BRINGING UP BABY

(February 1938, U.S.)

In discussing a film like BRINGING UP BABY, I'd like to attempt to offer some cinematic education for today's younger generation who are (unfortunately) being raised on completely mindless comedies from idiots like Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler and Jack Black. What I'd like to offer is the consideration that great screwball comedies can be more than seventy years old, that great comedy can be black and white, and that great comedy can be absolutely classic! BRINGING UP BABY is not just a funny movie; it is, in my opinion, one of the greatest comedies ever made.

You've probably heard the movie tag expression "rollercoaster ride" or "the ride of your life" as it's usually associated with action films. Well, watching this film is in itself a rollercoaster ride of fun and laughs, but it's one that you have to hold onto and follow closely because the spontaneous dialogue comes fast and furious and if you don't pay attention to every word and every gesture, you can miss out on so much. This is primarily a dialogue-driven film, but the physical gags and pitfalls manage to come through at the right moment with precise timing.

As I previously mentioned in my post for ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (1944), nobody could play the confused, bewildered, surprised and shocked mild-mannered everyday man like Cary Grant. This film may be his best example of such talent. Katherine Hepburn, for all of her serious work in films like THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951) proves she could be an irresistable screwball, too. The plot of the film, which depicts the ordinary man unwillingly caught up in a series of outrageous misfortunes which he cannot control because of a ditzy woman he will inevitably fall in love with, has been copied over time and time again in films like WHAT'S UP, DOC (1972), BROADWAY DANNY ROSE (1984) and even one of Madonna many bad films, WHO'S THAT GIRL (1987). Of course, BRINGING UP BABY has the added attraction of an adorable leopard, too.

A quick word about director Howard Hawks, and that is you have to admire a film director who was so versatile in being able to not only direct screwball comedies, but gangster, film noir, westerns, and science fictions films, as well. Look up his filmography and you'll see what I mean.

Favorite line or dialogue:

David Huxley (answers the door wearing a woman's bathrobe): "What do you want?"
Elizabeth Random: "Well, who are YOU?"
David: "Who are YOU?"
Elizabeth: "Well, who are YOU?"
David: "What do you WANT?"
Elizabeth: "Well, WHO are you?"
David: "I don't know. I'm not quite myself today."
Elizabeth: "Well, you look perfectly idiotic in those clothes!"
David: "These aren't MY clothes!"
Elizabeth: "Well, where ARE you clothes?"
David: "I've LOST my clothes!"
Elizabeth: "Well, why are you wearing THESE clothes?"
David (jumps up): "Because I just went GAY all of a sudden!"

BRIDGE TOO FAR, A

(June 1977, U.S.)

Have you noticed that I'm not even out of the 'B' titles of my film collection and I've already discussed a more than fair share of war films? The challenge has now become to attempt to add something new and fresh to my perspective on war films that generally tend to follow that same war cliches and formulas. Mind you, these cliches and formulas do have the persistence of not failing to entertain the viewer for this type of genre.

Directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, A BRIDGE TOO FAR is an epic World War II film that tells the story of the failure of "Operation Market Garden" during the war and the Allied attempt to break through German lines and seize several bridges, including the road bridge over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem, in the occupied Netherlands, with the main objective of Allied armour outflanking the Siegfried Line at its northern extremity. For your interest, the name for the film comes from an unconfirmed comment made by British Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning, deputy commander of the First Allied Airborne Army, who tells Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the operation's architect, before the operation, "I think we may be going a bridge too far." Get it?

In a way, this film reminds me much of THE LONGEST DAY (1962) in two ways. The first is that it includes an ensemble cast of popular stars of the time, including James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliot Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence Olivier, Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford, Maximillian Schell and Liv Ulmann. The second is that the first forty-five minutes or so of the film is spent entirely on strategic planning before any of the battles actually begin. That doesn't make the film entirely unoriginal, though. I suppose it all depends on the stars of the film and the combat mission that structures the plot. But getting back to cliches and formulas for a moment, the classic elements are alive and kicking in A BRIDGE TOO FAR and make for as an exciting a war film as any other of the genre.

I was only ten years old when this film was released in the Summer of 1977, which means I likely had no interest in it during a summer dominated by the first STAR WARS film (like my parents would have LET me see a grown-up war film at that tender young age???). However, I can remember the attention that it received through newspaper coverage and television promo ads. Those kind of images can stay with you for quite a while until you're old enough to see a war film...thankfully.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Sgt. Eddie Dohun: "Colonel, if you don't look at him right now, he's going to die."
U.S. Medical Colonel: "He's dead now."
Sgt. Dohun: "It would mean a lot to me, sir, if you'd check him out."
Medical Colonel: "Come on, Sergeant! For Chrissakes, get him out of here!"
Sgt. Dohun (draws his gun): "Would you look at him please, sir? Right now or I'll blow your fuckin' head off. Right now."
Medical Colonel: " I can give him a quick examination if you like."
Sgt. Dohun: "Thank you very much, sir."
(a few minutes later)
Medical Colonel: "Sergeant Dohun pulled a gun on me and threatened to kill me unless I did precisely what he ordered. I want you to put him under arrest."
Lt. Rafferty: "Yes, sir."
Medical Colonel: "I want you to keep him there. I want you to keep him there for at least ten seconds."
Lt. Rafferty: "I'm not all that sure I understand, Colonel."
Medical Colonel: "Count to ten, Lieutenant, fast."
Lt. Rafferty: "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Like that, sir?"
Medical Colonel: "Thank you, Lieutenant."

BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, THE

(June 1995, U.S.)

You may have begun to notice that every once in a while I offer some kind of personal confession in some of my blog posts. Well, here we go again, people - my confession for this post is that when it comes to love on the big screen, I prefer to watch a straight-forward, sentimental love story rather than a silly romantic comedy. Come on, think about all the romantic comedies that have come out over the last decade and tell me that they haven't all been following the same damn formula time and time again! The guy's best friend is always some goofball. The girl's best friend is either a female goofball or a flamboyant gay guy. And more often than not, the guy and girl aren't even that interested in each other at the beginning of the film.

So, that having been said, let's discuss THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY. If you were of adult-reading age back in 1992, there's no way you could not have heard of Robert James Waller's mega New York Times best seller. It was THE book everyone was talking about! Now here's my second confession for you all - this remains the only love story I have ever read. I read it almost out of professional obligation because in 1992 I was working in a small bookstore and felt required to read it so I would have some sense of what I was talking about when I sold it to customers. The book was small and only took a few hours to read. I'd be lying through my teeth if I didn't tell you that I was captivated and enthralled just like every other person who fell for this simple story of forbidden love between an Italian war bride living in 1960's Iowa and a rugged photographer who has come to Madison County to shoot a photographic essay for National Geographic on the covered bridges in the area. The four days they spend together while her family is away are a turning point in her life. She writes of her experience in a diary which is discovered by her children after her death. Needless to say, they are stunned by her secret confessions.

After completing the book, my first thought was, of course, that it would make a great film. But I went into details and told people that I though it would make a great Robert Redford-directed film starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. Well, as things turned out, I got one-third of it right. Both of my speculations for Redford were replaced by Clint Eastwood and it was a great film, nonetheless, during a summer that was dominated by the likes of DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE and BATMAN FOREVER (that movie sucked!). And just when you thought Clint Eastwood's film characters weren't capable of much more than shooting a .44 Magnum or punching somebody's lights out, he turns out to be a gentle, sentimental lover, as well. What a guy!

Now here's a personal story which is only INdirectly related to the film's story. It's a story of my mother. She came to this country from Egypt in the early '60s. She met my dad, they got married and the rest is...well, never mind that. In 1996, six years after my parents (finally) split for good, she took a trip to Los Angeles and made a phone call that would change the rest of her life. She contacted the man she had PREVIOUSLY been engaged to in Egypt before coming to this country and meeting my dad. By chance, he just happened to be divorced and available. Jump ahead two years and they were married. When they were first reunited, it seemed as if my mother and her long-lost sweetheart were living their own version of THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY. As far as how it all turned out...well, that story resides three thousand miles away in another state.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Francesca Johnson: "Robert, please. You don't understand, no-one does. When a woman makes the choice to marry, to have children; in one way her life begins but in another way it stops. You build a life of details. You become a mother, a wife and you stop and stay steady so that your children can move. And when they leave they take your life of details with them. And then you're expected move again only you don't remember what moves you because no-one has asked in so long. Not even yourself. You never in your life think that love like this can happen to you."
Robert Kincaid: "But now that you have it..."
Francesca: "I want to keep it forever. I want to love you the way I do now the rest of my life. Don't you understand... we'll lose it if we leave. I can't make an entire life disappear to start a new one. All I can do is try to hold onto to both. Help me. Help me not lose loving you."

BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, THE

(October 1957, U.S.)

British director David Lean was unquestionably one of the best of the 20th century. Had he made no other films other than LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962), DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965) and THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, he would have likely still been considered legendary status.

This film is a war film, to be sure, but it is hardly a combat film. There are moments of great action, but I would consider this to be more of a "cat and mouse" war and prison drama, where dialogue, cinematography, history and culture reign supreme. Oh, and by the way, the original novel for this film was written by French writer Pierre Boulle, the same man who wrote the original novel PLANET OF THE APES. The incidents portrayed in the film are mostly fictional, and though it depicts bad conditions and suffering caused by the building of the Burma Railway and its bridges, to depict the actual reality would have been too appalling for filmgoers back in 1957. Historically, the conditions were much worse than depicted in the film. The destruction of the bridge as depicted at the end of the film is entirely fictional. In fact, two bridges were built: a temporary wooden bridge and a permanent steel/concrete bridge a few months later. Both bridges were used for two years, until they were destroyed by Allied aerial bombing. The steel bridge was repaired and is still in use today.

As far as Alec Guinness' role in this film is concerned, let me just say that it's a damn shame that he'll forever be remembered most as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original STAR WARS trilogy. Not that I'm knocking the great Obi-Wan, but his performances in those films cannot even come close to his personality and style in this film. The inexplicable pride he takes in leading his British soldiers in the construction of the bridge is astounding. He is a man who truly believes in the military code and the honor of coming through as a proud British officer, even if it means committing acts that could be considered treasonous and even attempting to stop the men who will eventually destroy the bridge in the name of defeating the Japanese enemy.

Here's one more piece of interesting trivia: this film was first telecast complete by ABC-TV in 1966, as a three hours-plus special on The ABC Sunday Night Movie. The telecast of the film lasted more than three hours because of the commercial breaks. It was still highly unusual at that time for a television network to show such a long film in one evening; most films of that length were generally split into two parts and shown over two evenings. But the unusual move paid off for ABC because the telecast drew huge ratings.

THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI won the Oscar for best picture of 1957.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Lt. Colonel Nicholson: "I've been thinking. Tomorrow it will be twenty-eight years to the day that I've been in the service. Twenty-eight years in peace and war. I don't suppose I've been at home more than ten months in all that time. Still, it's been a good life. I loved India. I wouldn't have had it any other way. But there are times when suddenly you realize you're nearer the end than the beginning. And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total of your life represents. What difference your being there at any time made to anything. Hardly made any difference at all, really, particularly in comparison with other men's careers. I don't know whether that kind of thinking's very healthy; but I must admit I've had some thoughts on those lines from time to time. But tonight... tonight!"

BREATHLESS

(February 1961, U.S.)

Jean-Luc Godard's BREATHLESS is among the inaugural films of the French New Wave and was derived from a scenario by fellow New Wave director, François Truffaut. At the time, the film attracted much attention for its bold visual style and the film editing use of jump cuts. At the time, these jump cuts were considered extremely innovative. Today, like everything else that has been copied a thousand times over in filmmaking, it has been brought to the brink of overkill. Just watch any of director Tony Scott's films over the last ten years and you'll see what I mean.

Michel Poiccard (played by Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a young, petty criminal who models himself on the film persona of the great Humphrey Bogart. In just the first five minutes of the film, he's already stolen a car and murdered a policeman just as simply as if he were eating breakfast. In fact, in the stolen car department, he does it as many times in a day as others would sneeze. He's a sleazy man who knows and is even proud of the fact of how sleazy he is, both in crime and his relationship with women. Just look at the many close-ups of his face with his dark glasses and fat cigareete to see what I mean. You are compelled to hate this man from the moment you meet him. It's actually quite incredible that his American love interest, Patricia (played by Jean Seberg), cannot suspect who and what he is. When she finally finds out, she appears turned on and is prone to help him until she inevitably turns him in to the police and he's shot dead.

Godard's BREATHLESS is only the second foreign film in my collection that I am discussing, but it has long and justifiably been considered one of the essentials of art house cinema, thanks to it's breakthrough style of editing and black and white cinematography.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Michel Poiccard (voice-over): "After all, I'm an asshole. After all, yes, I've got to. I've got to!"

BREAKING AWAY

(July 1979, U.S.)

BREAKING AWAY will likley go down in cinematic history as a great, original coming-of-age film (and it damn-well is!). For myself, it was a film that came out during a time when rousing sports films were making it big on the screen. By the Summer of 1979, there had already been two ROCKY films for boxing, three BAD NEWS BEARS films for baseball, NORTH DALLAS FORTY and HEAVEN CAN WAIT for football and even BOBBY DEERFIELD for auto racing. BREAKING AWAY gave us bicycle racing and it left a guy like me cheering for more! Unfortunately, there was more in the form of a very short-lived TV series of the film in 1980 (it sucked!). Still, all these years later, my perspective for the film has matured a great deal in that I see a great deal of social meaning behind its content, and I'd like to share that with you now.

On the surface, this is a film about a young man named Dave Stoller from Bloomington, Indiana whose sole purpose in life is to excel in his bicycle riding. In a town filled with the everyday working class who are likely never to be educated beyond high school or ever leave their small town, Dave exemplifies himself through his physical skills and repeated victories in bicycle races. When he’s not in his own world on his bicycle, Dave is as ordinary as the friends he hangs out with at the local quarry’s watering hole where they go swimming every day. This freedom comes easily as they have all made the conscious decision to avoid getting a job in order to waste the rest of their lives together. Bloomington is also a college town where students of Indiana University reside. Unlike the local kids of the town, who are often referred to as “cutters” because they come from families of men whose traditional job it was to cut the limestone that would eventually constitute the buildings that went up on the campus, the college kids who are meant to spend only four years of their lives in Bloomington, are rich, spoiled, and known to make no secret of looking down their noses at the local “cutter” kids. As a “cutter” kid himself, Dave is often not entirely satisfied with his own identity and longs to become something more than just a local kid from the neighborhood with no job prospects and no college education. The spiritual freedom he feels on his bicycle only takes him so far, though, and he longs to be on a more equal level of the privileged college kids in town. To accomplish this, he decides to create an alternate ethnic identity for himself when he meets a beautiful college girl named Katherine. This is a persona he was already testing with his disapproving parents before meeting her, but one he’s chosen to commit himself to now once she unexpectedly enters his life. When he’s with her, he’s no longer the ordinary Dave Stoller, but rather a more colorful Italian exchange student with an alternate Italian name. This sudden switch in identity and character stems from his great love and admiration of Italian bicycle riders, particularly the team Cinzano. Although Dave hasn’t exactly propelled himself to the higher class level of the college kids with this alternate identity, he feels a greater sense of his own self as a fake Italian somebody rather than just a real life common American working class nobody. This newly-found confidence is just enough to make him feel comfortable sitting in a bowling alley café with Katherine that has normally been reserved for the college kids only. During an unexpected brawl involving his best friends, instead of stepping in to help them, he keeps himself well hidden so as not to expose his secret identity to the woman he loves. From Katherine’s perspective, the man she comes to know as the Italian exchange student, though not being financially well-off or of an upper class sector, is far more interesting than the typical college jocks with inflated egos she has spent most of her time with up until now.

During one of the film’s sports sequences, Dave takes part in a bicycle race alongside the Italian riding team Cinzano that he has come to idolize. From the Italian’s perspective, they, too, also sport an attitude that looks down not only on the common working class kids of Bloomington, Indiana, but apparently, also on Americans themselves. During the race, the Italian champions appear to be appalled and flabbergasted that a common American like Dave is not only able to keep up with them, but also has the audacity to speak Italian to them. While Dave’s social intentions are to extend his friendship and admiration, the Italian team react with anger and malicious intent when the cause Dave to fall from his bicycle and subsequently, eliminate him from the race. Dave has not only become the victim of cheats, but has also realized the delusion he held that Italians were supposedly of a higher and more respectable social nature than those he has spent his entire life around. This moment of clarity brings him to the decision to confess to Katherine who and what he really is. His name, his physical appearance and his very manhood remain the same, but because he is now just an everyday “cutter” kid of the local town who lied to her and not the exotic Italian exchange student Katherine thought he was, she reacts angrily and walks out on his life. Despite this blow to Dave’s romantic life, he is still able to hold onto the fact that he’s gifted in his riding skills and is determined to renew his sense of self-worth. To accomplish this, he will take part in the town’s climactic bicycle race with his three best friends at his side. This will not only be a race of human will, but will also bring a new level of competitiveness against a group of college kids also competing in the big race. This is the film’s great moment of triumphant sports victory that audiences are meant to stand up and cheer about, but it’s also a race against odds between two social classes of kids who are at the age of trying to figure out who they are, whether it’s amidst the environment of the local working class residents or amidst the alternate environment of college wealth and privilege, all within the confinements of the same small town. Of course, the classic cinematic cliché in which the underdog triumphs does not disappoint. Dave Stoller and his best friends win the big race and not only redeem their own self-respect, but apparently the respect of the college riding team, as well, as they are seen clapping their hands at the film’s end in honor of the victorious “cutter” kids. The film’s attempt to prove that in at least the world of sports competition, there are no separating classes and those who participate are of equal standing with each other. Realistically, one cannot depart from Breaking Away feeling that all social prejudices and disorders in Bloomington, Indiana will be miraculously healed on a daily basis. But for right now, the love and freedom of riding a simple bicycle appears to give us that small glimmer of hope that things can get better between people.

Now as much as I hate to admit acting like a big dork, after seeing BREAKING AWAY at the age of twelve, I became obsessed for a while with the opera piece, "The Barber of Seville", which is played as the background score during the first bicycle race. For months, after I would hum that piece in my head every time I rode my bike (I didn't even have a walkman yet!). That piece of music no longer comes to mind whenever I ride my bike today.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Dave's dad: "What's this?"
Dave's mom: "It's sauteed zucchini."
Dad: "It's I-tey food. I don't want no I-tey food!"
Mom: "It's not. I got it at the A&P. It's like... squash."
Dad: "I know I-tey food when I hear it! It's all them "eenie" foods... zucchini... and linguine... and fettuccine. I want some American food, dammit! I want French fries!"

BREAKFAST CLUB, THE

(February 1985, U.S.)

It was 1985 and young people's movies were about to change. By 1985, Rocky had defeated Mr. T, E.T. had gone home, Darth Vader and the Empire were dead, Spock had died and come back to life, and we knew who we were gonna call if we needed some ghostbusting! Yes, it was time for young people's movies to get a bit serious...

I was a white suburban high school teenager for part of the year 1985. This means that I was partially raised by director John Hughes. For those of you who may have been living deep under a rock in 1985 and actually never heard of THE BREAKFAST CLUB, arguably the most influential teen film of the 1980's young MTV pop culture decade, then know right now for the record that it is the story of five white suburban teenagers (each a member of a different high school clique or social group) as they spend an entire Saturday in detention together and come to realize that they are all deeper than their respective stereotypes. Note that I have used the word WHITE and SUBURBAN twice already because it was the emotional challenges of white, upper middle class suburban teenagers that Hughes most depicted in his films. In fact, the only African-American characters of any key value I can recall in any of his films is the school nurse and a parking garage attendant in FERRIS BEULLER'S DAY OFF (1986). Whatever that was about, I'm afraid that Hughes may have taken it with him when he died in August 2009.

What strikes me as most interesting about THE BREAKFAST CLUB more than 25 years after its release is not so much how it played out back then, but rather how might play out today. Would a film like THE BREAKFAST CLUB work today? Perhaps. I mean, high school is still high school, right? High school students are still the same as they ever were, right (though they seem to be doing a lot more SINGING on TV these days)? Actually, I'm guessing the answers to these questions is really a big NO! While I'm long since past my high school years (though I'm only 43), my guess - my PRESUMPTION is that the high school student of the 21st century is hell and gone from the one of the 1980's. We now live in a world where communication has become primarily dependent on a tiny keyboard that fits in the palm of your hand. Why would five totally different teenage kids ever be brought into a room together to share their lives in actual conversation when they could simply text each other or spill their guts on any number of social network websites? Hell, would five different teenage kids even be brought together in detention in the first place? In today's educational world of zero tolerance, a trouble-making student like John Bender (played by Judd Nelson) would have likely been suspended for pulling a fake fire alarm. Student Brian Johnson (played by Anthony Michael Hall) would have been outright expelled and prosecuted for having a flare gun in his locker. You see what I'm talking about? It's my firm opinion that opportunities for real human communication between today's high school teenagers likely no longer exist! That being the case, how could you make a film like THE BREAKFAST CLUB today??

For myself, I can only offer thick memories of this film and thank director John Hughes for reaching out and attempting to bring some sense of a young person's self-worth to the big screen. Thanks, John. I still miss you.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Brian Johnson (voice-over): "Saturday, March 24,1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062. Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did WAS wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed."