Alan Arkin

                                                                    Part 1

Alan Arkin died recently at 89. He was a true Renaissance man and his movie credits are long and noteworthy. He was nominated for Oscar four times and won once.

His first important part in a significant film was in the heart-breaking The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (1968). Updated to the 60's from Carson McCullers’ great novel, it is the story of people who are damaged in various ways trying to connect and make a life. Arkin plays Singer, a deaf mute. His only friend is mentally challenged Sprios, who gets committed to an institution. Singer moves into the Kelly household to be near his friend, and tries to make friends with their teen-age daughter Mick. Arkin’s performance is just stunning. He was nominated for Oscar but lost to Cliff Robertson who won for Charly.

Alan Arkin has the starring role as Yossarian in Catch-22 (1970), adapted by Mike Nichols and Buck Henry from Joseph Heller’s dark comedy about World War II. The adaptation was a herculean task because there are so many characters and so many stories. On the whole, I think it succeeds and Arkin is in good company with Bob Balaban, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Art Garfunkel, Bob Newhart and even Orson Welles. Catch-22 has become a modern idiom for can’t win situations. 

Little Murders (1971) is a difficult film from a difficult book by Jules Feiffer. Alan Arkin directed this film and appears in a minor role as Lieutenant Practice. It chronicles life, and death, in NYC where people try to live and seem to get dead for no apparent reason. Elliott Gould is featured as a man who apparently can’t feel pain- or pleasure. This film is not to casually dip into, but worth the trouble if you stay with it. 

Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972) adapted from Neil Simon’s Broadway hit, stars Alan Arkin as a stumbling middle-aged husband trying in vain to have an affair. It’s not a great play, or movie, but has some laughs and Arkin is good as a guy who just does not get it (pun intended!)

The In-Laws (1979) stars Arkin (as Shelly)  and Peter Falk (as Vince Ricardo). They are fathers of a bride and groom-to-be. The plot is the classic innocent man getting involved in shenanigans as Vince ropes the helpless Shelly into increasingly bizarre, and dangerous situations.  Shelly tries in vain to convince his daughter not to marry into this questionable family. You can find out if he was right!

All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are really for grown-ups. And oh yes, there are lots more Arkin movies. Stay tuned.  

                                                                    Frankie Laine

    What? You may be thinking. Frankie Laine was a singer. Was he also in movies? Well, not as an actor. But back in the 50's and 60's if you were making a western you just had to get Frankie Laine to sing the movie’s song. And he sure could!

    One of his best songs isn’t from a movie at all, but a TV show: Rawhide (1959-65). This was a super good series about cowboys on a looooooong cattle drive and the people and problems they encounter along the way. There’s nobody much you’ve ever heard of in the cast. Oh wait, there was a rugged looking young guy named Clint Eastwood. 

    A couple of Frankie’s big western hits had nothing to do with a movie. But these are great songs! Mule Train and Ghost Riders in the Sky are still around today. Ghost Riders was also recorded by Vaughn Monroe, Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, and many others. 

Starting with the classic High Noon (1952) Frankie knocked out hit after hit from Western movies.  This one stars Gary Cooper as sheriff Kane and Grace Kelly as his newly wedded bride Amy. Kane put Frank Miller in prison. He’s out now and vowing revenge and he’s coming to Kane’s town with his brothers. Kane says leaving would be cowardly. Amy says she’s a Quaker and she’s not staying. The Frankie Laine song is just perfect: “He made a vow while in state prison; vowed it would be my life or his’n. Look at that big hand move around- nearing high noon”. Oh, and Amy winds up running back to join in the fray and of course you know both Kanes make it out okay.

     Gunfight At The OK Corral (1957) is a good film a little shaky on history.  Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas)  and Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) take on the Clanton gang in this one and the song sums it up nicely. In the cast also are the legendary bad guys Lee Van Cleef, Earl Holliman and Jack Elam. The real gunfight is supposed to have lasted about 3 minutes but that wouldn’t make much of a movie (or song). 

3:10 To Yuma (1957) with Glenn Ford as the good guy and Van Heflin as the heavy is not in the same class, but the song is good. The film was remade in 2007 with Russel Crowe without a lot of improvement. The Hanging Tree (1959) is another so-so film with a really good Frankie Laine title song. 

    OK, this is the funniest movie I have ever seen: Blazing Saddles (1974) is Mel Brooks’ comedy gem. The governor sends a Black railroad worker accused of assault to be the Sheriff of Rock Ridge. He also has a gang of thugs sent to run the residents off, assuming the new Sheriff won’t be up to the job. Wrong. Cleavon Little plays Bart, the Sheriff. Mel Brooks himself plays the dimwitted governor, and Gene Wilder plays the new deputy. One of the many highlights is when thuggish Alex Karras literally knocks out a horse. Brooks advertised for “a Frankie Laine-type singer” and got Frankie himself to do the title song without telling him the film is a comedy. Frankie knocked it out in one take and it became another hit. 

    All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are OK for 12 and up.  

                                                           Glenda Jackson

        What a life! The incredible Glenda Jackson passed on in June. She was 87. She won two Oscars. She served in the British House of Commons several times and was a fierce advocate for women’s rights and other Labour causes. She came up hard and she worked at a pharmacy until she impressed the directors enough to get into the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts at 18. From there she went straight up.

        She was first widely noticed when she played Charlotte Corday in Marat/Sade (1967) with heavyweights Ian Richardson and Patrick Magee. Two years later she stunned the cinema world, winning the Best Actress Oscar as Gudrun, in Women In Love, Ken Russell’s ground-breaking film adapted from D.H. Lawrence’s novel of the same name. Oliver Reed and Alan Bates provide plenty of fireworks and Glenda is just outstanding. 

        Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) was a British film directed by John Schlesinger and one of the first movies showing homosexual men in a favorable light. Glenda Jackson plays Alex Greville, the female side of an unlikely romantic triangle. She was nominated for another Oscar but this time lost to Jane Fonda for Klute.

        Also in 1971, the very busy Glenda Jackson had two turns as Queen Elizabeth 1, first in a quite good made-for-TV drama, and also in Mary, Queen of Scots. Vanessa Redgrave played Mary, tried for treason and beheaded, refusing to apologize to Elizabeth for her part in an assassination plot. Trivia: That's where "Bloody Mary" came from!

        Another Oscar for Best Actress came Ms. Jackson’s way for her performance in A Touch of Class (1973). As a British divorcee having an affair with a married man (George Segal) she is just astonishingly good. Her character is somewhat older than his, and she manages to make that unimportant. 

        In 1978's Stevie, Glenda Jackson shines as British poet Stevie Smith, like many poets unheralded during her lifetime. Her life at her aunt’s home which she shared is the centerpost of the film. “I was drowning, not waving” is one of the poet’s best lines.  She can also be seen to good advantage in Hopscotch (1980) and Turtle Diary (1985). Keep in mind that all those Oscar nominations were for British movies!

        In the 90's and beyond Glenda Jackson turned her career to politics. She was elected to the House of Commons several times, was in the Cabinet occasionally and was one of Labour’s shining stars. 

        All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for grown-ups. 

                                                 WE WILL MISS BRUCE WILLIS

        It's very doubtful we will ever see Bruce Willis in another new movie. He has had to hang it up, being afflicted with the cognitive disorder Aphasia. I’d like to take a fond look back at his roller coaster career. And I would like to point out that he definitely could act up a storm in the right part.

He smirked. He strutted. He fell 100 feet from a crane and sustained only a slight limp, which mysteriously disappeared by the next scene. He could “open” an action movie like nobody else. He made the Die Hard movies a franchise, and appeared in dogs like Hudson Hawk (1991) and The Fifth Element (1997). He made more money from one film than the total budget of many third world countries. And he sometimes seemed to be an unaware victim of Y2K, unerringly picking bad films since the century turned over. But- could Bruce Willis act? Absolutely.

Perhaps the sole exception to the apparently limitless series of losers after 2000 is the dreamy Moonrise Kingdom (2012) with Bruce as a friendly cop. 

Granted, the unexpected success of The Sixth Sense (1999) has a lot to do with the story. But Mr. Willis is absolutely splendid as the psychologist trying desperately to help a small boy in torment because he sees dead people. Bruce Willis gave the film credibility and put people in the theaters. From there, word of mouth took over and made it a blockbuster, surprising everyone including the people who made it.

In Country (1989) is not mentioned in the same breath with the great Vietnam war movies like Apocalypse Now and Platoon, but it deserves to be. Emily Lloyd, yet another British actor with complete mastery of our accent, has lost her father and a big chunk of herself to the war. Bruce Willis is her uncle, a Vietnam vet devastated by what he has seen and heard, unable to cope with the fact that he somehow survived when so many did not. Low key and convincing, this film is a sleeper that deserves more attention. 

With all the hoopla surrounding Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, people  tend to forget that Bruce Willis appeared in Pulp Fiction (1994), Quentin Tarrantino’s groundbreaking black comedy about Americans a long way down on the food chain. Told from different points of view at the same time, Pulp Fiction has become something of a legend. Mr. Willis is just fine as a crooked boxer trying to escape intact and being foiled at every turn.

Nobody’s Fool (1994) is unquestionably Paul Newman’s movie. Richard Russo’s wonderful novel of the vanishing American individualist is a perfect setting for what was Mr. Newman’s last leading man role. Give Bruce Willis an assist, though, as Newman’s sometimes boss and friend, one of the few characters who understands him. A poker game is a comical high point, as well as the constant one-upmanship between the two. 

All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. All are for adult audiences. 

                                                           Didn’t Make the Cut

                                                                    Part 1

        You may have (or not) noticed that when a movie personality dies, be it actor, director, writer or producer, his or her life work on the silver screen turns up as a Mr. Movie column. This is absolutely by design. The deceased’s work makes for good columns and is a nice tribute. An admission: when column matter is running low, Mr. Movie just might be wishing for a prominent death! Ouch. Anyway, it may be interesting (I hope) to read about lots of famous movie people that did not make the cut. 

The rule of thumb is that the subject needs to have at least five good movies to his or her credit to make a decent column. A surprising number of famous people do not rise to that level. 

Louise Fletcher had a stunning, Oscar-winning performance as the dreadful Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cukoo’s Nest (1975). Unfortunately, that was about it for Ms. Fletcher. Though she had steady work for many years, Cukoo’s Nest was her only good movie. 

At one time, Michael Constantine seemed to be everywhere. Many TV appearances and a few movies. He had a wonderful part in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002). He was the father of the bride, famous for recommending Windex for every purpose under the sun. He was in a couple of lame sequels. He had more than  200 TV and movie roles, but the Wedding part was the peak for him. 

Markie Post had a good run as defense attorney Christine Sullivan in the hilarious TV comedy Night Court. Despite her blonde good looks and acting chops that was about the high point for her. She did have an admittedly minor role as Mary’s mother in There’s Something About Mary (1998). That’s about it. 

Arlene Dahl, a gorgeous redhead just couldn’t seem to catch a casting break. . When the high point of your movie career is as Carla in the pretty awfu  Journey To The Center Of The  Earth (1959) that’s just sad. She worked all the time, but not in anything memorable. 

Ed Asner was widely known, and praised, for his TV work. He first impressed as Lou Grant in the long running Mary Tyler Moore Show. He was her curmudgeonly  boss with a heart of gold at the TV station. When Mary moved on he also did, in a show titled by his character. For an actor who won seven Emmys, his movie career is pretty skimpy. He had a great part as Santa Claus in Elf (2003) and was just perfect as the voice of Carl in the wonderful Up (2009). That’s about it movie-wise. 

All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. Not so sure about the TV shows. Coming soon: more movie personalities that didn’t make Mr. Movie’s cut. 

                                                       REMARKABLE REMAKES

        Recently Mr. Movie was taking the movie producers to task for their slavish reliance on sequels. He even found a few that are worth your time. Those same producers also rely way too much on remakes. “The first one was good; lets remake it and sell it again”. Rremakes mostly suck. Mr. Movie is here for you to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

Ikiru  (1952) is a Japanese classic. It’s the story of an aging bureaucrat who stolidly stamps form after form, then gets the bad news that he has six months to live. Although he wants to use his time differently, he realizes he doesn’t know how. Great stuff! Then came Living (2022) with Bill Nighy absolutely knocking it out of the park with one of the great performances. Well, he was nominated for Oscar but lost to Brendan Frazier for Whale. Frazier was very good and lucked into the Academy’s preference for handicapped roles. But Nighy’s peformance is one for the ages. 

True Grit (1969) is a dead-on winner featuring John Wayne’s only Oscar winning performance as retired sheriff Rooster Cogburn. Kim Darby is just right as Mattie Ross, who hires Rooster to track down outlaw Tom Chaney, who killed her father. Glen Campbell plays Texas Ranger La Boeuf who is also pursuing Chaney and his gang. He joins up with Mattie and Rooster and the hunt is on. I dreaded the release of the 2010 remake, but I was wrong. Jeff Bridges makes a splendid Rooster and Matt Damon and Hailee Steinfeld are also good. This one is directed by the Coen brothers and is every bit as good as the original. These would make a gread double feature!

The original West Side Story (1961) is a joy with the great music of Leonard Bernstein, great dancing and the lovely Natalie Wood as Maria. This one is almost ruined by the dreadful Richard Beymer as Tony, who virtually disappeared after this film. It is, of course, the Romeo and Juliet story played out on the mean streets of New York by rival gangs. The 2021 remake is even better, with mostly unknown actors in Tony Kushner’s sparkling screenplay and the sure-handed direction of Steven Spielberg. The best known cast member is Rita Moreno who also appeared in the 1961 version and is still fabulous forty years later. 

The original film of All Quiet On The Western Front won the Best Picture Oscar in 1930, as did director Lewis Milestone. The only familiar name is Lew Ayres, as the story is told from the German side of World War I. The title comes from Erich Marie Remarque’s novel: “The day he fell, the dispatches read ‘all quiet on the western front’” The 2022 remake was also nominated for Best Picture Oscar but didn’t win. The updated version is just as good as the original, though. Again the cast is made of actors not known to American audiences. Neither movie pulls any punches about the grimness and pointlessness of World War I. 

All of the films in this article are available on DVD. All are for adults. And yes, Mr. Movie has more remarkable remakes up his sleeve!

                                        ROBIN WILLIAMS: SERIOUSLY, FOLKS

Multi-talented Robin Williams  joined a sad list of actors who died too young. He was only 64. He went from struggling stand-up comic to TV star of Mork and Mindy (remember “nanu nanu”?) to lots of good films.  His movies are divided between those where the director runs the show, and those where Mr. Williams appears to be in charge. The latter scenario results in horrors like Patch Adams, Shakes The Clown, and Death To Smoochy, all agonizingly bad.

But Mr. Williams could act up a storm when a good director reined him in. We tend to remember what a good story Good Will Hunting (1997) is, and that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won an Oscar for their screenplay. We tend to forget that Robin Williams won the only acting Oscar for that film, playing the professor who nurtures the janitor-mathematical genius in his school.

In 2002 Mr. Williams was in two movies that showcased his considerable acting talents. In Insomnia he is a clever killer always one step ahead of the cops, and he holds his own against Al Pacino. Mr. Williams is the whole show in One-Hour Photo. He is a photo tech in a big discount store with no family (and no life) and he “adopts” a local family whose pictures he develops. He is a truly creepy character and it is his underplayed, in-control acting that makes this engine go.

Robin Williams’ first big role was as the title character in the marvelous The World According To Garp (1982). The 30-year-old standup comic seemed a very weird choice for this role at the time, but he is splendid in a difficult part. In fact, Mr. Williams is one of the saner characters in a film featuring a cross-dressing tight end and a mother who becomes spokesperson for liberal causes while in her nurse’s uniform.

Awakenings (1990) is based on the true story of catatonic patients who are miraculously returned to normal life by a controversial experimental drug. I thought Mr. Williams’ portrayal of the doctor carried this interesting movie.

Robin Williams is excellent as an ingenious disc jockey for the troops in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) and as a funny Russian defector in Moscow On The Hudson (1984).

And the exception that proves the rule is when Mr. Williams was given his head as the voice of the genie in Aladdin (1992). His mostly ad libbed lines are awfully funny and what makes the film so much fun. 

If you can buy Robin in drag as a housekeeper in his former wife’s home, you might like Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). The story is that he does this for access to his children after a bitter divorce. And that somehow nobody notices. You can decide if this charade really works.

The handful of Williams films that came out after his death in 2013 are, frankly, dogs. 

All of the movies in this column are available on DVD. The complete Mork And Mindy series is also available. All but One-Hour Photo (grown-ups only) are suitable for 10 and up.