Short Takes: Recent Viewings

Grandma (2015) Paul Weitz

Strained relationships, the kind we all face at one time or another in life with both family and friends, is at the heart of this small comedy/drama. It centers around the quirky and crotchety Ellie (Lily Tomlin), an aging poet who has not been able to write since her lesbian lover of more than thirty years passed away. Into her life comes her grandchild, young and pregnant. She wants to have an abortion but has no money.

The characters are well drawn and nicely performed though Lily Tomlin’s performance is a real standout. She’s just wonderful. Some jokes went over the head of the folks I saw the film with, particularly the one when they arrive at the abortion client and Tomlin quips about The Bad Seed who socked her in the face, No one else in the audience got the joke but me who busted out laughing amongst an audience of quietness.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) John Sturges

Spencer Tracy can act better than most others with one arm tied behind his back! He proves this in John Sturges terrifically well paced and tense film, “Bad Day at Black Rock.” Sturges paints a picture of a town that is barren, both physically and psychology. It’s a town with a dark secret cancer called hatred and it is slowly eating away at everyone in it.  Into this dust bowl comes John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy), a one armed stranger dressed in a black suit and tie which only accentuates his difference even more from the rest of the town. Like Gary Cooper’s Will Kane in “High Noon,” or Alan Ladd in “Shane,”  Tracy’s John Macreedy is one lone man who has to face evil alone. The film takes place shortly after the end of World War II when, for some, the Japanese were still seen as the enemy. Racial hatred simmers underneath the surface of the entire town. Like most racists it is their own fear and insecurities that drive them to action.

Black Rock is a small dusty whistle stop of a town where the railroad (the Streamline) always passes through, never stopping to pick up or drop off anyone. This time, the first in four years, it does stop and the folks in town are suspicious as to who this stranger is and what he wants. Small towns can be curious little places where local folks remain distrustful of outsiders and the outside world. That’s the way it is in Black Rock, it’s an inhospitable desolate place, where it can be cold in many ways other than the weather.

Pay or Die (1960) Richard Wilson

For three years, 1906-1909 Lt. Giuseppe “Joseph” Petrosino headed what became known as the Italian Squad of the New York Police Dept.  As a detective, Petrosino focused on fighting the Italian criminal element in New York’s Little Italy, a group known as La Mano Nera or the BLACK HAND a forerunner to the Mafia. The Black Hand began in the late 1890’s, a hoodlum by the name of Ignazio “Lupo” Saietta was one its original organizers.  Sainetta was big on extorting money from local Italian businessmen. He even penetrated the Union Scilciania, a charitable organization for newly arrived Sicilian immigrants in America. After obtaining a search warrant, Petrosino with other law enforcement officers found more than 60 bodies hidden in the Union Scilciania building. Most of the bodies were chopped up into pieces. After this Petrosino became even more determined to bring the Black Hand to justice. He came up with the idea of forming an all Italian member police squad hoping to win the confidence and help of the Italian community in capturing these criminals. Petrosino and his men went on a rampage; more than 500 hundred Italian criminals were deported back to Italy. Many others went to jail.

In 1909 Petrosino went to Italy as part of a joint investigation between the police and immigration officials. In Palermo he examined police files trying to identify criminals who could be deported as well as the real identities of many who changed their names. He also was searching for a connection between the Italian Mafia and the Black Hand back in the states. He came real close because Petrosino was shot dead in the Piazza Marina under the statue of Garibaldi after receiving an anonymous tip with promising information. Credit for the assassination generally is given to Don Vito Casico Ferro who had various run ins with Petrosino in New York before he returned to Palermo where he would become capo dei capi.  When Petrosino’s body was shipped back to Little Italy in New York more than 200,000 people came by to pay their respects.

From the late 1950’s through the early 1960’s the largest wave of gangster films were produced since the golden age of the 1930’s. Though mostly low budget, within a span of six years we saw ”Baby Face Nelson”, “Machine Gun Kelly”, “Al Capone”, “The Purple Gang”, “Young Dillinger”, “Bonnie Parker Story”, “The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond”, “Portrait of a Mobster”, “Mad Dog Coll”, “King of The Roaring Twenties”,  “Murder Inc.”, “The Scarface Mob” (two episodes of the TV series The Untouchables released as a feature film)  and “Pay or Die.” Of all these films, “Pay or Die” and “Murder Inc.” are arguably the most important of the group and “Pay or Die” is the only one of the films to focus on a heroic American figure in fighting crime.

“Pay or Die” is a vivid account of the life and times of Giuseppe Petrosino. Like most film biographies liberties have been taken but the overall story is true, including an extortion attempt on Opera star Enrico Caruso as portrayed in the film.  Though obviously filmed on a studio lot, the film reflects an accurate look at immigrant life at the turn of the 20th Century. Italian immigrants were pouring into the United States mostly from the poorer parts of Italy, and the poorest part was Sicily. Many of these families settled in New York, in what became known as Little Italy. The Black Hand preyed on the Italian community extorting money from store owners. If they didn’t pay, storefronts were blown up or worst the owners were brutally murdered. A note would be left with the body, a black hand imprinted on it as a warning to others.

The film opens up with the celebration of the Santa Rosalia Street Festival which includes a harrowing scene showing two young girls, about nine of ten years old, dressed as angels. The two girls are seen suspended on two clothes lines that stretch across the street between two tenement buildings. They are “wheeled” to the center of the street, two or three stories high and recite a pray. Down below, the crowd is thrilled, the girls parents proudly watch,  Lt. Petrosino roams the crowd as does a well dressed though slimy figure who we watch climb up to an apartment adjacent to  the clothes line. He pulls out a switchblade and cuts one of the clothes lines sending one of the little girls crashing down to the street below demonstrating the Black Hand’s persuasive measures to ensure people will pay. In another example of their brutal methods three thugs come into the bakery of Papa Saulino, who is “late” in paying. The men wreck the place, tie him up and slide him into the bread oven to think over his decision about whether to pay or die.  Later Saulino’s daughter (Zohra Lampert) and eventually, Petrosino wife, is attacked one evening on her way home from night school. She is threatened, her dress ripped and one of the thugs with black paint or ink on his hand presses a handprint over her left breast, a message to her father that his whole family is vulnerable.

“Pay or Die “provides a  tough look at the early days of the Italian criminal element in the United States and how they as predators, extorted and terrorized their own people, and one man’s attempt to fight back. The film uses the phrases “Mafia” and “Mafioso” at a time when J. Edgar Hoover only just began to admit that the Mafia even existed (maybe he watched this movie). Interestingly there was no outcry from the Italian-American community when the film came out, unlike some twelve years later when Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” hit the screens and used these same phrases, possibly because unlike the high profile Coppola film, “Pay or Die” came and went into theaters without much fanfare.

Ernest Borgnine is perfectly cast as Petrosino who comes across as a tough honest cop dedicated to cleaning up the Black Hand out of Little Italy and giving honest Italian immigrants the chance to become part of the American dream. Look for a young John Marley (Faces) as Caputo, the ragman.

Ten years earlier there was another film called “The Black Hand” with the very Irish Gene Kelly playing a fictional young Italian named Johnny Columbo and J. Carroll Nash in a supporting role that was based on Petrosino.  Of the two films, “Pay or Die’ is dramatically and historically the more interesting and more accurate.

The film is well shot by cinematographer Lucien Ballard, who at times gives it a bit of a noirish quality (though this is no film noir). Ballard already had a long career behind him but would become best known for his later work with Sam Peckinpah photographing “The Wild Bunch”, “The Ballad of Cable Hogue”, “The Getaway” and “Junior Bonner.”  It was directed, without flare, by Richard Wilson who just the year before made “Al Capone” with Rod Steiger another low budget though decent gangster film.

From Here to Eternity (1953) Fred Zinnemann

“A man don’t go his own way, he’s nothin’” – Robert E. Lee Prewitt

 

  

Based on James Jones massive bestseller, Fred Zinnemann’s film version of “From Here to Eternity” won eight Academy Awards out of 13 nominations including Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress. Daniel Taradash, who wrote the screenplay, and won an Oscar, does a magnificent job of reducing Jones more than 800 page novel into a two-hour film. The film had to be toned down for both sex and its anti-military sentiment. The latter, so Columbia would receive cooperation from the military and the former due to the restrictions of the then in force production code.  

    The story begins with the transfer of Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) to a rifle company headed up by Captain Dana Holmes (Philip Ober). When Holmes learns of Prewitt’s ability as a boxer, he wants him to join the company’s boxing team. Prewitt, who previously blinded another boxer in the ring, does not want to box. Holmes First Sergeant, Milton Walden (Burt Lancaster), he actually runs the unit for the ineffective Captain, suggest that they make “life” difficult for Prewitt forcing him into submission by getting other non-commission officers under his command to help “persuade” him to box. Prewitt is a man who goes his own way and can take whatever is dished out by the Sergeants, still refusing to box. Walden in the meantime has his eyes on the Captain’s beautiful neglected and unhappy wife, Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr) and they soon begin an affair. Prewitt meets an old friend, the streetwise loser Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra). Together they go out to the New Congress Club, a dance club where they can meet girls. It’s here Prewitt meets Lorene (Donna Reed). While at the New Congress Club, Maggio, having too much to drink, gets into his first altercation with Fatso Judson (Ernest Borgnine), the sadistic Sergeant in charge of the Stockade. The fight is quickly broken up by Prewitt. Walden and Karen meet at a secluded beach for a romantic interlude. Here Karen tells Walden how early in her marriage she discovered her husband’s philandering and that during one of his more violent drunken episodes she miscarried their child and now is unable to bear any more children.

    At Choy’s bar, a drunken Maggio gets into another mix with Fatso, who pulls out a switchblade. Walden, who is watching, breaks a beer bottle in half and steps in between the two. He tells Fatso, if he wants a fight, fight with him. Fatso backs down, promising Maggio that someday he will get him, saying his type always end up in the stockade eventually. Prewitt and Lorene continue to see each other. She tells Prewitt her real name is Alma and gives him a key to the apartment she shares with another girl. Prewitt’s harsh “treatment” by the non-commissioned officers continues however, he continues to take it never complaining. On another night’s leave, Prewitt and Maggio get ready to go out on the town, only Maggio is slow in getting ready and is the last man in the barracks when the Officer of the Day grabs him for guard duty. Upset Maggio goes AWOL while on guard duty and is quickly arrested and court-martialed. He is sentenced to six months in the stockade where he comes face to face with Fatso and his billy club. Karen wants Walden to sign up for officer training school so he can be transferred back to the states. She will then divorce Holmes and they can marry. Walden who hates officers reluctantly agrees. 

    Prewitt is forced into a fight with one of the Sergeants from the boxing team. A group of soldiers gathers to watch, including Captain Holmes, who does nothing to stop the fight until the Sergeant starts losing. Senior officers have been watching from afar wondering why Holmes is not stopping the fight. A few nights later, Walden and Prewitt are sitting on the side of a road drunk when Maggio, badly beaten up, appears. He escaped from the stockade not being able to take Fatso’s brutal beatings anymore. Maggio dies in Prews arms. The following night, Prewitt looks for Fatso and finds him coming of out the New Congress Club. Switchblades are drawn and Prewitt knifes Fatso to death however, Prewitt has been stabbed badly too. Wounded he makes his way to Lorene’s apartment where he remains as he recuperates.  Walden covers up for Prewitt’s AWOL for the next few days. Meanwhile, Karen asks Walden if he submitted his application for officer training and he tells her he did not. On the eve of December 7^th, they split up realizing their dreams of a life together could only be a fantasy.

    The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor the next morning. Prewitt, still recuperating at Lorene’s, hears on the radio about the attack and realizing his duty as a solider wants to get back to Schofield Barracks. Lorene pleads with him not to go; after all, what did the Army ever do for him, other that treat him like crap.  As he tries to sneak back to the base, Prewitt is shot by a nervous guard when he does not stop after several cries of halt. When Walden arrives, the guard asks why didn’t he stop? “He was just too stubborn!” Walden replies.

A few days later, Karen and Lorene are evacuated by ship. As they leave the port heading back to the states. Lorene tells Karen her fiancé was a pilot who shot down during the attack. However, Karen recognizes Prewitt’s name realizing Lorene’s fantasy ending.    

    For me, the key role in “From Here to Eternity” is that of Robert E. Lee Prewitt, as portrayed by Montgomery Clift. It is Prewitt who drives what I see as the major theme of the film, that of how does someone maintain his individuality in a system that demands conformity.  Prewitt will not turn his back on his own moral code, not even for the Army that he loves so much.  Walden knows how to play the game; in the military there is no room for individuality; you must conform for the good of the “team.” He sees Prewitt as just being stubborn.  Prewitt’s rebellion is that of a person who knows who he is in life. Unlike Brando’s  50’s rebels  in “A Street Name Desire” and especially in “The Wild One”, Prewitt is not rebelling just for the sake of rebelling, he is standing up for his own principles which are in conflict with the system, in this case, the Army that he loves and wants to be apart of. However, he will not succumb to their demands if it means breaking with his own moral ideas. Additionally, unlike James Dean whose rebellion in both “East of Eden” and “Rebel without a Cause” are both centered on young mixed up teens trying to find themselves by rebelling against ineffective parents. Prewitt is no kid; he knows who he is and what he wants. Prewitt is also representative of director Fred Zinnemann whose main characters often were subject to moral predicaments in films like “High Noon”, “The Nun’s Story” and “A Man for All Seasons.”  

    Censorship restrictions at the time forced many changes and toning down, from novel to screen. The New Congress Club where Prew meets Lorene, a whorehouse in the book, became a “Gentlemen’s Club” and the girls went from whores to “hostesses.” The affair between Walden and Kerr was a lot more explicit in the novel than it is in the film. Despite the toning down, the movie still steams sex. Deborah Kerr never looked sexier than she does in this movie. We first see her in a tight fitting sweater as she walks around the base looking for her philandering husband and later on in shorts when Walden make an unexpected visit to her house. There is also the iconic beach scene with the ocean’s waves washing over Lancaster and Kerr bodies that steamed up the screen and still does. It is still surprising how much did get passed the censors. This may have been to some extent due to the casting of Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed in the female leading roles. Both women had “pure” screen reputations, so maybe the censors were more lenient or not paying as much attention. After not seeing this film for a longtime, I was surprised by how short the beach scene is, yet it has resonated strongly in our cinematic erogenous zones.

    Performances are all around excellent and this is confirmed by the acting awards and nominations the film received. Both Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift received Best Actor nominations, Deborah Kerr, Best Actress and Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed both received Academy Awards in their respective Best Supporting categories. Ernest Borgnine deserves much credit for his role as Fatso Judson the sadist stockade Sergeant.

    “From Here to Eternity” is overflowing with actors in small roles who would become better known later on, Jack Warden, Mickey Shaunessey, Bruce Cabot, Claude Akins, Joan Shawlee and George Reeves who was already portraying Superman on TV. The novel (1951) was James Jones first, followed by “Some Came Running”, “The Pistol” and “The Thin Red Line.” In all, Jones published 10 books; his last novel was released posthumously after being completed by Willie Morris.  In 1951, the book was the winner of National Book Award for fiction. Jones based “From Here to Eternity” on his own experiences while stationed in Hawaii though most of the story is said to be fiction. It is ranked 62^nd in the Modern Library’s list of Top 100 novels. The book is considered, along with Norman Mailer’s “The Naked and the Dead” among the best novels depicting the American soldier in the South Pacific during the World War II era.