February 2004 Archives

Battleground is a classic World War 2 combat movie, made in 1949, about the Battle of the Bulge; in specific, the defenders of the city of Bastogne, made famous by General McAuliffe's reply to the German surrender demand, "Nuts!". A pet project of studio head Dore Schary when he came to MGM, it became a huge hit, both commercially and critically, garnering many Oscar nominations, and winning 2 (Cinematography and Writing). While it feels more dated than other WW2 era combat movies I've seen, it is still a good film to watch.

The movie opens with two new recruits showing up at an American base in the woods of Ardennes. Pvt. Jim Layton (Marshall Thompson) and his buddy are afraid they've missed all the good battles, and are upset they got split up. Layton has an uncomfortable evening in the tent for his squad, as the veterans pretty much ignore him. They are all getting ready for some well earned R&R in Paris, but then an early morning wake-up call ruins their plans, as they head off to Bastogne.

It seems the Germans have made a big push in the Ardennes forest, which became known as The Battle of the Bulge, Germany's last great offsensive of World War 2. The 101^st Airborne has been asked to hold the critical crossroads town of Bastogne, and hold it they must, as the Germany Army swarms around them. The film follows Layton's squad as they are involved in various small battles that make up the grand picture.

Van Johnson plays Pfc. Holley, a bluff, loud guy who gets promoted to squad leader after Sgt. Walowicz is (Bruce Cowling) is wounded early in the picture. He also gets involved with a local French woman (Denise Darcel, who parlayed this part into her own small bit of Hollywood fame) whose house is used as a bivouac. He is more bluster than bravery, but does come through in the pinch, with some unknowing help from Layton.

Pvt. Ernest J. 'Pop' Stazak (George Murphy) is due to be sent home, but the paperwork comes through too late and they are surrounded before he can get out. Pvt. Johnny Rodriguez (Ricardo Montalban) is his main buddy, the happy go lucky kid who tries to do the right thing. And there are several other typical combat movie characters as well.

The squad gets involved in a couple of firefights, although it is pretty amazing just how little fighting they actually do in the movie. And then there is the annoying Hollywood "snow", which they still can't get right today. And without seeing their breath, it is also hard to imagine just how cold it must've been on the front. But finally, the weather clears and the air support can come in, freeing the men up from the siege.

I watched this on the Turner Classic Movie channel, but as it is a 40s film, I don't think it suffered much from the presentation; at least it is commercial free. It does feel more stilted than some later combat movies, although it does get credit for being one of the earliest "realistic" portrayals of men in war. And I was surprised by just how little combat was involved. There was a lot of talk about fighting, but only 2 firefights happened, and one of those was fairly short. And the men were mostly just caricatures, with no in depth character studies here. But still, an interesting movie to see, at least as an ancestor of the more realistic movies to come (like the earlier The Story of GI Joe or the much later Hell is for Heroes). It is available on VHS, and is "Coming Soon" on DVD. I hope there are some nice extras on the DVD!

Mr. Death : The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. is another documentary by the noted documentarian, Errol Morris, who did other well-known factual films like The Thin Blue Line (a movie I'd love to see but isn't available on DVD yet) and, recently, The Fog of War, an interview with Robert S. McNamara. Mr. Death focuses on Fred Leuchter, Jr., the son of a Massachusetts prison worker who becomes an expert in the manufacture of death penalty devices like electric chairs and lethal injection stations. After being ask to testify for a revisionist Nazi, his life gets completely destroyed.

The film opens with Leuchter talking about his death penalty devices, and how he became involved in the manufacture of these things. While a staunch death penalty advocate, he also wants to use a "humane" method of dealing death, so he designs the "perfect" electric chair. The clinical discussions of botched electric chair and other death penalty sentences are some of the most chilling I've ever heard. As a vehement death penalty opponent, it really made my skin crawl to hear about society-sanctioned murder and how to best achieve the savage result.

Then he gets asked, as an self-taught expert in dealing death, to testify for neo-Nazi Ernst Zündel in a Canadian trial. Zündel is on trial for printing false history to incite racism, due to his pamphlets arguing that the gas chambers in the German concentration camps are a myth. He asks Leuchter to go to Auschwitz and Birkenau to examine what is left of the "purported" gas chambers and see if, in his "expert" opinion, they could be used for mass killings.

After a laughably inept trip, filmed by an accompanying videographer, Leuchter comes to the conclusion that there are no gas chambers at these concentration camps. His most important "evidence" is that an independent test on the wall scrapings he took show no evidence of the gas used. He becomes a hero to the "revisionist" movement, lauded by folks like Zündel and David Irving, as a truth seeker.

Of course, it isn't the "truth" at all. The chemist who did the tests explains how and why they failed to detect anything. A German journalist explains several other things, including the chilling discussion of one of the largest gas chambers at Auschwitz, which he calls the "epicenter of horror", where over 500,000 Jews were gassed to death. The one thing that Leuchter says that is believable is just how unbelievable it all is.

After the trial, Leuchter's life falls apart, as his state contracts are voided, his wife leaves him and he can't get a job, due to his now well known Nazi sympathies. It still seems to me he is a nerd who just doesn't know any better, and he seems to be paying far beyond his crime. But Morris lets you decide.

It is a very interesting and disturbing film, on a lot of levels, from the visceral repulsion of the gas chamber to the destroyed "mouse" of a man at the end of the film. It is told in a somewhat confusing manner, with lots of strange camera shots, fuzzy pictures and "re-enactments". The timeline is confusing and you wonder just how some of the shots came to be, and Morris is in no hurry to explain it to you. Probably much more of a film maker than most documentaries (see, for instance Startup.com, a much more conventional documentary). But it is an eye-opener nonetheless, and worth renting.

The Lady From Shanghai is a long neglected Orson Welles classic, where this time he is a pioneer in film noir. Starring his then wife Rita Hayworth, nearly unrecognizable in short, blonde hair (much to film studio head Harry Cohn's chagrin!) and himself, it is a complicated story of greed, lust and murder, set in a rarified social strata. It ends with one of the most famous scenes in all of film noir, maybe even moviedom itself, the fun house mirror scene. A typically outrageously entertaining film from Welles.

Orson Welles plays the down on his luck Irish sailor, Michael O'Hara, who comes across The Lady From Shanghai while walking in Central Park. O'Hara is immediately smitten by Hayworh's Elsa 'Rosalie' Bannister, and manages to "rescue" her from some park thugs, under some murky circumstances. In typical noir fashion, he is led on by this femme fatale, who is always one step ahead of him.

She wants him to skipper her and her powerful, rich, and crippled lawyer husband's yacht (Errol Flynn's in real life), on their passage from New York, through Panama, to San Franciso. While on board, he becomes enmeshed in a seemingly messy triangle between Hayworth, her husbad, Arthur Bannister (played with real panache by Welles regular Everett Sloan) and Bannister's law partner, George Grisby (Glenn Anders in a role of a lifetime). It gets even more complicated when Elsa aggressively pursues O'Hara, who tries to hold back but of course just can't resist.

When they get to San Francisco, there's some complicated murder plot that O'Hara ends up getting entangled in and charged with the crime. Ironically enough, Arthur Bannister agrees to defend him and there is a wildly chaotic courtroom scene, that is just amazing to watch unfold. See especially Everett Sloan cross-examining himself!

O'Hara escapes when he feels like he has no chance, but is recaptured by Elsa, and the fun begins in the funhouse. It's all wrapped up neatly in a shootout and a typically wonderfully filmed, written and acted film by Welles comes to a close.

Wow, what a film! I'm not entirely sure what O'Hara was charged with or exactly how he got enmeshed in the actual murders. Perhaps it will become more obvious with another viewing. But you just love the ride nonetheless, as Welles gets some incredible acting by all concerned, including, as usual, himself. There is also the obligatory great camera shots, even if some of them end up feeling stilted, like he was trying for something cool. The aquarium scene is just as notable as the fun house, as are the scenes on location in Acapulco.

Also worth noting are the extras on the DVD from the actor/director/writer, Peter Bogdanovich. He does the very interesting commentary track, where he includes many snippets of a long interview he had with Welles over the years, which he distilled into his book, This Is Orson Wells. He talks alot about Welles' technique in general, and about this film in specific. There is also a short documentary, where they film Bogdanovich talking about very similiar things, for those of you who don't want to do the entire commentary track.

The DVD print is pretty solid. There are little or no bad frames in this gorgeous black and white film. The blacks are nice and black, and the shadows really stand out. I was truly impressed by this film, as I have been by all of Welles' stuff. It is going right to the top of my "Must Buy" list!

See the sidebar for interesting things to read. See especially the Review Index for a list of all the reviews I've done. I'm still in the process of moving over the ones I did on the old site, so please excuse the construction. I'm hoping this new format will allow me to more easily add content. I guess we'll see, eh?