Norman Jewison

                                                         Part 2

    After 1966, Norman Jewison started knocking out major movies with major themes. While audiences and critics loved them, Hollywood often didn’t. 

In The Heat Of The Night (1967) was a major gamble for everyone involved. Sidney Poitier plays Virgil Tibbs, a top Philadelphia homicide cop. He is visiting his mother in Mississippi when a prominent citizen is found murdered. Police Chief Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger) originally charges Tibbs with the murder. Later he realizes his mistake and releases him. Tibbs is definitely ready to leave for home, but Gillespie convinces him to stay and help with the murder investigation. He does. The film won Best Movie and Best Actor for Rod Steiger. Jewison was nominated for Best Director but lost to Mike Nichols for The Graduate.

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) features heavy hitters Steve McQueen (as Crown) and Faye Dunnaway (as Vicki Anderson, crack insurance investigator). Crown organizes a multi-million dollar bank heist, scoops up the money from a drop and apparently gets clean away. Vicki is convinced he is the villain and relentlessly pursues him. Romantic sparks complicate her job and Crown adeptly leads her on. There’s a neat surprise ending you won’t find here. There is a 1999 remake with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo which is slightly different and also quite good.

Fiddler on the Roof was a smash Broadway musical, still adored by audicences. Making it into a movie was a challenge. To start with, they used Topol instead of Zero Mostel as Tevye, the main character. And, the play is basically a one-set piece. In 1971 they got Norman Jewison to direct and he did a bang-up job, making the most of what he was dealt. He was nominated for the Oscar, but this time lost to William Friedkin for The French Connection. 

In 1973 Jewison undertook an even more challenging directorial job. Jesus Christ Superstar had also been a huge Broadway hit. It was not a huge success as a movie. The Tim Rice-Andrew Lloyd Weber score stands up well but it just doesn’t come across on the big screen. Most rock-operas don’t film well, and this is no exception. Also the cast is made up of completely unknown actors. 

And Justice For All (1979) is a star vehicle for Al Pacino as an out of control lawyer. The complicated plot involves a crooked judge, a crazy lawyer, and unlikely events. It really requires a suspension of belief, but if you can do that, it’s pretty good. 

All the movies in this article are for adults except Fiddler which is fine for mature children. All of them are probably available on some streaming service. And yes, there are still more Jewison movies to talk about. 

                                                                         Norman Jewison    

                                                                            Part One

    Norman Jewison, a very great director, left this vale of tears recently at the good old age of 97. He was nominated three times for a directing Oscar and won none. He was nominated four times for Best Picture and won once. They finally gave him the Irving Thalberg career (make-up) Oscar in 1999. Really, Hollywood? He was revered for his ability to get good performances from his cast.  His resume’ would make any director proud. Read on!

Forty Pounds of Trouble (1962) stars Tony Curtis as Steve McCluskey, a casino manager and Suzanne Pleshette as Chris Lockwood, his club singer. The title character is Penny Piper (Claire Wilcox), a small girl who is a major handful and is left to the care of Steve and Chris by her gambler father. Penny wants to be a match maker for Steve and Chris. This is one of the few movies filmed in part in Disneyland. With permission, of course. Lightweight, but likeable, with a long chase scene through the park as a highlight. 

The Thrill Of It All (1963) is another slight but successful effort by Jewison. Doris Day and James Garner are a happily married couple with two kids. He is a physician; she is a mom. She is hired to do commercials for Happy Soap which are a huge success. Her career causes problems for the marriage. Modern women will cringe at the ending, but hey, this was sixty years ago!

George Kimball (Rock Hudson) is a hopeless hypochondriac. On a routine check-up visit he hears his doctor on the phone describing a patient with only a few weeks to live. He believes the doc means him. So, he sets out with his best friend Arnold (Tony Randall- always the best friend!) to find a suitable husband for his wife Judy (Doris Day). Not the best idea for a movie ever, but an okay rom-com. Send Me No Flowers (1964) because George isn’t even sick, much less terminal.

In The Cincinnati Kid (1965) Steve McQueen is Eric Stoner, the title “kid”, an up and coming poker player from New Orleans. He discovers that Lancey Howard, reputedly the best player in America and known as The Man, is in town. Of course a legendary high-stakes game ensues. On the final hand of five-card stud, The Kid has a full house. Good enough? Watch and see. Jewison said this film enabled him to move on from lightweight comedies. 

Well, it isn’t lightweight but it sure is a comedy: The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966) is absolutely hilarious and a good if unlikely story. A Russian sub ventures too close to the New England coast because the captain wants to see what America looks like. The sub runs aground and is stranded. A team of Russian sailors are sent inland to find a boat to tow the sub. Alan Arkin, in his first big part, is Alexi, leader of the expedition. The funniest scene happens when the Russian sailors steal some clothes from a dry cleaner and try to convince the residents to help them. The do not speak great English. 

All of the movies in this article are ok for all ages except Cincinnati Kid. Norman Jewison now enters the heavy hitter director category. Stay tuned!

                                                           Tom Wilkinson

                                                                Part 3

Perhaps you thought I was done with Tom Wilkinson after two articles. Nope. There’s actually lots more. Boy, could he pick his spots!

The Ghost Writer (2010) features Ewan McGregor as the unnamed title man hired to write the biography of a former British Prime Minister, Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). Complications involve shady dealings by the subject and the gradual revealing of Harvard Law Professor Paul Emmett (Wilkinson) as a clandestine CIA agent, inextricably tied to the people in the life of Lang and his family. Does the ghost writer find out too much? Watch and find out!

In The Conspirator (2010) Mary Suratt is accused of being among the conspirators to assassinate President Lincoln. Her defense is first attempted by former Attorney General Reverdy Johnson (Wilkinson), but he believes he cannot do justice to her defense because he is from the South. He convinces young attorney Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy) to take over her defense. He reluctantly does so, and eventually believes she is innocent. Not giving away any more.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) is just a really good time at the movies! It stars Dev Patel (from Slumdog Millionaire) as the proprietor of a run-down hotel in India. His advertisements lure several upper crust Brits to decide this is the place to retire to. Tom Wilkinson is a retired judge and one of the residents. Also on board are Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Bill Nighy. While the Brits quickly discover the hotel is not as advertised, they decide to stick it out and adventures ensue. 

Does Tom Wilkinson look one bit like LBJ? Nope, but in Selma (2014) he will convince you that he is LBJ in this film about that famous march across that famous bridge. Pretty historically accurate, this movie portrays that bit of history quite well. With a lot of cast members you never heard of, it convinces us that Dr. King was both brave and prescient about this iconic moment. 

The Catcher Was A Spy (2018) is not as good as it should have been. Moe Berg, a journeyman major league catcher, uses his trips to Japan and Germany to spy for the OSS (Now CIA). He provides valuable information to the United States about war preparations, locations and munitions as he barnstorms with his team. Tom Wilkinson has an admittedly small role in this one as Paul Schrerrer, one of the many contacts Berg uses to help the war effort. 

All of the films in this article are for grown-ups. You can actually find most of them somewhere if you want to. 

                                                                 Tom Wilkinson

                                                                Part 2

    Here’s another handful of really good flicks featuring the great professional, Tom Wilkinson.

In Rush Hour (1998) Tom Wilkinson is the very bad guy Griffin in a complicated plot involving the Hong Kong police and some stolen Chinese artifacts. Not his best part by far, but Wilkinson carries the water in this Jackie Chan potboiler

    Then comes the legendary Shakespeare In Love (1998) a multiple-award winning movie with Ralph Fiennes as William and Gwyneth Paltrow as his lover, Viola.. Tom Wilkinson portrays Hugh Fennyman- the money who finances the plays at the Globe. He lights a fire under Shakespeare’s rear to write a new play and the result is Romeo and Juliet. Fennyman plays his role as the apothecary to the hilt. Without this somewhat minor character we would not have Romeo and Juliet! Wilkinson never overplays, and that rings just the right bell in this extraordinary movie. 

    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) though adored by the critics, has had a somewhat checkered relation with movie fans. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett portray a couple whose love affair ran sharply aground. They each agree to have their memories of their partner erased by Lacuna, a company specializing in this procedure. Tom Wilkinson is on board as Dr. Mierzwiak, an employ of the company trying to convince the principals that this is a good idea. Okay- but what if it works and they later meet up again?

Tom Wilkinson was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in In The Bedroom (2001). He plays Matt Fowler the father of  young college grad Nick who gets tangled up with an older woman (Natalie Strout, played by Marisa Tomei). She is separated from her violent husband Frank. Answering Natalie’s frantic call for help, Nick goes to her home to find Frank breaking in. A fight ensues and Nick is shot dead. Frank is arrested but makes bond and the Fowlers have to endure seeing him walking freely around town. The Fowlers are told that Natalie won’t testify about the killing and that Frank will receive a minimal sentence. Matt decides to take justice into his own hands. Sissy Spacek plays Ruth Fowler. She and Wilkinson were both losers on Oscar night- Tom to Denzel Washington for Training Day and Spacek to Jennifer Connelly for A Beautiful Mind. Wilkinson is superb in a difficult role.

    Michael Clayton (2007) stars George Clooney as the a “fixer” of a somewhat shady law firm. Tom Wilkinson plays Arthur Edens, a firm partner going off the rails and threatening the firm’s reputation. It gets to the point that the firm hires hit men to take care of Arthur. Tom Wilkinson was nominated for Oscar but lost to Javier Bardem for No Country For Old Men. Playing a topnotch lawyer going slowly crazy is just grist for Tom Wilkinson’s mill. He’s the best thing in the picture.

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

                                                                     Glynis Johns

Her principal area of show business was the stage. .And she had a beautfiul voice, but unfortunately, her range was limited. So Stephen Sondheim wrote Send In The Clowns just for her to sing in A Little Night Music. Her movie resume’ is sterlling. 

Well, she lived to be 100 so you have to go back to 1938 to find her starting point as a movie actress. In South Riding the 15-year-old Glynis gets into a fight with another girl. Maybe not the beginning she would hope for, but from there it was straight up. 

Perhaps her best-known part was as Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins (1964). She is the mother of children under the care of nanny Mary. Mrs. Banks is a suffragette and also perhaps a little scatter-brained. This film was nominated for 13 Oscars. It won five, including of course Julie Andrews as Mary. 

In the very underrated  and largely forgotten The Sundowners (1960) Ms. Johns was nominated for an Oscar for her part as Mrs. Firth, the owner of the pub featured prominently in the film. She lost her one shot at a statue to Shirley Jones for Elmer Gantry. Paddy Carmody (Robert Mitchum) is an itinerant sheep sheerer, always on the move. His wife (Deborah Kerr) wants to settle down. He does not. 

The Court Jester (1955) is pretty much owned by Danny Kaye (as Hubert Hawkins) but Glynis Johns has a nice turn as the captain of the rebels, Maid Jean.. She and Hawkins are ordered to deliver the imperilled royal child to safety. They encounter the king’s jester on the road. Jean knocks him out and convinces Hawkins to infiltrate the king’s court by impersonating the jester. There are several songs, all sung by Kaye, wasting Johns’ considerable talent.

Skip forward to 1994 for The Ref,  a somewhat complicated tale about a married couple who constantly quarrel and are taken hostage by Gus, a cat burglar. They continue to argue while with him and he has to tell them to shut up. Glynis Johns portrays Rose, the mother-in-law from Hell who browbeats and terrorizes everyone else in the movie. 

In While You Were Sleeping (1995) Sandra Bullock plays Lucy, a lonely toll taker. She rescues Peter Callahan (Peter Gallagher), who is pushed onto the tracks of an oncoming train. . He is taken to the hospital where Lucy tells the nurse she wishes she could marry Peter. The nurse misunderstands and tells everyone, including the entire Callahan family, that Lucy and Peter are engaged. Lucy then falls in love with Peter’s younger brother, Jack (Bill Pullman). Glynis Johns is on board as the slightly deluded grandmother.  When Peter wakes up from his coma and says he doesn’t know Lucy, it is assumed he has amnesia. It all ends well for everyone- hey, this is Hollywood!

All of the films in this article are fine for all ages. And, you can actually find some of these on streaming sites if you’ve a mind to. 

                                                                      Tom Wilkinson

                                                                            Part One

    I have long admired the quiet, underplayed acting of Tom Wilkinson, who left us last year at 75. Rarely the top banana, he was the go-to guy when you needed a solid back-up character actor. And he had a marvelous string of good performances in good movies. 

Priest (1994) is about a youthful Catholic priest whose homosexuality gets him banished to a small rural congregation with Father Matthew Thomas (Tom Wilkinson) as the senior, conservative priest. And yet, Father Thomas steps up to aid the young priest in his troubles and does all he can to help him. A solid, low-key Wilkinson performance. The 2011 film with the same title is a loser.

    The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) is the somewhat questionable story of blood-thirsty lions attacking humans. Tom Wilkinson is Sir Robert Beaumont, trying to build a railroad across Africa. Val Kilmer is the chief engineer on the job. To stop the carnage caused by the marauding lions, Beaumont enlists storied white hunter Charles Remington (Michael Douglas). From there, things get more complicated and the mighty hunter winds up the prey. 

The Full Monty (1997) is about a group of unemployed steel workers in Britain who decide to earn money by putting on a male stripping show. They tell prospective customers they will be better than the famous Chippendale strippers because they will go The Full Monty (totally nude). In a very surprising role, Tom Wilkinson appears as Gerald Cooper, their former boss and a talented dancer, who the group hires to teach them some moves. Of course this works out, or it wouldn’t be much of a movie!

Smilla’s Sense of Snow (1997) features Tom Wilkinson as a consummate bad guy. He plays Professor Loyen, who performed the autopsy in the Inuit boy whose death is the centerpiece of the movie. Smilla (Julia Ormond) has a sense that something isn’t right about this death. Their ensues an incredibly complicated plot I will not attempt to resurrect here. Tom Wilkinson was just fine as the bad guy. Nuff said!

Wilde (1997) is a somewhat truncated biopic about the British author Oscar Wilde, played here with winning flamboyance by Stephen Fry. He falls into a flaming homosexual relationship with foppish nobleman Bosie Douglas, whose stern father The Marquess of Queensberry (Tom Wilkinson) violently objects to their liaison. This pushes Wilde to sue the Marquess for libel. Bad idea. Wilde’s homosexuality is revealed and he winds up going to prison. Wilkinson is winingly hateful in this film.

Nothing here for littlies. These are for adults. 

                                                                 Norman Lear films

He had to live to 101 to get it all in! Norman Lear was a giant of show business, producing TV shows and movies galore. And he had five TV shows and one movie still in production when he died! It’s no exaggeration to say that he absolutely owned television in the 1970's. Just take a quick look at his shows:

Sanford and Son 135 episodes (1972-77)

Maude 142 episodes (1972-78)

All In The Family 207 episodes (1971-79)

Good Times 133 episodes (1974-79)

One Day At A Time 209 episodes (1975-84)

The Jeffersons 253 episodes (1975-85)

And yet, he also had lots of movies tied to his name, usually as the main producer. The first film of note is Come Blow Your Horn (1963) from an early comedy stage play by Neil Simon. But Lear wrote the screenplay. The film features some legendary actors: Frank Sinatra, Mollie Picon and Lee J. Cobb. Sinatra plays Allan Baker, a consummate Manhattan playboy, delighted to teach his younger brother Buddy (Tony Bill) lots of bachelor tricks. The laughs are plentiful. 

And there are plenty of world-class actors in the splendid The Princess Bride (1987). Directed and Produced by Rob Reiner, with Norma Lear as Executive Producer, this film is on the National Film Registry. And it should be. It is dubbed a “fantasy adventure comedy” film. It features Carey Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn and Robin Wright. It’s the story of a swashbuckling farm boy who sets out to rescue the lovely Princess Buttercup. Many dangerous adventures, mostly funny, are encountered on the way. 

Never Too Late (1965), produced by Lear, doesn’t sound funny but it is. Harry Lambert (Paul Ford)  and his wife Edith (Maureen O’Sullivan)  portray a married couple well into their 60's. They have grown children who are also married and have children. On a routine visit to the doctor, Edith finds out she is pregnant. A real surprise to the entire family! The tag line is good: “Last year there were twenty-two million accidents in the home. This is about one of them.” Coping with this situation makes for a bittersweet comedy. Interesting side note: No mention of the A world. This is the 1960's.

Norman Lear executive produced Start The Revolution Without Me (1967), a frantic comedy set in medieval France. Gene Wilder and Donald Sutherland portray two sets of identical twins. One set is elite and haughty, the other set is poor and stupid. They are somehow mixed up by the populace and high jinks follow. It’s hard to find a film that divided critics and audiences more- most either loved it or hated it. 

Lear took a chance and executive produced Rita Moreno: A Girl Who Decided To Go For It (2021) a documentary about the title lady’s incredible rise from Puerto Rican poverty to brilliant star. How she fought off racism, sexism and other isms is inspiring. In her fantastic career she was featured in both versions of West Side Story,   1961 and 2021!

All of the movies in this article are pretty much ok for all ages, factoring in some boredom for littlies.