Papillon

Franklin J. Schaffner had an incredible run in the late '60s/early '70s. Planet of the Apes (1968) proved an unusually cerebral sci-fi film, while Patton (1970) won a boatload of Oscars. Even the overstuffed Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) has its moments. Matching them is Papillon (1973), an absorbing blend of prison drama, adventure movie and character study.

Henri Charriere (Steve McQueen), known as Papillon for a butterfly tattoo, is convicted for murder and sentenced to imprisonment in French Guiana. Charriere proves grimly determined to escape against impossible odds: the prison is heavily guarded, swarming with wildlife and "a thousand miles from anywhere." Befriending counterfeiter Louis Dega (Dustin Hoffman), Charriere hatches various escape plans which are foiled by the guards or informers. Even after years in solitary confinement and banishment to Devil's Island, Charriere won't give up his dream.

Drawing on Charriere's autobiographical novel, Papillon mixes thrills with drama. Schaffner's direct, unfussy style proves an ideal fit, capturing the high adventure with beautiful photography and rousing action scenes. Fred Koenekamp's photography contrasts the verdant jungle with raging seas and the stark, utilitarian prison compounds. Despite its 150 minute length and a few cliched passages (how many movie heroes take refuge with friendly, sexually willing natives?) Papillon engages from beginning to end.

For all its escapist thrills, Papillon is notably grim. French Guiana encapsulates man's inhumanity to man, with summary executions, suicides and bounty hunters matched by natural perils. Papillon rivals attritional epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Mountains of the Moon, with prisoners battling heat and disease, along with crabs, crocodiles, snakes and vampire bats. The most memorable sequence, however, has Papillon languishing in solitary, eating cockroaches and going nuts in the dark. Even if Papi and Louis's only visible trauma is stubble and gray hair it feels grim. Cool Hand Luke's prison farm seems genteel in comparison.

Writers Dalton Trumbo and Lorenzo Semple Jr. do fine work probing their protagonists. Charriere protests his innocence but admits he's guilty of "a wasted life"; his quest to escape becomes an end to itself, a means of self-fulfillment. Degas tries to play the system, bribing guards with smuggled francs and becoming a clerk, hoping for a legal pardon. Neither man has much chance of success: Charriere from the elements, Degas by his conniving lawyer and angry fraud victims among prisoners and guards. They make an interesting contrast and drive the movie's action, forging an unlikely friendship under duress.

Steve McQueen gives one of his best turns, tough, grimly determined and endlessly resourceful. Dustin Hoffman's cerebral underplaying provides a good match. They're backed by a gallery of interesting supporting players: Anthony Zerbe's cynical leper, George Coulouris's doctor-murderer, Robert Deman's homosexual escapee, Victor Jory's Indian chief.

Papillon makes an immensely well-crafted movie. It's relatively straightforward yet extremely entertaining.

The Best Man

Two days ago I lambasted The Ides of March for its empty-headed analysis of Presidential politics. Franklin J. Schaffner's The Best Man (1964) tells a similar story much, much better. Based on Gore Vidal's play, it's a very dark, very smart satire of politics just before America exploded into '60s radicalism.

Two Presidential candidates wage a fierce battle for their party's nomination. Secretary of State William Russell (Henry Fonda) has the smarts and liberal principles, but his extramartial affairs and shady personal history threaten to derail his campaign. Demagogic Senator Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson), the "voice of conservative America," has popular support and charisma, but his ruthless ambition qualify his electibility. Both men court the ailing ex-President (Lee Tracy), who can't swallow Russell's amorality but hates Cantwell's phoniness. Russell stumbles across an unspeakable bombshell about Cantwell, debating whether to release it.

The Best Man perfectly captures a nation on the political precipe. Old-fashioned liberal Russell has many skeletons in his closet and naive optimism out of step with the times. Cantwell embodies everything wrong with '60s politics: the charisma of Jack Kennedy, the conservatism of Barry Goldwater, the social climbing and class resentment of Richard Nixon. Cantwell is an unprincipled bastard but the film names him as the shrewdest judge of the people: smears and sound bites register more than logic. His opponents don't stand a chance; playing Cantwell's game only makes them look bad. The happy ending seems a cheat, a perhaps-naive hope that the worst man can be defeated.

In some ways, too, The Best Man seems eerily prescient. This year's GOP circus boils down to a contest of who can be nastiest, with Gingrich and Romney in particular pommelling each other with negative ads and accusations of "flip-flopping." The movie's frankness about sexual issues, from Russell's promiscuity to an accusation of homosexuality, certainly seems modern. Politics has never been a gentleman's game but the '60s saw it slide into the mud. We're still living with the consequences of that era, with media manipulation, mudslinging and demagoguery permeating our discourse.

Henry Fonda is obvious casting: who better to play the wise old-fashioned liberal than Tom Joad and Juror Number 8? More interesting is Cliff Robertson, giving an intense, chillingly credible portrait of a ruthless politico. Edie Adams got an Oscar nomination for a throwaway part: Margaret Leighton (7 Women) as Fonda's long-suffering wife makes a stronger impression. Lee Tracy is superb as the cantankerous elder statesman. Ann Sothern's wonderfully horrible party matriarch and John Henry Faulk's gladhanding Southern governor steal their scenes. Kevin McCarthy plays Russell's campaign manager and Shelley Berman has a secret from Cantwell's past.

The Best Man has aged better than most of its contemporaries. Like other films of the era (Seven Days in May), it reaffirms hope that liberalism and civic virtue will ultimately win out. But it's a near-run thing this time around, and future generations won't be so lucky.

Patton

Franklin J. Schaffner's Patton (1970) is one of the greatest and most iconic war films of the last fifty years. A complex exploration of a flawed and fascinating man, the movie succeeds on many levels, from epic spectacular to thoughtful war film to complex character study. Like most biopics, the movie rises or falls on its protagonist, and in this regard, Patton succeeds with flying colors. It simultaneously celebrates and damns Patton as a great military hero and a man out of step with his time, and George C. Scott's incredible performance turns him into a film icon.

May 1943. American forces are engaging in their first battles in the European theater of World War II, being humiliated by the better-armed, better-trained German Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel (Karl Michael Vogler) at Kasserine Pass. Flamboyant, eccentric, foul-mouthed General George S. Patton (George C. Scott) is brought in to whip the American II Corps into shape. Patton shows an aggression and tactical daring that makes him invaluable to the Allied armies, but his eccentricities and egomania get him into trouble with his superiors time and again. Made into a punching bag by the press, a scapegoat for Army failings, Patton balances military glory with public relations disasters - much to the chagrin of his second-in-command (and later commander) Omar Bradley (Karl Malden), who has the unenviable task of keeping Patton in line through Africa, Sicily, and France.

It's easy to see why Patton has such wide and enduring appeal. In its apparent celebration of a badass who views war as the ultimate, undying glory, it has an obvious appeal to war movie buffs and conservatives - and young, impressionable history/film buffs like yours truly circa 1998. On the other hand, it simultaneously sees him as a posturing, bellowing caricature of militarism with no sense of reality. The script by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H. North is careful in its portrayal of Patton, building him to absurd proportions while keeping him human, shying away from neither the positive nor negative of his complex personality. The film makes few overt anti-war statements, allowing the gory, unromantic reality of modern war to contrast Patton's gung-ho speeches and bluster.

Patton is, as a German officer (Siegfried Rauch) calls him, a "magnificent anachronism". A man with an outdated sense of chivalry, remarkable eccentricities (wearing an ivory-handled pistol, writing poetry, musing over reincarnation) a horribly vulgar and blunt manner of expression, and incredible vanity, he is a man who gets things done, and he expects to be honored on the basis of his undeniable talents. In twentieth century coalition warfare, however, it's not that easy. The concerns of his Allies, particularly British Field Marshall Montgomery (Michael Bates), are as big an obstacle as the German Army. Seemingly trivial incidents - his slapping of a shell-shocked soldier (Tim Considine), implicitly insulting Russians while speaking at a woman's club in London - cause more damage to Patton's reputation than any of his battlefield actions. Trapped by his own antiquated notions of warfare and glory - which are themselves demolished by political realities and the carnage around him - Patton can only seek solace in his anachronistic view of warfare and honor: "God help me, I do love it so." Like so many soldiers before him, Patton lives and dies by the sword; his post-war life will be short and unsatisfying, as the film's epitaph notes: "All glory is fleeting."

Schaffner handles the film effectively, providing a plethora of striking images and iconic moments: the oft-parodied opening, with Patton giving a bellicose speech before a huge American flag; Patton exchanging gunfire with a duo of German bombers; the recitation of a "fair weather prayer" as American troops are slaughtered in Bastogne; a German battle map dissolving into ash. Battle action is mostly restricted to brief montages of troops on the move, with a major set-piece battle at the forty-five minute mark, but its well-handled enough to make an impression. Fred Koenenkamp's cinematography is beautiful, providing the larger-than-life mis-en-scene necessary to contain such a flamboyant figure. Jerry Goldsmith provides one of his very best scores, with the instantly recognizable echoing trumpets and soaring march themes among the most recognizable music in film history.

George C. Scott gives a career-defining performance. His turn as the manic Buck Turgidson in Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove was a good trial run, but he makes Patton into something else entirely. Scott captures all the facets of his complex character, handling both the broad caricature and the subtle humanity and introspection with equal skill. Regardless of fidelity to historical record, Scott makes the role his own, capturing Patton's every tic, all of the complexities, contradcitions and anguish inherent in the man. It is simply one of the most remarkable performances in film history.

The supporting cast are mostly foils to Scott. Karl Malden (On the Waterfront) gets the juiciest supporting role as Omar Bradley, Patton's devoted yet frustrated friend who is in every way his opposite. Michael Bates (Frenzy) portrays Montgomery as a broad, almost Monty Python-esque caricature of the British general; smaller roles by Jack Gwillim (Lawrence of Arabia), Edward Binns (North by Northwest) and James Edwards (The Manchurian Candidate) are more effective. The German cast - Karl Michael Vogel, Siegfried Rauch - acquit themselves well.

Patton is one of the best biopics and war films of all time. In its depiction of a tortured, complex man standing astride the crossroads of history, it has rarely been bettered.

Nicholas and Alexandra

Producer Sam Spiegel must have been smarting from the colossal success of David Lean after their post-Lawrence of Arabia fall out. Lean made the monumental hit Doctor Zhivago (1965) after casting Spiegel aside, while Spiegel had only a few undistinguished flops (The Chase, Night of the Generals). It seemed the only way to get even with Lean was to beat him at his own game. The result: Nicholas and Alexandra (1971).

In this retelling of Russia's last Tsar, Spiegel was clearly copying the Lawrence formula: take a huge historical event, find two unknowns to star, throw in a prestige director (Franklin J. Schaffner of Patton) and screenwriter (James Goldman of The Lion in Winter) - even "borrowing" several of Lean's collaborators (cinematographer Freddie Young, art director John Box, prop master Eddie Fowlie) for good measure. In spite of this, Nicholas falls far short of a masterpiece.

Tsar Nicholas II (Michael Jayson) is the well-meaning but ineffectual ruler of Russia in 1905. The Russo-Japanese War leads to unrest which culminates in the massacre of protestors at the Winter Palace, forcing Nicholas to give into their demands - convening the Duma and allowing some degree of civil rights. However, agitation by Vladimir Lenin's (Michael Bryant) Bolshevik Party results in the assassination of several of his Ministers, leading to a brutal crackdown and further discontent. Meanwhile, his wife Alexandra (Janet Suzman), driven to despair by son Alexis' (Roderic Noble) hemophilia, finds herself drawn to the mysterious mystic Rasputin (Tom Baker). As Russia is drawn into World War I, food becomes scarce, casualties pile up, discontent rises, and revolution becomes inevitable.

Nicholas and Alexandra is a mostly good film suffering from serious flaws. The biggest problem, besides a slow pace (particularly in the second half), is a schizophrenic focus. It tries to blend an account of Nicholas's private life - his relationship with family and friends, his fateful encounters with Rasputin - with a general account of pre-Revolutionary Russia, succeeding only partially. Lenin and Alexander Kerensky (John McEnery) receive much screen time, but we see only glances of demonstrations, unrest and World War I. In trying to add depth and complexity to the film, Schaffner and Goldman only drag it out interminably.

The film goes out of its way to seem a "tasteful" epic, which grows tiresome. Schaffner's staging seems too static, more concerned with opulent design than drama. It doesn't help that several scenes seem blatantly stolen from Lean's Zhivago - a demonstration leading to a massacre, opulent parties, army mutinies, the Tsar's family toiling on a farm, several long train journeys, rubbing a hole in a frost-covered window. If these scenes achieve nothing else (and some of them admittedly are successful on their own terms), they show that Spiegel's interest was clearly in one-upping his erstwhile collaborator. Although a fine director in his own right, it must be said that Frank Schaffner is no David Lean.

Still, the movie is entertaining. There are several effective set pieces - the Winter Palace massacre, the preparations for war, a military parade at Intermission, a Russian officer's dramatic suicide, Rasputin's grisly assassination - the characters are mostly well-drawn and compelling, and the fine acting and direction make it interesting, at the very least. The movie does stumble in the second half; the scenes of the Romanovs in exile take up too much time while the Civil War and debates over their future occur offscreen, and we can only see so many scenes of the Romanovs squabbling with their jailers before it grows old. Fortunately, the genuinely striking finale makes up for the troubled road getting there.

Schaffner's direction is solid; he undoubtedly has a strong camera eye (or should we credit Freddie Young here?) and delivers some striking set pieces and images throughout - particularly the blood-splattered finale. Certainly the art direction and costume design are flawless, which should surprise no one on a Sam Spiegel production. James Goldman's script is lacking his usual wit and is extremely stiff and didactic, much to the film's detriment. Richard Rodney Bennett contributes a rousing, dramatic score that adds much to the film.

Michael Jayson gives a strong performance as Nicholas. He's a devoted family man and well-meaning bumber who is out of his depth as Tsar, cursed with a lack of vision and flexibility. Janet Suzman received a well-deserved Best Actress nomination for her tragic portrayal of Alexandra. The two leads, both virtually unknown at the time, acquit themselves wonderfully; they have genuine chemistry, and though a bit theatrical at times, each give strong performances that help carry the film.

Supporting the two leads are a galaxy of fine character actors. Standouts include Tom Baker (Doctor Who) as the menacing Rasputin, John McEnery (Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet) as Alexander Kerensky, Harry Andrews (Charge of the Light Brigade) and Laurence Olivier (Spartacus) as Nicholas's advisors, Curt Jurgens (Lord Jim) as a German diplomat, and Michael Bryant (Gandhi) as Lenin. Making his film debut is Brian Cox (Braveheart, Troy) as Trotsky.

Nicholas and Alexandra is a nice try, and certainly better than its reputation suggests, but it's far from the masterpiece Spiegel and Schaffner must have envisioned. Still, it's worth a look for history buffs and fans of historical epics.

The Boys From Brazil

"Shut up, you ugly BITCH!"

The Boys From Brazil is one of a slew of films about escaped Nazis and their diabolical plans to re-conquer the world, that became popular in the late '60s and '70s. Marathon Man is undoubtedly the masterpiece of this subgenre; other notable entries include The Quiller Memorandum, The ODESSA File, and the Grade-Z schlock film They Saved Hitler's Brain. Brazil has an incredible A-list cast with prestige director Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton, Planet of the Apes) at the helm, but it's a pretty flaky enterprise, with a plot outlandish even by '70s standards, and lots of cheese and camp. That certainly doesn't mean it isn't worth watching, however.

A young Jewish man (Steve Guttenberg) in Paraguay comes across an astonishing discovery: a cabal of escaped Nazi war criminals, headed by none other than Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck), is meeting for nefarious purposes. Mengele is to set in motion a plot for Nazi domination: he has created 94 Hitler clones, sent them to various families around the world, and is planning to recreate the exact circumstances of the Fuhrer's youth by killing their father at just the right age. Guttenberg's murder (and, well, the killing of 94 random people all over the world) leads to the involvement of Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier), a grimly determined free-lance Nazi hunter. It all leads to a showdown in beautiful Lancaster, Pennsylvania (Beth would appreciate that!), involving bloodthirsty dogs, a Hitler kid and two old-school actors wrestling on the carpet like little boys.

The basic problem with The Boys From Brazil is simple. The plot described above is so outlandish and ridiculous that even Lex Luthor and the Joker would dismiss it as insane. No, creating 94 Hitler clones surprisingly isn't the insane part; the idea that every one of them needs to have the exact circumstances of Hitler's youth is insanely illogical, to a degree Michael Bay would never dream of. So, what happens when there are 94 Hitlers running wild? Presumably this doesn't seem to bother Mengele (who is a nutcase, after all), but it seems rather inefficient to me; wouldn't one raised under the right circumstances be enough?

Still, despite the inherent silliness of the premise, the movie manages to be mostly entertaining due to a professional production job. As ridiculous as the story is, Heywood Gould's script is well-constructed and extremely well-paced, Schaffner provides polished, professional directions, and there are some effectivley unsettling moments - particularly the increasingly-creepy Hitler clones. Many bits, like the climactic tiff between Lieberman and Mengele, awkwardly balance cool and ridiculous camp - not necessarily a bad thing, as this can be said of many of my favorite movies.

Gregory Peck is a lot of things, and can be a great actor, but as proven in The Guns of Navarone, he is NOT a tough guy, and shouldn't try to play one - let alone an evil Nazi. Growling and rambling psychotic Nazi slogans in a phony accent that would make Mr. Freeze blush (except his was real), Peck is hilariously campy in his turn; his usual stiff and stentorian style turns to rancid ham. Instead of coming across as the embodiment of evil, he provides one of the funniest performances in film history - though I highly doubt that was intentional. On the other hand, you get to see him wrestle Laurence Olivier and get torn to pieces by Dobermans, which doesn't happen in too many films I'm aware of. And he does get one of the all-time great movie lines here:


"Shut up, you ugly BITCH!"

On the opposite end, Laurence Olivier (oddly the Mengele-esque doctor in Marathon Man), has fun as the Nazi hunter Lieberman (based on Simon Wiesenthal), with a bizarre Yiddish accent that makes him sound like an old lady. Accent aside, Olivier is at least believable in his role, and makes it work through force of will; the movie makes him a determined investigator rather than an elderly action hero, and he (almost) comes off well even in his scuffle with Mengele towards the end.

The movie has a solid supporting cast, though few of them have a lot to do. Third-billed James Mason has a largely superfluous role as an ODESSA officer; his role is pretty much restricted to an occasional argument with Peck. Uta Hagen has a strong scene as an unrepentant SS camp guard. A top-flight assembly of character actors is onhand to support: Michael Gough (The Horse's Mouth), Denholm Elliot (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Walter Gotell (General Gogol from various Bond films), Wolfgang Preiss (The Train). Pre-stardom Steve Guttenberg (Police Academy) and a very young Bruno Ganz (Downfall) have small but important roles. Jeremy Black is genuinely creepy as the various Hitler clones, despite lack of screen time.

The Boys From Brazil is either fun but silly, or silly but fun - such a thin line separates the two concepts. If nothing else, you'll never be able to think of Gregory Peck without giggling again.