OVP: Dead End (1937)

Film: Dead End (1937)

Stars: Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrea, Humphrey Bogart, Wendy Barrie, Claire Trevor, Marjorie Main

Director: William Wyler

Oscar History: 4 nominations (Best Picture, Supporting Actress-Claire Trevor, Cinematography, Art Direction)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Sylvia Sidney-click here to learn more about Ms. Sidney (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We're going to conclude our month-long tribute to Sylvia Sidney not far from where we started.  In some ways I might have cheated you out of a bit of Sidney's career by focusing so closely on a tight range of films.  Sidney's career did continue past the 1930's, but it was never the same as her brief heyday.  The actress worked sparingly into the 1940's, eventually being declared "box office poison" and only getting work in television.  While she would have two major comebacks in her career, first in an Oscar-nominated turn for 1973's Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (based on the reaction at the time, she was not expecting Tatum O'Neal to win & wasn't happy about it) and then as a bit player in the Tim Burton films Beetlejuice and Mars Attacks! (Burton was a longtime fan)...I just didn't feel like these really captured the theme of our series this year or of Sidney's career as an actual headliner, so we're going to finish up our month with one of the more consequential films in her career, and certainly the better-remembered: 1937's Dead End.

(Spoilers Ahead) Dead End is unusual in the way it tells its multiple stories, so I'll give you a summary of kind of where the plot is, and then try to wrap your head around the structure.  The movie takes place in the New York City slums, where wealthy residents live in locked-up apartment penthouses while below them the poor inhabit run-down tenements.  The film has at its center a group of young teenagers who engage in petty crime, but most of the actual plot of Dead End is around a series of different adults.  Principally, there's Drina (Sidney), whose younger brother is one of the gang but who hopes that she'll be taken out of the slums by a rich man who never materializes.  Her childhood friend Dave (McCrea) is having an affair with Kay (Barrie) whom he loves but who cannot provide for her in the way that the wealthy man she's having an affair with can.  Concurrently, we see Baby Face Martin (Bogart) who comes back to his old neighborhood, seeing Dave (who he knew once) and wanting to meet up with his old girlfriend Francey (Trevor).  Baby Face, though, isn't welcome here-his mother (Main) won't welcome him home, and once he meets Francey he realizes that she's now a prostitute, one who is dying of syphilis.  Baby Face & Dave get into an altercation while Baby Face is plotting his next crime (kidnapping the son of one of the wealthy penthouse owners), and in the process Baby Face dies, and Dave gets the reward money.  Despite Kay offering to run away with Dave now that he has the money, he chooses instead to help Drina, whom he has always loved, pay for her brother to stay out of a juvenile detention facility, and hopefully stopping the poverty-to-crime cycle.

Dead End feels like a screened play, which it was (the original was by Sidney Kingsley, and was adapted here by Lillian Hellman).  The teenage hoodlums feel interchangeable (a bit of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern), but there's a fascinating dynamic in their language & their attitude.  For a movie made in 1937, it feels refreshingly modern, and I think that's that it's capturing some of the youth of the era in a way that we don't see for films often, and largely wouldn't afterwards because these youths would end up just a few years later going to war.  Though the cast would change, these kids would star in a series of films for Samuel Goldwyn,that would eventually become the Little Tough Guys, the East Side Kids, and finally the Bowery Boys, a series that would stretch two decades.  I haven't seen any of these movies, and none of them enjoy the critical reputation of Dead End, but I get why Goldwyn wanted to repeat this recipe.  The youths commentating on their adult counterparts, sometimes not knowing exactly why the adults are motivated to do the foolish things they do (thus getting around some of the post-Code conversations about sex, violence, & the criminal justice system) is smart-it works really well.

This is just one of the aspects of Dead End that's a winner.  Our star is Sylvia Sidney, and she gets her due (and yet another series of moments where she can appear flummoxed against impossible odds, which kind of became her theme this month), but she's not the reason you leave this film impressed.  That would be Humphrey Bogart & Claire Trevor.  Bogart wasn't yet a proper star when this came out (hence his third billing), but he proves why he became one with a rough, merciless performance.  He is cruel, and plays his role well as an adult man who never got beyond a teenager's mentality of "me, me, me"...you see that in the way that he admonishes his mother for not loving him unconditionally, even though he's a murderer.  And you see that in the big scene he has with Claire Trevor about halfway through the movie.

Trevor plays a prostitute named Francey, one who was once the love of Baby Face's life, and whom he sees as the ideal woman.  But in the years he's been away with his criminal enterprise, she has become a prostitute, and is dying.  This is one of the shortest performances ever nominated for an Oscar-it's just one scene-but it's unbelievably good.  Trevor comes in with bravado, plays Francey just right enough that you can't quite tell what is acting & what is real, and gives us a woman who gave up a hope a long time ago, but shows it's fun to dream, if only for a second.  This is brilliant acting, similar in scope to what we'd expect from 1950's method performers, and she never mines for easy sympathy.  She gets it though with Bogart playing his childish disgust (rather than understanding) when she isn't the same woman he left behind.  In under five minutes she gives us the whole story of a woman's life, and the cruelty of her unfair impending death.

The film's final two Oscar nominations are also winners.  The Art Direction is great-the street scenes feel confined, and like they're always being looked down upon from above, so that the players know where they rank in the world.  For a film from the 1930's, everything feels like it's been lived in.  And the cinematography from Gregg Toland is beautiful & electric, using closeups (like on Trevor's pale face or Sidney's tear-stained eyes) & wide shots (the shadowy looks at the docks, or how it grabs all of the production details in the scenes where the kids are hanging on a street corner) to further tell a story.  Dead End is a masterpiece, a movie that you can't really expect-it feels fresh, modern, & is a fitting end to our month devoted to its star, Sylvia Sidney.

OVP: Black Legion (1937)

Film: Black Legion (1937)

Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Dick Foran, Erin O'Brien-Moore, Ann Sheridan

Director: Archie Mayo

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Motion Picture Story)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I'm still finishing up some of the 2020 reviews that I know are important for the Oscar conversation (which is hitting high-gear next week with the Globes & the SAG Awards being announced next week).  However, as we start to wind down 2020-21 Oscar season in terms of viewing (even if predictions are just getting started), we'll begin to move back into classic cinema at a bigger clip.  I was doing "theme weeks" throughout the entirety of 2020 as part of quarantine, but as I'm focusing on a few side projects that require more of my time (including one for the blog!), we'll be moving away from that even if I might bring it out of its dormancy on occasion.  Instead, we're going to go back to random (oftentimes) Oscar-cited works from across the cinematic spectrum, though in some cases random will read more as prescient, which is the case with today's film Black Legion, which was the film that was "supposed" to be Humphrey Bogart's big break, but didn't really come of that (more below).

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a short message picture.  Bogart plays an affable, if unlucky guy named Frank Taylor who works at a factory and in the opening scenes seems like a surefire bet to become the plant foreman.  He & his wife Ruth (O'Brien-Moore) are ecstatic about this and what it may mean for their young family, but when they pick a different man for the job (one who has been studying the machinery rather than relying on gut instinct like Frank) who happens to be an immigrant, Frank becomes xenophobic & bitter.  This attracts the attention of a local secret organization called the Black Legion, who recruit Frank & with him start terrorizing local people who stand in Frank's way, with a particular focus on the immigrant community of the city.  Frank tries to escape the organization, but they threaten his wife & child, and he is eventually abandoned by his wife (ending up with a local "woman of ill repute").  His friend Ed (Foran) tries to save him, but is instead flogged, and while Ed is trying to escape, Frank kills him.  He realizes instantly his mistake, but still bows to the Black Legion until he takes the stand at a trial for Ed's murder, when he confesses everything and outs all of the Black Legion members in town.  The ending is a dour one for Bogart, with he & the rest of the men sentenced to life in prison.

Message pictures of this ilk were quite popular in the 1930's & 40's, and for the most part they've aged poorly.  The problem with issue pictures is frequently that they are no longer "hot button issues" years later, and thus it's hard to really comprehend what a movie would've meant in its time frame for a modern audience.  However, this is sadly not the case for Black Legion.  Just a few weeks after terrorists brandishing Confederate flags sieged the US Capitol, it's clear that racism & xenophobia are alive & well in the United States, and are in fact the platform of a major political party.  As a result, Black Legion is more relevant than ever.  The problem for the film is that it occasionally is so deliberate in telling its story, underlining who is "good" and who is "bad" (leaving only Frank in the middle), that it reads more like an after-school special than an organic film.

The movie is a noteworthy curiosity for two reasons (both of which are reason to check it out).  The first is that it's dark.  While the organization goes by "the Black Legion," it's clear to anyone (then & now) that the organization is meant to represent the KKK (so closely that the KKK sued Warner Brothers for using their patented logo, though the case was eventually dismissed).  I will admit on a random Wednesday night that I was not prepared to watch quintessential movie star Humphrey Bogart suckered into literally being a member of the KKK, and the initiation sequence (where Bogart basically signs a blood oath with the hate group at gun point) is shockingly raw.  

The second reason to like this is that Bogart is great.  The National Board of Review gave him the award for Best Actor at the time.  Though I didn't love his courtroom confession, the menacing hatred he feels combined with our natural instincts to trust Bogart (he's almost always the hero), make this is a chilling performance that plays off of his star persona.  This is likely giving the film too much credit (even if it works), because in 1937 Bogart wasn't a proper star yet.  Though he'd gained notice in movies like The Petrified Forest, this wasn't the big break many thought it'd be, and he'd wander the wilderness on the Warner Brothers lot until 1941's High Sierra, which transformed him into a legend.

Beat the Devil (1953)

Film: Beat the Devil (1953)
Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre
Director: John Huston
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.


We are not, sadly, going to start where I wanted to start with Gina Lollbrigida's career.  One of the heartbreaking things for classic film fans in the age of streaming is that with the focus on the new, and with the same streaming platform randomly trading back-and-forth something like Back to the Future II or Cliffhanger, we end up in a situation where certain movies are never brought forward for streaming, and are almost impossible to find on home video.  Thus is the case for Lollobrigida's first breakthrough role, Bread, Love and Dreams, which despite starring two major Italian actors (Lollobrigida and Vittorio de Sica), winning the Silver Bear at Berlin, and being an Oscar nominee (Best Motion Picture Story), is next-to-impossible to find even an affordable copy.  Hopefully someday Criterion takes pity on us here, but until then, we're going to start with Lollobrigida's first major English-language film, Beat the Devil.


(Spoilers Ahead) Beat the Devil sounds in many ways like the sort of standard-fare we'd expect uniting Humphrey Bogart with John Huston.   Bogie plays Billy Dannreuther, a broke (but formerly rich) American who is working with a group of criminals, led by Paterson (Morley), who are trying to buy up uranium-rich land in North Africa for cheap, scoring an easy buck.  Paterson has had a man who was suspected of going after the same property killed, and Billy and his wife Maria (Lollobrigida) are trying to keep their heads down.  Suddenly a British couple make their acquaintance: Harry (Edward Underdown) and his wife Gwendolen (Jones).  The two accidentally set off the alarms of Paterson when Gwendolen, who is soon madly in love with Billy and starts having an affair with him, brags about her husband but is overheard by Paterson's accomplice Julius (Lorre), who assumes that Gwendolen's lies are true.  They set off on a boat together, where "destiny lends a hand" allowing Harry, of all people, to purchase the land that Gwendolen lied about him buying (almost completely by accident), her running back to him, Billy & Maria getting nothing, and Paterson & his cronies ending up in jail.

This sounds like boilerplate film noir, but it doesn't play that way in the movie.  For starters, you might not know this if this is the first time you've seen a movie like this (you should watch The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre before tackling Beat the Devil), is that it's funny, and not because it's so-bad-it's-hilarious-it's meant to be funny.  Beat the Devil was not a hit at the time, but has developed a cult following in the years since primarily because it's one of the first straight-up camp spoofs, not in the way Abbott & Costello would do with the Universal monsters, but instead in a subtler way.  The villains are played as buffoons, and frequently you'll have what in a noir would be an obvious twist (a guy like Harry never lives through a traditional noir), go the complete opposite direction.  The best example of this is toward the end, when it looks like Paterson is about to get away with a lenient cop, and then Gwendolen shouts out the entire criminal plot, accusing Paterson of murder, and she isn't put in danger nor does the cop doubt her.  The penultimate scene has virtually no climax-just what would likely have happened in real life, rather than the expected chase or bullet Bogie will have to take for the female lead to protect her.

Lollobrigida supposedly hated making this movie, complaining that Bogart & Huston made fun of her.  Indeed, the production of this film is kind of legend (one of several "Bogie & Huston want a vacation" sort of films they made together, and one where Truman Capote was writing the script as they went along), so it's fare to assume that this was rough on Lollobrigida, acting in a language that wasn't her primary for the first time.  It shows in the script, too-Lollobrigida is fine, but ancillary, and isn't asked to do more than look beautiful.  It's actually Jennifer Jones (who I'm not really a fan of), who gets the best part in the whole movie, totally selling the blonde, air-headed beauty & underlining the camp of the film better than any other actor.

High Sierra (1941)

Film: High Sierra (1941)
Stars: Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy, Joan Leslie, Henry Travers, Cornel Wilde
Director: Raoul Walsh
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Ida Lupino-click here to learn more about Ms. Lupino (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We continue on with our month of Ida Lupino this week with the film that is almost exclusively associated with someone else's legend, even though it's Lupino who earned top billing for the picture.  High Sierra is the final film that Humphrey Bogart ever made where he received less than top billing until his death in 1957, because as hard as it is to believe, at the time Ida Lupino was the bigger star for Warner Brothers.  Her career was on an upswing after They Drive By Night, and the studio wanted to capitalize on that by re-teaming her with George Raft, but Raft turned down this role, which would become one of the bigger mistakes of his career (he would go on to turn down The Maltese Falcon, and if urban legend is to believed, Casablanca, so it's clearly not the biggest mistake of his career).  Instead Raoul Walsh cast Humphrey Bogart in the lead, and though Bogart was resentful of Lupino getting the top spot on the poster (the pair did not like each other, and would never work together again despite two hits in a row), this film cemented him as a leading man in the eyes of audiences, as well as High Sierra's screenwriter John Huston, with whom Bogart would make most of his best pictures.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a film noir, but one that weirdly doesn't center on the inner city, but instead takes place for long stretches in the outdoors.  Roy Earle (Bogart) is a gangster recently out of jail, is asked to take part in a heist at a luxury hotel, and agrees despite his recent pardon from the governor granting him a new lease on life.  He holes up in the country with three small-time criminals (Kennedy, Curtis, and Wilde), and one of their girlfriends, Marie, who is about as close to a prostitute as 1940's censors would have allowed (she worked at a "dance hall" before the movie).  They also live near a kindly family, the daughter of whom, Velma (Leslie) Roy takes a shine toward despite her clubbed foot.  He pays to have it fixed, but she spurns his advances and so he ends up with Marie, who adores him but he seems largely ambivalent toward even if he eventually finds he loves her.  The crime goes south when someone is shot during the holdup, and two of the three small-timers die in a car accident during the police chase, with the third squealing on Roy & Marie.  The film ends with Roy, on the run, climbing into the Sierra Nevada Mountains but of course because of the Hays Code at the time, he dies in a gunfight, surrounded by a sobbing Marie and an adorable dog named Pard who has been sweet on Roy the whole movie.

The film is engaging if a bit dull for a noir.  It's always hard to tell for a formative movie like High Sierra, which in a lot of ways invented a genre (along with other movies like The Maltese Falcon and Laura)-how do you judge something that was so inventive then but feels dull to modern eyes because so many people have borrowed from it?  But High Sierra has its attributes-the outdoors shots in the actual Sierra Nevada Mountains are breathtaking (there are even shots of the movie near Mt. Whitney, California's highest peak), and the love triangle is actually quite intriguing.  Roy never seems to entirely get over Velma's rejection, clearly picking up Marie as a rebound who ends up being the last love of his life, and while the ending wants them to be the "true soulmates" of the movie, Bogart's performance informs the audience that this isn't the case; either Roy was incapable of ever finding a true love, or his true love had to be someone like Velma, who made him feel like he was better than he was.

Bogart's mesmerizing in the role, and clearly understood the part in a way that Raft probably would have lacked (Bogie, despite his tough guy bravado, was always best playing guys with a rough outer shell but a soft heart).  He'd rarely play criminals after this, but it's a great role to go out on, and he gives the movie's best performance.  This isn't a knock on Lupino (who is only a borderline lead here despite her billing-Bogart gets considerably more screen-time), who is great as a lover who knows she's not his first choice, but Bogart really comes into his own here, and shows the greatness that would eventually lead to him taking on fascinating, complicated work in pictures like Casablanca and Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  Next week we will turn to what might be the most critically-acclaimed work of Lupino's career, and certainly the role for which many (including Warner Brothers) assumed she'd get that Oscar nomination that eluded her her entire career.

They Drive By Night (1940)

Film: They Drive By Night (1940)
Stars: George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, Alan Hale Sr.
Director: Raoul Walsh
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Ida Lupino-click here to learn more about Ms. Lupino (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We will start out our month-long look at Ida Lupino a few years into her career in Hollywood.  Lupino was an actress the movies always struggled to know what to do with-beautiful & talented, but not an actress that seemed to take off with critics at all, the closest she probably came to graduating from (to quote Lupino herself) "the poor man's Bette Davis" to a proper star was in 1940/1941, when she had back-to-back hits for Warner Brothers, both opposite someone who would graduate to Davis's level, Humphrey Bogart.  In what I believe is a first for this series, we'll be hearkening back to one of our former "Saturday Stars" today with the return of actress Ann Sheridan, whom we had as the very first star in our series in January, as she'll play opposite Lupino in this melodrama about truck drivers (no, that's not a typo).

(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses on two brothers: Joe (Raft) and Paul (Bogart), both of whom are down-on-their-luck and always one day ahead of loan sharks.  Joe has big dreams for his trucking game, wanting to turn this into a major enterprise that'll show the guys who constantly put him down he is a big deal, while Paul seems to just want to get out of the business alive, and let his wife (Page) have the baby he claims they can't afford.  Joe meets a beautiful-but-sassy waitress named Cassie (Sheridan), and falls in love with her.  The only problem is his boss's (Hale) wife Lana (Lupino) is also madly in love with Joe, and doesn't understand why he doesn't return her advances.  After Paul is injured in a driving accident, losing his right arm, Joe is brought on to work in his office (at Lana's insistence) as she feels she can seduce him there.  When that doesn't work, Lana kills her husband, assuming that if she's not married Joe will fall for her, but it turns out he's just interested in working his way up in the business, and proposes to Cassie.  Afterwards, Lana claims Joe insisted that she kill her husband so that he could have the business (and her), but she breaks down and confesses on the stand, having gone mad, and claims an insanity defense.  As a result, Joe gets the business and Cassie, becoming the big shot he always dreamed of, while his brother Paul announces in the closing scene that his wife is pregnant, fulfilling his dreams.

The movie is odd-melodramas like this don't usually take place in such a hyper-masculine (particularly in the 1940's) industry as trucking but it totally works.  They Drive by Night is a well-written (four-time Oscar nominee Jerry Wald penned the script) and well-acted piece of dramatics, and proves a film's subject matter ultimately doesn't matter if the movie itself is strong (side note: I always get asked for my favorite genres or film subject matter-They Drive by Night is a good reason why I say "it doesn't matter as long as the movie is good").  It's a briskly-paced picture, and one that shows off in some ways why Bogart would be a future superstar, commanding the screen in every one he's in (he's decidedly a supporting player here, though, so don't be fooled).  Bogart would in the next year surpass Raft in the movie pantheon forever when Raft would turn down two of the biggest films of Bogart's career: High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, two decisions that would essentially cement his place in film lore as perhaps the actor with the worst taste in scripts (rumor has it that he also turned down Casablanca, another iconic Bogart role, but that feels more fanciful than the other two).

But what of our star, Ida Lupino?  She's awesome in this movie.  At first I was kind of curious if Sheridan would overpower her (Sheridan's also good...in fact other than Raft who feels a bit dry as the stoic lead, everyone is putting in a winner here), but Lupino steals the picture.  As a jealous, bored housewife she's frothy & campy, giving the best performance Joan Crawford never gave when she kills her husband and then has to confess in a manic fit of laughter on the stand that she did it.  The movie's ending is cute and sweet, but it hardly matters because at that point Lupino has committed grand theft robbery as our now-absent villain.  She's arguably third lead (I could see this going either direction), but in our modern, more "category fraud"-friendly era, she'd certainly be getting a Supporting Actress nomination at the Oscars for this work, and it'd be well-earned, though it'd preclude her from this series (which only focuses on actresses Oscar forgot).  November is one of those months with five Saturday's, and if this is what Lupino can deliver, I'm excited I pencilled her in for the extra title.

In a Lonely Place (1950)

Film: In a Lonely Place (1950)
Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Martha Stewart
Director: Nicholas Ray
Oscar History: No nominations, though it's generally considered a classic of the genre and was given a spot in the National Film Registry
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 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.

1950 is perhaps the most famous year for Hollywood giving itself a taste of its own medicine.  The year's Best Picture race pitted All About Eve and Sunset Blvd against each other, two of the finest films ever made and both were about show business.  Eve featured the sniping world of Broadway against Blvd's cruel look at how Hollywood spits out its stars and throws them away once they can't make a profit.  Both are grand pictures, ones you can't really call yourself a film fan without seeing, but apparently there was a third such movie in 1950 that I never knew existed.  In a Lonely Place is a look at a lonely screenwriter who may or may not have murdered a young fan, but it's also a look at how fame, love, and success are tied together, sometimes in heartbreaking ways.  It's also an amazing motion picture that surely should have competed alongside Eve and Blvd that year at the Oscars.

(Spoilers Ahead-And I Mean It If You Haven't Seen This Movie, Rent or Stream, and Then Come Back) The movie is about Dixon Steele (Bogart...I'd say this is his best moniker but no movie star really had a stronger list of character names), a Hollywood screenwriter who has been down-on-his-luck for years.  He used to be quite successful, but fame & ego have gotten in the way of that, and now he's desperately in need of a hit.  We also understand at the beginning of the film that he's a violent man, someone with a short temper when he nearly pitches a fight with a man in a car after the woman in the car starts chatting with him (she's an actress who was in one of his pictures).  Steele gets the chance to adapt a novel that appears to be trash, and rather than reading it he has a hatcheck girl Mildred (Stewart) describe it for him, possibly as a way to seduce her, which she's having none of since she has a boyfriend.  The next day, the girl is found murdered, and Dixon Steele is the prime suspect.  He gets an alibi of sorts from his beautiful new neighbor Laurel Gray (Grahame), who confesses that she finds him attractive while also saying she didn't see Mildred leave with Dixon.  The film follows their romance, with the two falling in love but with Laurel worried that Dixon may have actually murdered Mildred, as he shows frequent violent tendencies and an unusual knowledge for murders, as well as a callousness about Mildred's death.

This focus on violence is what makes In a Lonely Place so riveting, petrifying, and groundbreaking.  We've focused on violence throughout this month of noir, but few films have shown it to the same degree as this picture (there will be an exception in a few days when we get to a different Gloria Grahame picture, but I won't give that away just yet).  Other than Casablanca, I don't think that Bogart has ever given a better performance that I've seen, and that's because he's allowed to really get into the violence of this character.  Dixon Steele may be a theoretical murderer, but he's an affirmed abuser.  He has a violent temper, beating people up at the drop of a hat, and is clearly obsessively controlling Laurel, driven insane by wanting to "make her his."  Whether or not he's the killer, he's still a dangerous man and one that can't possibly be good for his girlfriend, whom he berates into being his fiancé.

This all comes to a head in the movie's famous ending (which, thankfully I didn't have spoiled for me, and hopefully you've quit reading this review if you are ever going to see this movie so you won't have it spoiled for you).  Laurel decides, after Dixon nearly blinds his film agent in rage, that she's going to leave Dixon but is afraid of his reaction so she secretly packs to flee on a flight to New York.  Dixon catches her, though, and violently starts attacking her, with her screaming that she'll do anything he wants.  At this point, it almost seems like both of them aren't sure if he killed Mildred, and then a phone call comes through, stopping Dixon from potentially murdering Laurel.  We find out that Mildred's boyfriend was the killer, and that Dixon is innocent (this is the first time we've gotten proper confirmation of this-the film does nothing to assuage audience members that Dixon isn't the murderer until that point, and certainly Laurel has no way of knowing).  The movie ends on a sour note, as Laurel sees the kind of man that Dixon is, and he walks out of her life forever, his potential guilt and tangible rage already having poisoned the relationship.  It's a mesmerizing, shocking ending to a really brilliant film.  Grahame & Bogart are spectacular-both are two of the greatest actors of this era, but there's a chemistry on display here that's impossible to deny, even as it becomes toxic.  It says something that even in one of the strongest Best Actress fields ever assembled, I'd still have found room for Grahame.  The direction is assured (from Nicholas Ray, who directed They Live By Night which we saw earlier this month, as well as his most known masterpiece Rebel Without a Cause), and frequently quite inventive.  If the movie is known for anything other than the ending, it's known for the crazy fast car chase where Dixon nearly kills Laurel after discovering she spoke with the police (not of her own volition), and it's daringly directed & genuinely scary.  The script is also a stunner, with lines like "there's no sacrifice too great for a chance at immortality" and "I lived a few weeks while you loved me"...I mean, how can you not obsess over such a movie?  In a Lonely Place is a classic that has been lower case for far too long-this movie is too good to be discovered on a late night showing on TCM.


Previous Films in the Series: They Live By Night, Nightmare Alley, Ride the Pink Horse, The Killers, The Woman in the Window, The Big Sleep

Dead Reckoning (1947)

Film: Dead Reckoning (1947)
Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lizabeth Scott, Morris Camovsky, Charles Cane, William Prince
Director: John Cromwell
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Lizabeth Scott-click here to learn more about Ms. Scott (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Throughout her career, Lizabeth Scott was never not a leading lady, something virtually no other performer can claim.  Other than a cameo appearance in Variety Girl as herself, Scott was the lead in every single one of her pictures.  But she obviously wasn't always a star, something that came about with two films, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, which we profiled last week, and Dead Reckoning, where she managed to gain shared billing alongside one of the quintessential leading men of the era, Humphrey Bogart.  Dead Reckoning was a big hit (commercially, it was more mixed with critics), and this one-two punch is truly what managed to transform Scott from an overnight leading lady into a proper movie star.

(Spoilers Ahead) The plot of Dead Reckoning is convoluted to say the least.  I'll try to summarize a bit though.  Bogie plays Rip Murdock, an army officer whose buddy Johnny (Prince) is about to get the Medal of Honor and then disappears, with Murdock going AWOL to pursue him.  We soon learn that Johnny joined the military under an assumed name to avoid a murder charge (something that is actually a really good plot device that is not given enough credence in this convoluted picture).  The murder was of a rich, older man who was married to Coral (Scott), a woman that Johnny was desperately in love with.  Soon Coral & Murdock are involved in something of an affair, though in the process Murdock is framed for murder after being drugged at a casino.  This makes Murdock suspicious of Coral, who admits that she killed her husband (but in self-defense), and we learn that Coral is married to the sadistic club owner who drugged Murdock, and he himself killed Coral's wealthy husband, framing Johnny.  Martinelli is killed, by Coral, and Murdock realizes that Coral was trying to murder them both.  They struggle, getting into a car accident that eventually kills Coral, but leaves Murdock just fine.

The film is almost weird enough to make up for a messy, frequently nonsensical plot.  The movie's ending is strange, where we suddenly see Scott (still glamorous as hell, but in a bandaged bald cap), try to cling to Murdock as she dies with an almost theremin-style score playing in the background.  We see the film almost from her point-of-view, and understand that so much of the movie we've been trying to see her as Murdock does, gorgeous, and not nearly as dangerous as she clearly is.

It's worth noting this would work better with an actress like Gene Tierney, one with more emotional resonance, but while Scott is very watchable here (it's easy to get her appeal, and it's not just surface-level), we probably needed an actress with better dramatic skills to land this role.  We have three more films left of hers so I might yet change my mind, but she feels more like a Gina Lollobrigida or someone that would have worked really well with a director like David Lynch-she has unmistakable presence on screen, but it doesn't work in terms of connecting to her character and the world around her.  The filmmakers here are clearly trying to make her into Lauren Bacall, but she's really more an auteur actress than the ballsy movie star that Bacall was, someone that would have been more at home in a more properly abstract vision.  You see that in the desperation in her lip syncing to "Either It's Love or It Isn't."  Sadly, Dead Reckoning isn't an interesting enough or artsy enough film to capture such a performer's specific gifts.

The Big Sleep (1946)

Film: The Big Sleep (1946)
Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone
Director: Howard Hawks
Oscar History: No nominations-film noir usually struggled in this department, but it seems weird that such a storied movie didn't land somewhere.
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.

All of the films we're profiling for our Film Noir Series this month are classics, movies that I have desperately wanted to see that arguably I should have seen by this point but hadn't.  That being said, there is perhaps no movie we are going to chronicle this month that is more of a celebrated classic than The Big Sleep, and it's arguably the movie I'm most hanging-my-head-in-shame over having never seen prior to this project.  The second of four films that Bogie & Baby starred in together is frequently cited as their best (and weirdly the only one of the quartet that I hadn't seen already, as I'd even watched the strange Dark Passage), and serves as the catalyst of this series.  Hopefully you've seen it, because considering how convoluted the plot is, I'll need your help in the comments to sort it out.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie features Philip Marlowe (Bogart), a private detective hired by a wealthy, dying man who is trying to pay off the gambling debts of his youngest daughter Carmen (Vickers).  As he leaves, he is confronted by Carmen's older sister Vivian (Bacall), who is recently divorced and suspicious of the man her father has hired.  Marlowe begins investigating, assuming that he's less going to be going after the gambling debts and more investigating what happened to the dying man's protege Sean Regan, and soon finds himself covering up a murder, as a drugged Carmen is found at the home of a crooked used bookstore owner (stay with me now, it's going to get harder to follow in a second), and begins to investigate to try to figure out what really happened.  Carmen is clearly a suspect, as is Vivian, but it's a criminal ring that revolves around a man named Eddie Mars (Ridgely) that seems to be the proper culprit.  We see Marlowe go through seedier back alleys and deals (there's a running gag about him essentially collecting guns they're so often in his face), but eventually he outsmarts Mars, who while he may not have been the killer, at least of Regan (it's heavily implied that it's Carmen who is the killer, though never confirmed outright), he did certainly kill a man in cold blood, and deserved his bloody ending (by the laws of Hollywood).  The movie ends with Marlowe framing a dead Mars for the murders, with the assurance that Carmen will get help, and ends up in an embrace with Vivian, with whom he's fallen in love during the picture.

The Big Sleep is perhaps best known for its convoluted plot, and while I rarely have my cell phone out when I see a movie (it's a respect thing), this one I made sure to keep it buried as there are a lot of characters, and not every question gets answered.  Famously, director Howard Hawks had no idea based on the book what happened to the chauffeur, and so he telegrammed Raymond Chandler, the author of The Big Sleep...who also couldn't figure it out (real talk-I just saw the movie and I'm not entirely sure either).  The movie chops a lot of the more salacious aspects out of the novel, including a subplot involving the bookstore owner being both a pornography peddler and the gay lover of Vivian's ex-husband, neither of which would have worked in mid-1940's cinema.  To make matters more bizarre, there are essentially two different versions of this film, the one that was released in 1946 (nearly a year after production had completed) and one from 1945, which was eventually released in 1997 (with Hugh Hefner of all people leading the charge to make the original version of the film available to the public) and also is a common version of the picture that floats around in the ether.  The best way to tell the difference is the small but crucial role of Mona Mars is played by two different actresses: 1945 had Pat Clark and 1946 featured Peggy Knudsen (for the record, I saw the 1945 version, but for symmetry's sake we're going to say 1946 because that's when the film was originally released).

All of this is to say that The Big Sleep is a lot of work, and not always in a good way.  There's too much plot here, and while the twists are fun, they don't always make sense, and it's not a particularly good mystery that doesn't seem to tie together the loose ends (or leave enough clues for you to figure things out on your own).  The production of this movie is legendary, but the film it produced isn't as fun as some of the other movies with this iconic duo.  Bogart is marvelous as Philip Marlowe, though, and just based on his work here it's probably worth the "classic" label this movie achieved. He's wry, sexy, and plays this role with an assuredness that even one of cinema's most confident leading men rarely duplicated.  Bacall is gorgeous, but she's been better.  This was very early in her career, and she seemed to be getting her bearings still as an actress, more sliding on her natural charisma than talent.  The movie is basically stolen from her by the supporting women, all of whom are uniformly good.  Dorothy Malone plays a horny bookshop owner (for real...is this the prototype for the slutty librarian trope?), who seduces Bogart on a rainy day for some afternoon delight (it's staggering to me that this scene made it past the sensors...perhaps they were also mesmerized by Malone, who got her big break here and was headlining films within 2 years of its release).  Sonia Darrin (the only living cast member of the movie) wasn't credited for the film as the femme fatale Agnes thanks to a fight her agent had with Jack Warner, but she's supremely fun sparring with Bogart.  Best of all is Vickers, who steals every scene she's in as the drunk, oversexed Carmen.  Best known today as one of the many wives of Mickey Rooney, there's a raw, cutting edge to this performance that the rest of the film lacks and that feels a bit jarring even for 40's noir, and you kind of wish if they were going to make two versions of the film, one would have been entirely from her perspective.  This great acting makes up for a plot that stretches too thin for my tastes, and while I get the classic angle of the picture enough to warrant a "thumbs up," we'll get to better movies as this month progresses & we take a peak at more storied noir.

Previous Films in the Series: The Woman in the Window

Ten Mini Reviews

Usually at about this time each year, the amount of movies that I have gotten to has become completely overwhelming, and I am ridiculously behind on my reviews.  It's an unfortunate side effect of having my busiest time of year at work coupled with my busiest time of year in my personal life coupled with having the busiest time of the year on the blog.  Suffice it to say, it starts to get to me and while I always want to give every single movie I see its due, I also don't think I can get to all of these while the memory is still there for me to properly create a full review.  So with apologies to the filmmakers, I'm going to be doing short reviews here; we'll still have full reviews of all of the remaining Oscar nominees I haven't discussed from 2016, as well as A Monster Calls because I feel like I owe it to you to explain why I loved it so much, but these movies are going to just get the one paragraph.  If you want more of my thoughts, I'll gladly interact in the comments (incentive!)

(Spoilers for the films may be ahead)

Dark Passage
Thoughts: The least viewed of the Bacall/Bogart pictures, it weirdly has the most famous gimmick of the bunch, where we have a "subjective camera" technique seeing the film almost entirely from Bogart's point-of-view as he escapes from prison.  The film is solid, if predictable (shocker-the third most famous cast member is the real criminal!), and I loved the way that Bacall's performance is both a brazen young woman and completely lovestruck (few people did that better than her).  Still, once the gimmick is over it's never quite as strong as the top half-part of me wished they'd have stuck with it, even if that would have meant Bogart only in voiceover.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

Deadpool

Thoughts: I had sworn to myself I wasn't ever going to see a Ryan Reynolds movie again, but somehow he and Jason Bateman continue to haunt me and I end up stuck with them in front of me even when I didn't want to do so.  Here it was me buying the last-minute hype that Deadpool could land in a major category (or at least Best Makeup) and I ended up stuck in a boring, tired pile of garbage that succumbs to the same cliches that it tries to disprove.  Reynolds may have found a role tailor-made for him, but that doesn't mean he's a good actor.
Ranking: 2/5 stars

Dirty 30

Thoughts: Arguably the film I wanted to review fully the most (give or take Paterson), this film, while not a follow-up to Camp Takota, is at the very least a sequel in terms of who is involved.  The Holy Trinity of YouTube come back, but this time it's Mamrie at the center and all the better for it as she's the most naturally-gifted of the actresses at the center.  Hollywood, in desperate need of a romantic comedy lead, is foolish if they aren't taking advantage of an actress who can sell even some juvenile humor with aplomb-when the script works for her, this is genuinely just a good movie-no YouTube curve needed.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

Eye in the Sky

Thoughts: A taut thriller, the last real performance from Alan Rickman before his untimely death (I'm not counting Alice in Wonderland 2), the film is intriguing and actually quite watchable; it's the rare thriller you're not entirely sure how it will end.  The film's treatment of Americans isn't kind, but considering the buffoon we recently elected...not unfair.  Mirren could do this in her sleep (in fact most of these actors could), and I thought the most intriguing parts of this movie (particularly the sly sexism that hits her harder than the other men, particularly when one of her subordinates disobeys) are skated over, but by-and-large this is imminently watchable to the point where I wonder if the director didn't notice it was happening in the script, even if nowhere near the Oscar nomination some were drumming for the dame.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

The Innocents

Thoughts: No actress in 2016 more fully landed on my list of "on the radar" in a bigger way than Lou de Laage.  Between this and her mesmerizing work in L'Attesa, I can attest that I'll be seeking her out in a big way in future years, and I suspect a Cesar is in her future.  The film is not always easy, and occasionally is very hard to sit through, but it's beautifully shot and a more complex picture than you'd normally expect from a mid-fall foreign art house hit.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

The Legend of Tarzan

Thoughts: It seems funny to review Alexander Skarsgard right now, knowing what he's capable of as an actor (is anyone else thoroughly enjoying Big Little Lies right now-I'm totally enamored?).  This film, of course, is not really an acting showcase, but Skarsgard's shot at movie stardom. The casting department could not be lazier (about the only way they could have found a more cliched set of supporting players would have been to throw Paul Giamatti in there for no reason), but the action is fun and I thought the movie itself was beautifully shot.  Still-this is silliness on-top of silliness, and oh man is Chrisotph Waltz terrible.
Ranking: 2/5 stars

The Light Between Oceans

Thoughts: I will admit that initially I had higher hopes for this movie-it was one of my most-anticipated pictures of 2016, particularly considering how much I've loved the three leads in recent years.  However, that disappointment shouldn't be confused with a bad movie, even if it's sadly a pretty predictable one.  Fassbender and Vikander are both great as the tragic romantic leads, and Weisz might under-emote as the grieving mother, but that feels more like the script's fault that she doesn't get any big scenes. Still, some of the film's best moments (particularly Vikander begging her husband to lie for her sake, to keep her from being lonely) show a movie with great unrealized potential.

Ranking: 3/5 stars

Miss Sloane

Thoughts: Sometimes it's hard to remember that not everything is about the Oscars.  This is particularly hard to stomach when a movie stars one of your favorite actors of the moment, one of whom you wish had an Oscar (hint, hint), but Miss Sloane isn't really an Oscar movie.  It's the sort of taut late-Summer thriller that used to get vacation homes for Julia Roberts or Ashley Judd but has somehow gone out of fashion (perhaps because it got completely absorbed by television?).  Either way, this is a fun movie even if it's wildly over-the-top, and is proof that if Chastain ever wants to just cash-out with big paychecks, she has that ability while still remaining watchable.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

Paterson

Thoughts: Surely the best film on this list, and the one with the best performance, I almost skipped including Paterson because I wanted to discuss it more, but that's technically true of all of these movies (I really just want to talk about movies all day long).  That being said, the comments are there if you want to go further.  Until then, remember that this is a fascinating little study of one single life, proving that you can make pretty much anyone compelling with good writing and good acting, and Driver's central performance exhibits a man that feels like he's being under-served in major movies even if he's cast almost everywhere.  That penultimate scene is a doozy, one almost every other actor would have underplayed or screwed up but Driver nails against the wall and keeps you guessing-when is he going to get some Oscar love?
Ranking: 4/5 stars

Sunset Song

Thoughts: Probably the biggest "who?" film on this list, I saw this because it was Terence Davies' follow-up to the sexy and brilliant The Deep Blue Sea. so it felt like a civic duty.  The movie shows the impossibly hard life of Scottish peasants right before World War I.  The movie is beautiful, and has that "case of the handsomes" in that it's rarely compelling, and never really lets up with the hardships even for a moment.  The central love story feels, in my opinion, to be too jumpy in the treatment of Ewan, which is a pity as there was a great movie somewhere in the pages of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's famed novel.
Ranking: 3/5 stars

AFI's 25 Greatest Actors, Part 1

This Article is Part of a 15-Year Anniversary series commemorating the American Film Institute’s 25 Greatest Stars.  For the Actresses, click the numbers for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

One of the things that I learned with the 25 Greatest Actresses list is that I still have a lot to learn when it comes to actresses, but for whatever reason (perhaps the length of their careers or the fact that Best Picture nominees tend to have lead actors), I do considerably better at catching the classics of the most famous actors.  In fact, there is no actor on the list that I haven’t seen one of their pictures.  Still, though, there are a number of actors that I am missing a major part of their filmography, and I’m sure this is the case for you as well, so share along in the comments.  We’ll investigate the first eight men on the list, and then explore the remaining men, the “just-misses,” and the living nominees all throughout the next week or two.  Without further adieu…

1. Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957)

Oscar Nominations: Three, with a win for Best Actor in 1951’s The African Queen

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the tough-but-sensitive man who charmed Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca.  It’s amazing how a gigantic career can come down to a single role, and indeed Bogie has had a pretty impressive set of characters throughout his career, but Casablanca and his trench-coated Rick is easily what he is most identified with today.

My Favorite Performance: Casablanca is my favorite movie, and there’s really no beating Bogart in it-his Rick is a lost soul content with living in his memories, until they come back to bring him into the present.  It’s a wonderful performance in the greatest of films.  That being said, I do adore Bogie in general when he’s playing a guy skirting the law, and any of his noir films are toward the high end on my personal list.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I’ve seen most of his bigger films (The Maltese Falcon, African Queen, Key Largo, Sabrina, Treasure of Sierra Madre, and of course Casablanca), but I have somehow never gotten around to In a Lonely Place where he charms the eternally sexy Gloria Grahame, despite it being high on my personal to-do list.

2. Cary Grant (1904-1986)

Oscar Nominations: Two, for Penny Serenade and None But the Lonely Heart; Grant also picked up an Honorary Oscar at the 42^nd Academy Awards

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the guy that inspired George Clooney (kidding, kidding, though Clooney frequently gets compared to him).  Grant’s known to modern audiences for his class, handsomeness, and consistent charm, even if they’ve never seen one of his movies-everyone is enchanted with Cary Grant.

My Favorite Performance: Like all things in life, it’s a tough call between Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story, though in this case I’m going to lean toward Philadelphia (the opposite of what I did with Katharine Hepburn in the same circumstance, for the record).  His C.K. Dexter Haven is just mischievous enough to charm everyone on the screen, and I find him as a cad more believable than as a loveable nerd.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: My mom’s favorite actor is Cary Grant, and so I’ve seen basically every major Cary Grant film.  I’ve seen all of the films with the Hepburns, all of the films with Hitchcock, and most all of his screwball comedies.  Looking through his filmography, though, I do notice two misses: His Girl Friday his bouncy film with Rosalind Russell in 1940 and the previous year’s Gunga Din with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

3. James Stewart (1908-1997)

Oscar Nominations: Stewart won five Oscar nominations in his career, winning Best Actor for 1940’s The Philadelphia Story.  He also went on to win the Life Achievement Award at the 57^th Academy Awards.

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the guy that inspired Tom Hanks (again, kidding, kidding, though Hanks frequently gets compared to him).  Stewart’s the affable, awe shucks nice guy that everyone seems to admire.  A war hero in his day and one of the great stars, he’s best known to modern audiences for that Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life with Donna Reed (you know it-every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings…)

My Favorite Performance: I’m going to go against type here.  I do think Stewart is sensational in It’s a Wonderful Life, but there’s no comparing to what he did in Vertigo-it’s so jarring seeing the nicest guy onscreen play a ruthless, obsessed man torturing poor Kim Novak.  It’s Hitchcock’s best film, and Stewart’s as well.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I’ve seen most of his biggest hits (again-most people have, which is why the comments should be interesting here if you’ve only missed one or two films).  I’d probably go with Anatomy of a Murder, the only of his Oscar-nominated work I haven’t gotten around to, but I’ve seen basically every other major film he was in.

4. Marlon Brando (1924-2004)

Oscar Nominations: Brando nabbed eight nominations in his career, winning for 1954’s On the Waterfront and 1972’s The Godfather.

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the greatest actor of all-time?  At least to some people that is (myself included).  For others, he is one of those names you throw out when you try to benchmark great acting like Meryl and de Niro.  And of course, he is running through the street screaming "Stella!" and constantly making people offers they cannot refuse.

My Favorite Performance: Brando is so good so often he's one of those rare actors who could genuinely equal Katharine Hepburn's four wins with me for the OVP.  For me, though, he will always be the sexiest man in the history of the screen, seducing everything in his path in A Streetcar Named Desire, in my opinion a tie for the greatest performance of all-time (with Vivien Leigh...in A Streetcar Named Desire).

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've seen most of Brando's biggest films because he's my favorite actor, but I've never seen his musical debut in Guys and Dolls-that would probably be the one with the biggest intrigue around it.

5. Fred Astaire (1899-1987)

Oscar Nominations: Astaire only received one competitive Oscar nomination in his career (for The Towering Inferno of all things), but did receive an Honorary Award in 1950, presented to him of course by Ginger Rogers.

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the classiest hoofer of them all.  His longtime partnership with Ginger Rogers onscreen is the stuff of Hollywood legend, and even if you're someone who has never seen an Astaire/Rogers film (and I insist that you rectify this situation immediately), you'll know that Astaire is one of those actors who's "gotta dance."

My Favorite Performance: Astaire was an extremely classy dude onscreen, but he, like Rogers, frequently played himself.  I'm going to go with Top Hat in a slight nod over Swing Time (since that's always been my favorite of their films, despite modern enthusiasm being for the latter film).  Funny Face is also wonderful, but I can't list it because the age difference between Hepburn and Astaire has always given me the heebie jeebies (though it's a marvelous movie otherwise).

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: Astaire is the first actor on this list where I can say that I've got some work to do.  While I've hit a couple of his major films with Rogers, films like The Gay Divorcee and Follow the Fleet are still in the ole Netflix queue.  However, some later Astaire (including Easter Parade, The Band Wagon, and Daddy Long Legs) is still on the to view list, so this would need to be a marathon.

6. Henry Fonda (1905-1982)

Oscar Nominations: Just two for acting, but boy did he make them count: The Grapes of Wrath, for which he lost to Jimmy Stewart, and On Golden Pond, for which he won Best Actor.  He was also nominated for producing 12 Angry Men and won an Honorary Award in 1980.

Probably Best Known Today For: Being the father of an acting dynasty, as well as his work in The Grapes of Wrath, a move most high school students will sit through at some point (and he's also in 12 Angry Men, another high school movie staple).  His larger career isn't quite as consistently noteworthy as Stewart, Grant, or Brando, but the highlights are known by pretty much anyone.

My Favorite Performance: I feel really weird not listing Grapes of Wrath (Fonda is just wonderful in that movie), but for me there is no topping cold-hearted Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West, the greatest western ever made, and one where Fonda plays duly against type as a ruthless villain being challenged by good guy Charles Bronson.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've seen most of his major hits, so if we're ranking by fame I'd probably have to go with something on the B-roster of Fonda movies like The Ox-Bow Incident or The Wrong Man, but personal preference would be for The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, which was one of my grandpa's favorite movies and one that I have oddly never seen.

7. Clark Gable (1901-1960)

Oscar Nominations: Gable received three, winning for 1934's It Happened One Night.

Probably Best Known Today For: Not giving a damn.  It's amazing how a single scene or line can make someone immortal amongst the public, but while Gable was once the King of Hollywood and starred in multiple classic film roles, his work as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind will eternally be the film that he is most famous for with the general populace.

My Favorite Performance: This is a tough call, as I really love Gable in It Happened One Night, and he's probably my fourth favorite performance in GWTW.  Still, fourth in GWTW is toward the top of my personal list, and so I'll go with his "not a gentleman" work in that movie.  What I love about that film, even today, is how desperately modern both he and Vivien Leigh's work seems-the script may be dated, but the performances could work just as well today.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: For some reason, I have never gotten around to Gable's third Oscar-nominated performance in Mutiny on the Bounty (this is also one of the extremely rare Best Picture winners that I've never seen).  That would definitely be toward the top of the list, and I honestly think it actually is-I want to say it's in my next ten movies on my Netflix queue.

8. James Cagney (1899-1986)

Oscar Nominations: Cagney received three nominations in his career, winning for 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy

Probably Best Known Today For: He's not as well-known today, if we're being honest.  This was one of the more surprising elements of the AFI list not because Cagney didn't deserve to be on the list, or that I didn't expect him on the list (I did and would have), but because he's clearly the least well-known in the Top 10.  That said, Cagney's work today is probably most known due to his early gangster pictures.  People picture him holding a gun, not wanting to get caught, and cheering for him to get away.

My Favorite Performance: I mean, there's no really beating White Heat is there?  His demented Mama's boy is a startlingly real and powerful performance, and one that seems to get lost when you're listing the classic performances of the 1940's, but it shouldn't be.

Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I am going to say The Public Enemy.  Part of me thinks that I've actually seen this movie, but I'm not 100% certain if I have (I've seen a lot of movies...part of the reason that I started this blog was to keep track of them and my opinions on them)-maybe it's just that I've seen Cagney shove that grapefruit in Mae Clarke's face so many times that I feel like I've seen the movie.  Either way, that's the top of the list (...or, since it's Cagney, perhaps top of the world?).

Those are the first eight actors on our (what will be five-part) series on the AFI's 25 Greatest Actors list.  These are some of the most famous film stars of all-time, so I know you've got opinions on their best, worst, and the films you're most looking forward to seeing-share them in the comments!

Lauren Bacall (1924-2014)

I was still relatively new to the Oscars in 1996, and therefore, I was trying desperately to find any reason to talk about it.  I had a copy of the TV Guide predictions from Gene Siskel and those wonderful odds charts that Entertainment Weekly used to make (I'm going to sound like an old man here, but Entertainment Weekly used to be quite wonderful).  And everyone was certain that Lauren Bacall was going to win Best Supporting Actress, even if I got the impression that she might not have deserved it.  She was, they kept saying, a legend.  So when Juliette Binoche won for The English Patient (which would go on to be one of my favorite films, if not the title-holder, but I hadn't seen it yet), I learned that Oscar does indeed throw an upset my way every once-and-a-while and I was steamed for Ms. Bacall, the presumed frontrunner.  I was rather perturbed by Binoche, who would go on to be one of my favorite actresses, and though I had never seen her in anything, Bacall would instantly become a favorite of mine.

Of course, through the years I corrected that (though, oddly, I have still never seen the performance in The Mirror Has Two Faces that got her an Oscar nomination, but again-I have the OVP for that).  Bacall was a sturdy presence on the screen, and while never the great actress that a contemporary like Ingrid Bergman was, she was a Grade A, one-of-a-kind movie star in the way that few others can be.  Classy, breathtakingly beautiful, with a sultry voice and a whistle to match-it's no wonder that Humphrey Bogart fell in love with her.  Her career was never better than when she was being charmed (or more often, charming) Humphrey Bogart, and though I always feel a bit unkind when I do this, her best performance for me still remains her first in To Have and Have Not (though again, missing pieces in the filmography include The Big Sleep).  I love the way that she just owns that screen.  It takes a lot of guts to know you're good when you're only nineteen and playing opposite one of the biggest stars in cinema, but Bacall was what used to be called a dame-she had guts.

Her career was never quite as fruitful as it was in the 1940's, but she did go on to star in a number of classic movies throughout her career, including How to Marry a Millionaire, Written on the Wind, Designing Woman, and The Shootist (if any of these aren't sounding familiar or you've never seen them, do yourself a favor and start adding some films from before 1995 to your Netflix queue), and had a spectacular career on Broadway which resulted in two Tony Awards (oddly for roles that Bette Davis and Katherine Hepburn made famous on the big-screen decades prior).  Late in her film career she made something of a splash in Nicole Kidman's auteur-wilderness phase, appearing in both Dogville and Birth, and most recently picked up a Governors Award at the Oscars (sadly, because AMPAS is occasionally full of fools, this wasn't telecast so that twelve-year-old rooting for this woman who was called a legend never got to see her pick up her Oscar).  She was a classy, marvelous movie star, and probably one of the first actresses to ever introduce me to that concept.  Lauren Bacall died yesterday at the age of 89, but like all of the great movie stars, she'll live on as long as people love terrific movies that star confident, fascinating women.  RIP to a marvelous star, and thanks for teaching us all how to whistle.