be wondering what new things the genre can possibly say as we wind down the month, just three pictures left.  By 1957, the genre and its trope had been utilized over-and-over again, and considering the box office of a movie like Sweet Smell of Success, audiences of the era were tired as well.  Despite boasting two major stars of the 1950's (Curtis & Lancaster), the film was a box office flop at the time, with people hating the unusual dialogue and having Curtis play a scuzzball.  Critical reception has been kinder, and Sweet Smell of Success now regularly shows up on "greatest films of all-time" lists, even being preserved by the National Film Registry.  Why is this movie so revered after so many years of noir-what new things did it do that disgusted audiences but enthused critics?

(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses on Sidney Falco (Curtis), a sleazy press agent who has a struggling business since he can't get his clients mentioned in JJ Hunsucker's (Lancaster, doing a sendup of Walter Winchell) column.  Hunsucker makes him a deal that he'll be back in his good graces if he can get Hunsucker's kid sister Susan (Harrison) to breakup with her musician boyfriend Steve Dallas (Milner).  Sidney eventually pits a fight between Susan and Steve, using a rival columnist to smear Steve, but in the process Steve insults Hunsucker and the columnist thus wants Steve destroyed even though Susan picked her brother over her lover.  Sidney objects to Hunsucker's plan to get Steve arrested for marijuana possession, but Hunsucker offers to give Sidney unfettered access to his column (making Sidney rich) and he relents.  He gets the marijuana planted on Steve, but in the process is set up by Susan, who for a while after attempting suicide lets her brother beat up Sidney (Hunsucker thinks that Sidney was trying to put the moves on Susan), before relenting and admitting that she's going to leave her brother behind forever, seeing what a man he is after Sidney tells him that Hunsucker was the one who tried to frame Steve.  The movie ends with Hunsucker setting up Sidney for a fall, his corrupt cop arresting him, but the only person he ever cared about, Susan, walks out of his life forever.

The movie is mean, and deeply sordid.  Curtis struggles with the role on occasion, his tendency to overact coming in full swing toward the second half of the film, but there are moments where he totally understands his character.  You see just how morally bankrupt he is as Sidney during a scene with Barbara Nichols playing Rita, a cigarette girl who clearly has had some romantic inclinations with Curtis in the past.  In order to get the rival columnist to plant the information about Steve, Sidney basically pimps out Rita without a second thought, blackmailing her into prostituting herself.  It's a really uncomfortable scene, one that inarguably happened in real life but would be played for more care for Rita in a modern movie.

Rita's story is arguably the most tragic in a film that pits Hunsucker & Sidney against each other in a fight to the bottom, and is kind of why I didn't love the film, even though I definitely see its merits.  After all, Rita is also a nice person, just one that doesn't have the money & connections of Susan, but we leave her without any sense of reprieve in the arms of a man that's basically going to force her to have sex with him so that she might get money to pay for her kid's military school.  The redemption arc for Sidney doesn't work for me, and thus throws the entire back half of the film off, because he doesn't ever save her from his own doing.  Yes, it's admirable that he eventually wants to stop JJ, but he's so far down at that point that there's no saving him morally for me, and that the film tries doesn't sit well.

The movie's best asset is Lancaster as JJ Hunsucker, giving the finest performance I've seen from him (between this and The Killers earlier this month, I might have to stop saying "I'm not really a fan of Burt Lancaster" though as I Walk Alone also proved this month, I'm not unabashedly enamored with his work).  JJ Hunsucker is a truly diabolical creation, and the kind that a decade earlier in film noir would have been thrown in jail or killed before the end of the film.  That it's 1957 and we can have an ending where his only punishment is losing his sister (not his life or his power) is a sign of where film noir would have to go, where villains are allowed to win.  The movie also doesn't shy away from the clear incestuous obsession that Hunsucker has for Susan, showing that while he may never have her, he doesn't want any other man to, and his lack of a romantic interest in anyone else (or any interest at all to anyone who isn't Susan) is enough of a wink to understand what's bubbling under the surface of this film.  Lancaster saves the picture, and is why critics loved this so much, but I also understand why audiences didn't love this initially either.  The movie has sharp dialogue and some occasional strong acting, but it's messy & takes too many turns with its plotting for my taste.

Previous Films in the Series: The Killing, The Big Heat, Pickup on South Street, Gun Crazy, Night and the City, In a Lonely Place, They Live By Night, Nightmare Alley, Ride the Pink Horse, The Killers, The Woman in the Window, The Big Sleep