jakebe: (Entertainment)

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Starring Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell and John Carradine

Written by Nunnally Johnson (screenplay) and John Steinbeck (novel)

Directed by John Ford


One of the things that's slowly and steadily been removed from our cultural identity is a sense of place. The world has gotten smaller and borders have become a bit more mutable. Families move from place to place because of work or circumstances, and with the housing market the way it is it's impossible to imagine one family owning a home that's passed down from generation to generation. It's strange to think that this is a relatively recent development, that losing one's home was a much bigger deal "only" 80 years ago.


The Grapes of Wrath follows a farming family as they're removed from their land by the bank and sent packing to California, where they hope a land of new opportunity awaits them. We identify with Tom Joad (Fonda), the eldest son, as he goes back home after a stint in prison. He's just in time to see the last gasp of his farming community -- the Dust Bowl has ruined the land and made it impossible for anyone to grow enough food to sell. They can't make enough money to keep the land, so the bank has been steadily taking homesteads for their own ends.


Tom meets up with his family just as they're packing up an ancient, creaking car to make the long trip out west. The trip is hard; Tom's grandfather dies and they are forced to bury him near a river. His grandmother soon succumbs to the rigors of the journey as well. Once they arrive in California, they're bounced from camp to camp trying to find work and finding conditions much less favorable than they've been lead to believe. Those with power and resources take advantage of those without, trying to squeeze as much labor as they can for as little pay as possible. Yet despite all of this, the Joads end up in a camp that's not so bad (provided by the government) and Ma Joad (Darwell) ends the film with a pragmatic, optimistic monologue about the survival of the clan. Considering all they've been through, how much they've lost, it's genuinely affecting. Her hope is hard-won.


There are so many memorable sequences here; the family trying to defend their homestead against a neighbor's kid on a Caterpillar, forced to raze the houses in his community to make a living; the crazed homesteader who chose his land over his family, and slowly succumbed to mad loneliness on his own; Ma Joad feeding as many children as she could in the first migrant camp they come to. What unfolds is a story of a family that is poor but proud, and won't be treated like dirt by those in power. They move through their worsening predicament with as much dignity as they can muster, and they bear their misfortunes with a quiet, contemplative grief.


At the same time, they're willing to fight back against obvious injustice. They speak up when something's not fair, and they help other people where they can. The Joad family serves as something of a model set of citizens -- wherever they go, they create community just by being decent, open people. It's impressive that the rigors of the road and the cruelty of some people they meet don't harden them. Ma Joad becomes especially fearful, but she doesn't let it skew her moral compass.


It's no surprise John Ford won an Oscar for his direction, or that Jane Darwell received the Best Supporting Actress award for her role. Ford really knows how to bring out the best traits of a character -- his handling of Stagecoach was similarly impressive, but several steps higher here. Darwell exemplifies his approach; she's stoic, vulnerable, hardy and soft-hearted all at the same time. A scene where she sits in the empty house she's lived in for so long, burning the keepsakes she can't take with her, is mostly silent but breath-takingly effective.


The story takes these mythic themes and brings them down to an earthly, even vulgar level in a way that I simply love. The Joad clan, for all their dirtiness and lean hunger, represent some of the highest ideals of civilization. In a world that seems to be crumbling all around them, growing harsher by the minute, they're firm enough to demand better treatment and kind enough to give it to the people they meet. What's best is that they don't make any fuss about it; the charity they give and receive is given automatically, in quiet moments where "thank you" and "you're welcome" are silently spoken in the looks they give one another. One can only hope that you can manage such quiet, simple grace in similar circumstances.


I can't compare this film to the novel it's based on, but I hear they're quite different especially in the back half. Thanks to the movie, the novel has earned a place on my to-be-read pile; I'll have to see just how different it is. If you're a fan of Steinbeck (who isn't?), then this is a great thing to see. Even without reading this particular book, I can say it retains his sense of humanity and the things that make us great.


Rating: 9/10.
jakebe: (Entertainment)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet
Written by John Huston (screenplay) and Dashiell Hammett (novel)
Directed by John Huston

Chances are when you think about the quintessential film-noir detective, you're thinking about Humphrey Bogart from The Maltese Falcon. On the off chance that you aren't, the person you're thinking of owes a great debt to Bogey, who invented the mold. The Maltese Falcon wasn't the very first film-noir to hit Hollywood, but it was the first one that garnered major attention and inspired an entire movement of style in popular culture. We're getting to that point in the top 100 where just about every film is a major inspiration or marked a significant turning point in the history of cinema. It's fascinating to watch these movies; they're either the skeletons of an entire genre that you can see being built through the films that follow or they're the fully-formed gold standard, the movie that exemplifies what we've come to think of when we say "mob movie," or "film noir".

This is a combination of the two; Humphrey Bogart stars as Sam Spade, a private investigator based in San Francisco. He's approached by a woman named Ruth Wonderly (Astor), who hires him to follow a man she believes is involved with her missing sister. He takes the case and his partner decides to do the leg-work; later that night, Spade gets the call that his partner's been murdered.

The man his partner was following -- Floyd Thursby -- was murdered too, and now Spade is implicated. He has the motive, certainly, and the means. This is just the gateway into the story of the Maltese Falcon, and soon Spade is caught up in this weird war with three players all vying for a priceless, lost bird. Joining Wonderly -- who renames herself O'Shaughnessy once the jig is up -- is jovially dangerous Gutman (Greenstreet) and fastidious worry-wart Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre). The trio tries to use Spade as a pawn to their own ends, but he does a remarkable job of somehow slipping right through their control. No one's quite able to get a handle on him; he thinks fast and manages to exploit a lucky turn astonishingly well.

Bogart plays Spade as a wily, cagey bastard who can't help but needle the people that get on his nerves. There's no filter between his brain and his mouth, which gets him into quite a bit of trouble in the most amusing ways. Spade is either competent or quick enough to get himself out of the scrapes he causes, and it gives the movie the feel of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Well, it would if everyone smoked cigarettes and adult themes were allowed.

The plot is convoluted, of course, but it's also fairly easy to follow. The trouble with noir is that the narrative often gets so twisted it's difficult to keep track of the players in the game or why they're doing what they're doing. Even though there are a lot of moving pieces here, crosses and double-crosses, you never quite lose the thread of the story. I think it's a testament to the writing: John Huston, adapting from the Dashiell Hammett novel that's been brought to the big screen twice before, really had a great handle on what made the story pop and kept his focus tight on the gallery of characters that would each be engaging enough to remember even with limited screen time.

I think that's what makes The Maltese Falcon so successful, ultimately. With so much noir (and stories inspired by it), authors fall into the trap of creating archetypes instead of actual characters. So much attention is given to the plot that the characters end up as faceless pieces on the chess board, only there to make moves that bring the story to its endgame. Here, every character is distinctive. They give the impression of a rich inner life beyond the confines of the story, so they're rather easy to identify. The audience really gets to know them as people, not pieces in service to the plot.

It's such a surprise that Huston nails this basic truth so early in the genre, and the feat hasn't been duplicated quite as well since. Of course, since my knowledge of noir is admittedly limited, maybe I just haven't seen the right stuff. But The Maltese Falcon is a wonderful example of an intricate, twisting plot inhabited by rich and memorable characters. Even though all of the characters feel the tightening noose of fate around their necks, they never seem blind to it. They know when they're in trouble, and they're smart enough to try and get out of it. The trouble is, Sam Spade is almost always smarter.

Rating: 8/10.
jakebe: (Entertainment)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston and Tim Holt
Written by John Huston (screenplay) and B. Traven (novel)
Directed by John Huston

I felt like I had learned a few things after seeing The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. One: finding and mining gold is a LOT more difficult than I thought and way harder than it had been portrayed in other movies. Two: that the only reason you would go to Mexico at the time was specifically to find gold. Three: that the allure of overwhelming wealth is far more powerful than just about anyone realizes. Four: "We don't need no stinking badges!" is a misquote, that actually came from this movie. The last bit, sadly, is probably the knowledge that I will spread most.

Dobbs (Bogart), an American down on his luck in Mexico, meets up with a compatriot named Bob Curtin (Holt). Together, with a grizzled prospector who's seen a thing or two (Huston), they trek to the harsh and forbidding wilderness in the Sierra Madre mountains for one big score. Once they find it, they'll have to protect it from bandits, mining companies eager to put a legal claim on the place, other prospectors, and the rising tide of greed within themselves. Combine the constant mental wariness with the back-breaking physical labor, and you just have to wonder how long someone could last in that situation.

The entire first act is a wonderfully protracted exercise in foreshadowing. Howard, the old prospector, makes no bones about telling Dobbs and Curtin that gold-mining is nowhere near as easy or fun as it sounds. There are an awful lot of things that you need to keep track of, and even more that you have to watch out for. The biggest thing to watch out for is greed, however; that'll take a man over to the point that he's doing unspeakable things. We watch both Dobbs and Curtin vehemently deny the possibility this could exist in their natures, and immediately we wonder which one of them will succumb first.

We see the character of Dobbs and Curtin quite well in this first part of the movie, and we get a good sense for what kind of people they are. After working on a construction project and being stiffed on their wages, they happen upon the foreman one day and demand their money. When they get it, they have the opportunity to take his entire roll but they don't. Only the wages they were promised, no more, no less. It's a great touch; when they have every reason to clean this guy out, they don't. Their actions back up their words, and you just know they believe themselves to be fair and honest men.

The adventures in the mountains don't go anywhere near the way the men expect; they have to deal with bandits, of course, and other prospectors sniffing around their claim. They also have to deal with the intense labor involved in extracting the gold from the mountain and the incredibly dangerous conditions they must endure to do so. Howard, who at first comes off as a loony old kook, seems to grow stronger every day he's out there. He's in his element, and the wisdom of his years becomes painfully evident.

I don't want to go too much further into the film than I already have; it was fun watching the action play out in ways that surprised me. But I will say that the destructive nature of our lusts is on full display here, and Howard's ability to see it coming far down the road and deal with it once it reaches him is truly a wonderful thing to watch. It's fascinating to watch men break down without the safety net of civilization to guide their actions.

Both Bogart and Huston give great performances here; Bogart because he's playing against his type, as a man who's out of his element and in over his head, while Huston thoroughly lives in his performance as a guy who first annoys you, then inspires awe in you. He's really the reason to watch this movie, and his Best Supporting Actor Oscar is thoroughly deserved.

I've developed an increasing fondness for stories in which the ending features the characters looking at the cost they've paid to achieve their goals and realizing that what they've overcome is so enormous that their original goals seem meaningless in comparison. I'm not sure The Treasure of the Sierra Madre quite fits that mold, but it brings it to mind. Knowing what goes into the search for gold definitely takes the luster out of it, and I imagine living through a claim scours away any romantic notions you may have had once.

Rating: 7/10.

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