Reversal of Fortune

Barbet Schroder provides a solid true crime drama with Reversal of Fortune (1990). Based on an infamous society scandal, this adaptation of Alan Dershowitz's book avoids sensationalism with a commendably low-key approach. Restrained direction and powerhouse acting make it a memorable film.

In 1980s Rhode Island, socialite Sunny Von Bulow (Glenn Close) falls into an irreversible coma, seemingly brought on by insulin. Suspicion falls on husband Claus (Jeremy Irons), a Danish gadabout seeming to have the means (recreational drugs) and motive (a pretty mistress). After he's convicted, Claus hires ace attorney Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) to appeal the verdict. Dershowitz initially believes Claus is guilty, accepting only to fund another case. But Dershowitz finds the case and his client more complicated than they appear, reframing his argument from legal technicality to innocence.

Reversal of Fortune can't be praised enough for its tactful presentation. One could easily paint this as the story of a rich bastard who got away with attempted murder. But Sunny's family is far richer than Claus, launching their own semi-legal investigation with a private attorney. This last provides Dershowitz a legal principle to justify his involvement: by challenging the prosecution's unethical tactics, he hopes to plug a loophole in the system. Then, of course, Claus may be innocent: a key piece of evidence proves fabricated, and Sunny's demons gradually surface.

This portrait of high society isn't exactly flattering. Schroeder shows Rhode Island's hoi polloi as backbiting sybarites, with drugs, extramarital affairs and self-destruction a daily occurrence. Sunny started seeing Claus when married to a European noble; her children from that marriage (Jad Mager and Sarah Fearon) and maid (Uta Hagen) seem to resent Claus, providing a motive for suspicion. Claus's new squeeze (Christine Baranski) lets slip an anti-Semitic slur upon meeting Dershowitz. Then there's the unavoidable fact that, for all Dershowitz's liberal posturing, only a millionaire could afford such an appeal.

Schroeder and writer Nicholas Kazan avoid courtroom dramatics, focusing instead on Dershowitz's exhaustive preparations. He's helped by a team of perky grad students, who eat Chinese food and play basketball between research sessions. Dershowitz easily pokes holes in the prosecution's case, finding their investigation bungled or worse. But his case is nearly derailed by pusher David Marriott (Fisher Stevens), a shady witness unable to keep his story straight. Never mind the trial: just getting to court is difficult enough.

Comatose Sunny weighs in with sardonic narration, sketching in her background and feelings on marriage. But Claus takes center stage. Initially seeming an arrogant bastard, he slowly reveals a more complex personality: he's genuinely chummy towards Dershowitz, complains that Sunny wouldn't let him hold a useful job, and seems hurt when accused of callousness. Yet what conclusion can be drawn from his shooing away the maid while Sunny lay unconscious in bed? Is Claus a murderer or simply a bad husband? There's no easy answer forthcoming.

Jeremy Irons won a well-deserved Oscar for his performance. He makes Claus a seemingly impassive figure with decadent taste and a ghoulish sense of humor ("What do you get the wife who has everything? Insulin"). His hauteur is initially off-putting but Irons, with his wry smile and velvet purr of a voice, generates a mysterious charm. Irons does a remarkable job suggesting a man who alternately appealing and repugnant, frustratingly inscrutable.

Glenn Close makes a strong impression with minimal screen time. She plays Sunny as a neurotic wreck, unhappy in marriage and increasingly absorbed by drugs and self-loathing. Ron Silver matches Irons' reserve with extroversion: Dershowitz is borderline manic but formidably smart and principled. Uta Hagen, Jack Gilpin and Fisher Stevens handle key supporting roles. Among Silver's research assistants are Annabella Sciorra and a young Felicity Huffman.

Reversal of Fortune is a top-flight movie. Reserved, mature and cerebral, it's an excellent thriller.

The Last Wave

Peter Weir followed Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) with The Last Wave (1977). Another exploration of modern society's clash with the supernatural, it falls short of his previous effort.

Several Aborigines in Sydney kill another for violating tribal law. Lawyer David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) takes their case but is frustrated by their refusal to cooperate. Australia is wracked by unusual storms while David has repeated visions of Chris Lee (David Gulpilil), an Aborigine associate of the killers. After meeting Chris and his mysterious associate Charlie (Nandjiwarra Amagula), David grows convinced that the strange events portend apocalypse.

Where Hanging Rock was opaquely spiritual, The Last Wave provides overt mysticism. Weir inundates Australia with apocalyptic weather: hail from a cloudless sky, rains of frogs and oil. These phenomena will be familiar to Charles Fort fans but might have earthly explanations. Less explicable are David's fugue visions of watery death and mental bond with Chris Lee. David seems to have tapped into a primal super-conscious, the Aborigine Dreamtime that places humans on an entirely different spiritual level.

Weir plays up this culture clash, carefully paralleling white and Aboriginal cultures. Where Aborigines see the strange weather as otherworldly portents, a radio weatherman provides meteorological rationales. Both Aborigine and white culture place reverential emphasis on their legal systems and religions. Still, the film ultimately sides with the former: most pointedly, David envisions his radio leaking water during a forecast. The ending in Sydney's sewers removes all doubt.

Why isn't The Last Wave as effective as Hanging Rock? Partly because of its certainty: placing undeniable anomalies in a realistic setting seems a cheat. But there are several story flaws too. Weir unceremoniously drops the killers' fate after a quick trial. He also complicates David's quest with a nagging family; what hoarier device exists than a wife (Olivia Hamnett) who doesn't understand our noble hero? David's showdown with an underground shaman proves laughable. And after earlier visions the last scene isn't as striking as it should be.

Richard Chamberlain channels his limited range into studied, anguished intensity. David Gulpilli seems the ubiquitous screen Aborigine, from Walkabout through The Proposition and Australia. He's thoroughly charming here. More striking still is Nandjiwarra Amagula, a real-life tribal elder who provides mystical menace. Supporting roles go to Olivia Hamnett, Vivean Gray, Frederick Parslow, and Peter Carroll.

The Last Wave is an interesting but flawed film. Despite its intriguing premise and striking imagery, it never comes together like it should.

The Return of Frank James

After the success of Jesse James (1939), 20th Century Fox tapped German emigre Fritz Lang to direct a sequel. The Return of Frank James (1940) is miles better than the original, replacing Henry King's mythic hokum with solid storytelling.

Frank James (Henry Fonda) is living incognito when he learns of Jesse's assassination. After hearing that the killers, Bob (John Carradine) and Charlie Ford (Charles Tannen), are pardoned for the crime, Frank and sidekick Clem (Jackie Coogan) track the crooks to Denver, robbing a mail station. But Frank's railroad nemesis (Donald Meek) still wants Frank dead, laying a trap by arresting servant Pinky (Ernest Whitman) and framing Frank for murder. Now Frank's on trial for his life, and it's up to reporter Eleanor (Gene Tierney) to save him.

The Return of Frank James appears a standard revenge plot. But Lang and writer Sam Hellman's clever film making keeps the familiar story fresh. It's a remarkably brisk movie, with lots of action and changes of scenery, slowing only for Frank's trial in the third act. Lang engineers several clever set-pieces, most with a strange edge: a horse chase culminating in a cliff-side shootout, a railroad detective bound in a closet. The trial scenes are amusing, with Lang highlighting Major Cobb's (Henry Hull) Confederate past that provides much courtroom tension. This clever craftsmanship makes Frank James more than just a programmer.

Lang spotlights Western mythmaking. Eleanor represents this most overtly, but her character proves inconsistent. She starts off as an Old West Hildy Johnson, but her flightiness in the second half almost justifies her father's chauvinism. More effective are the characters' self-conscious role playing: first Clem reenacting Frank's alleged death, then Bob Ford replaying his slaying of Jesse onstage. Thanks to the press Frank can't escape his outlaw image, either; it's all too easy for the jury to believe he killed an innocent man.

Henry Fonda mixes his usual charm with a nice undercurrent of menace. Jackie Coogan makes a good sidekick but Gene Tierney (in her screen debut) seems rather flaky. John Carradine, Donald Meek, Henry Hull, J. Edward Bromberg and Ernest Whitman all reprise their roles from Jesse James; Hull gets the meatiest role, his hammy courtroom antics expunging his embarrassing turn in the original.

The Return of Frank James is a Class A Western. At heart it's a generic oater, but Lang's skillful presentation wins out.

The Devil's Disciple

To celebrate the 4th of July, we'll examine an unconventional take on the American Revolution. Guy Hamilton's The Devil's Disciple (1959) ably adapts a George Bernard Shaw play into a sardonic view of heroism and wartime allegiance.

New York in 1777 is a key battleground, as General John Burgoyne's (Laurence Olivier) British army marches on Albany. Reverend Anthony Anderson (Burt Lancaster) is a small-town priest who draws British ire for demanding burial of a hanged Revolutionary. When troublemaker Dick Dudgeon (Kirk Douglas) cuts down the cropse, it's blamed on Anderson. Karma comes around, however, as Dudgeon is mistaken for Anderson and sentenced to hang. Burgoyne takes a few moments out from his disastrous Saratoga campaign to settle the matter.

Like most of Shaw's works, The Devil's Disciple is steeped in irony. The movie takes a roughly pacifist view of the conflict, with Burgoyne mouthing barbed criticisms of British incompetence and American impertinence. Anderson's uprightness contrasts with the amoral Dudgeon, who claims to have sold his soul to the Devil. But it's Dudgeon who makes the heroic sacrifice, albeit for the sake of Anderson's wife (Janette Scott). Anderson undergoes a similar conversion from pacifism to patriotism. He comically emerges from a battle dressed in buck skin, reborn as a frontier hero. It plays like Friendly Persuasion meets A Tale of Two Cities, played for laughs.

Guy Hamilton provides a crisp pace in spite of the story's inherent talkiness. The black-and-white is a bit stifling, lacking the radiant Technicolor of The Scarlet Coat or even John Paul Jones. Hamilton stages a hilarious swordfight/battle scene with aplomb, and cleverly employs a paper cut-out animation to provide expostion (presaging The Charge of the Light Brigade?).

Burt Lancaster plays the sort of stiff-necked protagonist he's ill-suited for: fortunately he becomes  a "man of action" in later reels. Kirk Douglas makes a wonderfully lovable scamp, though his sacrifice seems abrupt, if not out of character. Laurence Olivier makes an ideal vessel for Shaw's cutting wit. Janette Scott makes little impression as Anderson's weepy wife. Lots of interesting faces populate the supporting cast: Harry Andrews, Alan Cuthbertson, Percy Herbert, George Cole.

The Devil's Disicple is an interesting film if not an all-time classic. Hope you enjoy the holiday more than Dick Dudgeon.

PS: TCM ran this film right after a charmingly quaint 1938 short entitled Declaration of Independence. It's worth checking out, if only to see Caesar Rodney depicted as a two-fisted action hero!

The Crucible (1996)

While Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman received instant acclaim, The Crucible (1952) initially garnered mixed reviews. Perhaps its matching the McCarthy Red Scare (which targeted Miller himself) with the Salem Witch Trials was too on the nose, though an abstract production may also be to blame. The play has aged very well, however, its complexity and sharp characterization compelling even without HUAC parallels.

Raymond Rouleau and Jean-Paul Sartre produced a hard-to-find French film of The Crucible in 1957. In 1996, Miller adapted his own story for the screen, with Nicholas Hytner (The Madness of King George) directing. Slow-moving at times, The Crucible nonetheless retains Miller's passionate drama, buoyed by a peerless cast.

1692, Salem, Massachusetts. Reverend Parris (Bruce Davison) observes a gaggle of girls taking part in a ceremony with slave Tituba (Charlayne Woodard). Parris grows convinced the girls have been bewitched, and headstrong Abigail Williams (Winona Ryder) seizes on this concern. The girls accuse a variety of townspeople of witchcraft, with the frightened villagers rallying to their cause. Abigail has a particular grievance against John Proctor (Daniel Day-Lewis): she'd been fired as Proctor's servant after the two eloped. Abigail accuses Proctor's wife (Joan Allen) of witchery, convincing Proctor to stand against the hysteria. But the lead prosecutor, Judge Danforth (Paul Scofield), remains unconvinced, and the girls turn their wrath on Proctor himself.

The Crucible provides a compelling picture of political and religious hysteria. The girls' shame and guilt concocts a crazy story, and the vengeful Abigail easily keeps them in line. Clergymen initially embrace the uprorar, only belatedly realizing their error. Opportunists like the boorish Thomas Putnam (Jeffrey Jones) use it to settle old scores and easy targets (Tituba, spinsters and widows) fall victim. Just questioning witchcraft marks one as a suspect: how can you disprove someone's afflicted by Satan? This nuanced depiction of a community gone mad is far more credible than Inherit the Wind, with its smug depicton of righteous liberals smiting bigoted hayseeds.

Miller depicts authority as giving hysteria an official stamp. Danforth isn't a raving fanatic but an intelligent man convinced he cannot possibly be wrong. Normal laws of evidence don't apply to witchcraft, and Danforth takes the girls' testimony on faith. When one girl threatens to expose Abigail, it only takes another performance to steel Danforth's resolve. On the other hand, one scene suggests Danforth harbors private doubts but soldiers on to save face. Things subside but the State goes about its business, executing those who won't surrender their integrity.

It's here where the McCarthy parallels are most obvious, and where The Crucible becomes didactic. Miller convincingly shows Proctor as a levelheaded man, whose religious ambivalence and connection with Abigail make him an easy target. But later scenes strain credulity to build him as a martyr. If Proctor's willing to confess to devil-worship *in writing*, what's with his about-face? Does he somehow think his confession could remain private? Why concede so much when his tormentors have no interest in half-measures? This feels fairly stilted, with Proctor's over-emphatic monologue not helping. Fortunately, the scene's dramatic pathos nearly overwhelms such considerations.

Hytner's direction suits the material. He opens up the play considerably, with flawless period detail and Andrew Dunn providing gloomy photography of the Massachusetts wilderness. The story moves slowly at first but picks up appropriately as the drama and accusations escalate. Miller's cerebral dialogue and characterizations work wonders, especially conveyed by a sterling cast.

Daniel Day-Lewis conveys Proctor's predicament with slow-burning anguish and intensity. Winona Ryder seems like stunt casting but her fiery turn assuages any doubts. Joan Allen's (Nixon) quiet turn stands out wonderfully amongst her emotive co-stars. Bruce Davison (Ulzana's Raid) and Rob Campbell (Unforgiven) play confused priests, while Jeffrey Jones (Amadeus) makes a hateful town bully.

Paul Scofield deserves special praise. Casting Sir Thomas More as a ruthless witch hunter is wickedly inspired, and Scofield relishes the task. Scofield portrays Danforth with immaculate inflection ("You are... a *brainless* man!") and chilling mannerisms: no actor's ever made the act of eye-shifting more unsettling. This was Scofield's last major role, an incredible sendoff for this legendary actor.

The Crucible stands as a fine film. A bit stagy in spots, it's still an effective drama and a worthy adaptation of a classic play.

PS: Stayed tuned for a special post tomorrow.

Anatomy of a Murder

Arguably Otto Preminger's greatest film, Anatomy of a Murder (1959) is also one of the best trial movies ever. Avoiding grandstanding and most cliches, Anatomy is both more realistic and dramatically satisfying than your average courtroom drama.

Former Michigan D.A. Paul Biegler (James Stewart) is enjoying his semi-retirement when he gets an explosive phone call from Laura Manion (Lee Remick). Manion's husband, an Army lieutenant (Ben Gazzara), murdered a man he says tried to rape Laura - though the evidence doesn't entirely bear that out. Unable to argue his client's innocence, Biegler instead decides on an insanity plea. He has his work cut for him, however, when the local prosecutor (Brooks West) brings in Assistant Attorney General Dancer (George C. Scott) to assist. Biegler must rely on not only his own wits, but the efforts of his boozy partner (Arthur O'Connell) and devoted secretary (Eve Arden) to dig up some exculpatory evidence.

Anatomy of a Murder certainly stands out from its peers. Wendell Mayes's screenplay frames a unique scenario: Manion's guilt is never in doubt, only the circumstances. Things remain ambiguous enough that it comes down to legal skills, with Biegler and Dancer perfectly matched in rhetoric and lack of scruples. We admire Biegler's professionalism but his clinical detachment is almost unnerving. The film gained much attention its time for its sexual frankness, though these elements seem tame today. Only towards the end does Anatomy fall back on Perry Mason tricks, with a surprise witness treatening to derail the whole case.

Otto Preminger often gave way to excess and preachiness (Exodus, In Harm's Way) but he's pitch-perfect here. For all of its 162 minutes, the film is constantly engaging, its lack of sociological baggage giving it an edge over tosh like Judgment at Nuremberg. The langorous pacing, perfect cast and Sam Leavitt's brooding photography make for an engrossing experience. Duke Ellington's marvelous jazz score adds another layer of enjoyment.

James Stewart gives one of his best performances, using his cornpone persona to mask a shrewd legal mind. Lee Remick is the right mixture of kittenish sensuality and bewildered innocence, while Ben Gazzara scores points for being roundly unsympathetic. George C. Scott received his big break as the snide prosecutor. Preminger fills key supporting roles with marvelous character talent: Arthur O'Connell, Eve Arden, Murray Hamilton, Kathryn Grant and John Qualen. Joseph N. Welch, Joe McCarthy's famous nemesis, plays the Judge and Duke Ellington has a cameo.

Perhaps Anatomy of a Murder's greatest achievement is versimilitude. I deal with obnoxious lawyers on a daily basis and found the film didn't put a foot wrong in its depiction. When a movie feels like a day at the office, it deserves some praise.

The Bounty

Roger Donaldson's The Bounty (1984) might be the best account of HMAV Bounty's infamous mutiny. Originally conceived as a two-part David Lean super-epic, it was ultimately pared down to this comparatively modest film. Nonetheless, Robert Bolt's complex characters and an excellent cast make it a compelling interpretation of a maritime legend.

Lieutenant William Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) asks Fletcher Christian (Mel Gibson) to serve with him on HMAV Bounty on a breadfruit mission to Tahiti. The voyage to the islands goes well-enough, aside from an ill-fated attempt to round Cape Horn. Bligh is forced to prolong his stay on Tahiti for the plants to mature, allowing the crew to become hopelessly ensconced in the tropical paradise. Christian falls for Mautua (Tevaite Vernette), daughter of King Tynah (Wi Kuki Kaa), much to Bligh's consternation. Attempting to regain control of the crew, Bligh institutes harsh discipline, pushing them to mutiny. A framing device has Bligh accounting for his actions before a court martial led by Admiral Hood (Laurence Olivier).

David Lean initiated The Bounty in 1977, planning two long films covering the Bounty's full story, including the HMS Pandora's pursuit of Christian and Bligh's post-mutiny career. Lean approached several producers (Dino De Laurentis, Joseph Levine, even old sparring mate Sam Spiegel), none keen on financing such a huge undertaking. Millions of dollars were spent constructing a replica Bounty, scouting locations and casting before shooting a foot of film. Robert Bolt's stroke and Lean's bickering with De Laurentis caused Lean to abandon the project, leaving Roger Donaldson to helm a much smaller film. (See Kevin Brownlow's David Lean: A Biography for a detailed account.)

For all that, The Bounty is extremely successful. Working on Richard Hough's Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian, Donaldson and Bolt chart a different course than previous versions. Instead of a good-and-evil parable, The Bounty presents a tale of cultural clash and a failure in leadership.

Captain Bligh remains an archetypical villain, a sadistic martinet driving his crew to righteous rebellion. Recent biographers and historians suggest this depiction is unfair. Bligh may have been harsh but probably no more than his contemporaries. Certainly Bligh had a distinguished (if checkered) career, including his extraordinary post-mutiny voyage to Timor, heroic service in the Napoleonic Wars and an ill-fated attempt to stamp out corruption in New South Wales. Nonetheless, given past portrayals, elevating Bligh to protagonist status is a bold move.

Bolt gives Bligh a complex characterization. This is the only Bounty film to note that he and Fletcher were old friends, which here explains Bligh's later abuse. We even meet Bligh's family early on. Bligh's an able, heroic seaman who's not unduly harsh: three deserters are flogged instead of hanged. From the start however, he blames others for his mistakes and deeply resents criticism. The first crack in Bligh's facade comes when Master Fryer (Daniel Day-Lewis) defies an order during a storm. His failure, Bolt suggests, is allowing his crew to run riot on Tahiti and then overcompensating on discipline for the return voyage.

By contrast, Christian is less favorably portrayed. He's initially an upright man but allows himself to "go native" on Tahiti and can't return to shipboard life. His dilemma is very personal, with Mautua's pregnancy steeling his resolve. Christian impulsively supports the mutiny and almost immediately regrets it: he's no more able to handle the rowdy crew than Bligh. The haunting final shot has Christian stranded on Pitcairn, watching the Bounty in flames, his future uncertain.

Roger Donaldson's subsequent career has been mixed (Thirteen Days his best post-Bounty work) but he's excellent here. Beautiful Polynesian and New Zealand locations provide the perfect atmosphere of sexual paradise and personal freedom. Vangelis's dreamlike score sells the mood even further. But there's also a feeling of langor and decadence which matches the story perfectly. Smaller-scaled than previous Bounty flicks, it's no less effective.

Anthony Hopkins gives one of his best performances, making Bligh sympathetic while bringing out his darker side when necessary. Mel Gibson is surprisingly effective as a foppish officer seduced by tropical splendor. Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson have choice supporting roles and Bernard Hill (Valkyrie), John Sessions and Philip Martin Brown (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) play crewmembers. Wry Laurence Olivier and pettish Edward Fox make the trial structure effective. Tevaite Vernette and Wi Kuki Kaa play credible Tahitians.

The Bounty isn't the epic masterpiece it could have been but it still compares favorably to its predecessors. Bringing a fresh take on a classic story, it's highly recommended.

A Man for All Seasons (1988)

When Ted Turner started his TNT cable network in 1988, his first project was a remake of Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons. Charlton Heston, having played Sir Thomas More in a West End performance of the play, eagerly agreed to direct and star, bringing a few name actors with him. The result is this curious film, more faithful to Bolt's play than Fred Zinnemann's adaptation but flat and stagy. Given my long-winded review of the earlier film, I'll restrict myself to the differences in adaptation here.

Sir Thomas More (Charlton Heston) becomes Chancellor of England upon the death of Cardinal Wolsey (John Gielgud). But his strong Catholic principles put him in conflict with Henry VIII's (Martin Chamberlain) desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, sitting in motion the English Reformation. Even after resignation More is hounded by Henry's henchmen, Thomas Cromwell (Benjamin Withrow) and Richard Rich (Jonathon Hackett), ultimately imprisoned for his silence. But even when More's wife (Vanessa Redgrave) and daughter (Adrienne Thomas) beg him to submit, Sir Thomas refuses to back down.

The biggest addition to Heston's Man is the Common Man, a character excised completely from the 1966 film. Intended as a Brechtian alienation device onstage, he works just fine as a sardonic narrator in this film. Assaying various small parts, he embodies Bolt's thematic preoccupation with men who shun culpability for their actions, malleable to the whims of his betters: "Better a live rat than a dead lion." Roy Kinnear's lively performance sells the character, and overall he's a positive addition.

Others are less successful. The scenes with Spanish Ambassador Chapuys (Nicolas Amer) feel superfluous. There's more emphasis on More's religious piety but not enough to seriously alter the story's fabric. Other scenes (naturally) run much longer than before, leading to a stilted pace where the original was brisk and engaging. Frankly, few of these additions benefit the movie, aside from some clever bits of prose. What works on stage or the page merely results in a long (150 minutes), plodding film.

Heston's direction is competent, borrowing visual cues of water and fire from Zinnemann's film. This being a TV production, though, the film succeeds or fails with the actors. Unfortunately the cast is wildly variable, ranging from quite good to wretched. Perhaps it's the cast, made up largely of stage actors? Perhaps it's Heston, with his limited directing experience? Either way it's frustrating.

Heston plays in his usual manner, with imposing physicality and hammy line delivery. He delivers More's big speeches (especially the "Give the Devil benefit of law" soliloquy) with perfect gusto and certainly lends dramatic weight to the climax. It's the quiet moments where Heston falters: he's just as mannered chatting with Margaret or poking fun at Roper as he is telling off Cromwell. I usually like Chuck but he comes off badly as More. Where Paul Scofield is subtle, Heston is overbearing.

Roy Kinnear (The Three Musketeers) gives a robust, witty performance, providing much-needed humor. Richard Johnson (Khartoum) shows an unusual liveliness as the Duke of Norfolk, and John Hudson easily bests Corin Redgrave's silly take on Roper. Best of all is Benjamin Whitrow. Whitrow plays Cromwell more subtlely than Leo McKern, a slippery snake in the grass rather than a blustering bully. This makes several scenes more powerful, especially his seduction of Rich and his cold-hearted interrogations of More.

Unfortunately, each good performance is balanced with a poor one. Vanessa Redgrave badly overplays Alice, complete with regrettable Yorkshire accent. John Gielgud sleepwalks through his scene, bereft of his usual gravitas. Martin Chamberlain's Henry and Adrienne Thomas's Margaret are similarly flat. The worst offender is Jonathon Hackett, playing Rich like an overeager high school student. His Rich is a pathetic dope rather than John Hurt's lost lamb, especially his pleading with More for employment. Nor is his conversion to the Dark Side convincing.

This A Man for All Seasons is a very mixed bag. Fans of the play might appreciate Heston's more thorough adaptation, but average viewers should stick with the original.

The Onion Field

Harold Becker's The Onion Field (1979) is another solid crime film. This adapatation of Joseph Wambaugh's non-fiction book, depicting a pointless murder and its nasty fallout, is a really sour, affecting drama.

In 1963, Los Angeles Detectives Karl Hettinger (John Savage) and Ian Campbell (Ted Danson) make a routine traffic stop that goes badly awry. Their targets are petty crooks Greg Powell (James Woods) and Jimmy Smith (Franklyn Searles), who get the drop on the cops, kidnap them and murder Campbell, with Hettinger narrowly escpaing. Powell and Smith are quickly apprehended, but Hettinger is forced to relive the incident time and again - through trial testimony, interviews and nightmares - causing him to mentally unravel. The two criminals find ways to manipulate the courts, trying to worm their way off death row.

The Onion Field draws comparison with In Cold Blood, not the least in its duo of perfectly-matched accidental killers, but is even more bleak and angry. Karl's slip into kleptomania and near-suicide makes for disturbing viewing; only his very patient wife (Dianne Hull) keeps him from a complete collapse. More disturbing still, however, is his colleagues' eagerness to judge him. While an older cop initially sticks up for Karl, his superiors coldly denounce him a coward, exacerbating his fragile mental state. The question of what he could (or should) have done is ignored.

Most damning of all is the depiction of Warren-era judicial liberalism. Powell reads a few law books in jail and finds it shockingly easy to bilk the criminal justice system. He rigs the game, using technicalities to examine sympathetic witnesses and stay his execution, while manipulating the initially-reluctant Jimmy into changing his story. Greg's web of deceit reminded this viewer of 10 Rillington Place and Zodiac: one downside of a free society is that some clever criminals can escape (or at least delay) justice. After this film, a viewer wonders if Dirty Harry has a point.

Becker's direction is subdued, allowing the violent actions and seedy locales to speak for themselves. The kidnapping and murder is a horrifying scene for its lack of stylization, a tense build-up leading a tragic, stupid mistake. (Powell's misinterpretation of the Lindbergh Law leads him to believe kidnapping is a capital crime.) The film's second half drags on a big long, focusing too much on the crooks and not enough on Karl, but it remains appallingly fascinating. Eumir Duodato's subdued score is perfect, making nice use of a recurring bagpipe theme.

John Savage (The Deer Hunter) perfectly captures Karl's precipitate fall from bright-eyed cop to haunted survivor. James Woods is stellar: his portrayal of the short-tempered, crafty Powell is electrifying, in a role that sadly typecast him as a creep. Franklyn Searles's wimpy desperation is a perfect counterpoint to Woods's flamboyance. Dianne Hull does nice work as Karl's steady wife. Christopher Lloyd (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) has a tiny bit and Ted Danson makes a strong impression.

The Onion Field is another fine true crime film. Its bitterness and despair aren't easily forgotten, raising some disturbing questions about justice and personal guilt.

Hour of the Gun

For years I'd been looking forward to seeing Hour of the Gun (1967), John Sturges's revisionist take on the Wyatt Earp legend. Perhaps that's the reason why I found it a bit underwhelming.

After the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral, Tombstone lawmen Wyatt Earp (James Garner) and Doc Holiday (Jason Robards) are placed on trial for murder at the behest of Ike Clanton (Robert Ryan), Tombstone crime boss and Earp's business rival. After the Earps are acquitted, Clanton's henchmen cripple Wyatt's brother Virgil (Frank Converse) and kill Morgan (Sam Melville). Wyatt is appointed US Marshal and with a posse including Doc, tracks Clanton's gang throughout Arizona Territory and beyond, less resembling a manhunt than a vendetta.

John Sturges had previously directed Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), perhaps the most unabashedly romantic Wyatt Earp film. Hour of the Gun functions as both a sequel and a rebuke to his earlier film: by starting the film with the infamous gunfight, the film becomes a study in moral ambiguity, culminating in Earp's murderous vendetta ride against the Cowboys.

Hour of the Gun is the first Earp film to move beyond frontier romanticism of My Darling Clementine. In this version, Earp and Clanton are merely opponents in a nasty turf war, representing competing political and economic interests. This Ike Clanton is a shrewd, callous businessman, willing to bend any rule or sacrifice anyone (even his brother) to further his ends. Wyatt Earp is painted in decidedly dark tones, no longer a good-hearted lawman but a vengeful killer who tricks and traps opponents into unfair duels. It doesn't go as far as Doc or Wyatt Earp in tearing Earp down, but Hour's measured revisionism makes for interesting viewing.

Unfortunately, Hour of the Gun is let down by some bogus dramaturgy. Edward Anhalt's long dialogue scenes and heavy use of interiors give the movie the feel and rhythm of a TV show. Lucien Ballard's outdoor photography is gorgeous but we don't see enough of it amidst all the talk. Wyatt's belated meeting with Eastern businessmen throws the narrative off-balance, and the final duel with Clanton is a damp squib. For a movie that boldly proclaims "this is the way it happened," it has several gaffes that fall into Public Enemies territory: altering history to something less interesting.

James Garner tones down his usual swagger, but his stoicism makes for one of the blander screen Earps. Jason Robards plays Doc Holiday with the perfect wistful melancholy, which he'd revive in Once Upon a Time in the West the following year. Robert Ryan (The Wild Bunch) gives an intelligent performance, making Ike a shrewd businessman rather than feral prairie scum. The supporting cast features some interesting names: Steven Ihnat (The Chase), Jorge Russek, Albert Salmi (The Bravados) and a young Jon Voight as Clanton's henchmen, Larry Gates (The Sand Pebbles) and Karl Swenson (Major Dundee) as townspeople.

Hour of the Gun was a probably a victim of my unreasonably-high expectations. It's a fine oater with an interesting take on the Wyatt Earp legend, but it's far from the best version of the story.

Lion of the Desert

Lion of the Desert (1981) is an extraordinary film. Moustapha Akkad's smart historical epic is a fine celebration of a country's struggle for independence, a depiction of imperial cruelty and a first-rate war epic.

In 1912, Italy, a late-comer to the Scramble for Africa, invades Libya, overwhelming the weak Turkish client state and establishing authoritarian rule. Twenty years later, however, armed resistance led by teacher-turned-guerilla Omar Mukhtar (Anthony Quinn) lingers on. Benito Mussolini's (Rod Steiger) Fascist regime sends in the ruthless General Rodolfo Graziani (Oliver Reed) to crush Mukhtar once and for all. Despite Graziani's technological advantage and incredibly brutal tactics - concentration camps, decimation and use of poison gas - Mukhtar refuses to submit.

Lion of the Desert was probably doomed for failure. Made at a hefty price of $35 million, it sank like a stone at the box office. A movie with a Muslim protagonist could not be well-received two years after the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the fact that Muammar Gaddafi, at the height of his America-hating, terrorist-sponsoring phase, funded the film surely didn't help. (Indeed, the film was banned in Italy until 2009.) This is a shame, as Lion's refreshing take on the Middle East is definitely worthwhile.

Lion in the Desert serves as a strong corrective to Hollywood Orientalism. The first shots of Libya are of beautifully verdant countryside, not the foreboding desert, and the depiction of Libyan families at play provides an unusually human portrait of Arab culture. Mukhtar's religion is emphasized, so we know he's not just a nationalist hero but a Muslim one. No doubt the film's portrayal of Mukhtar is one-sided and idealized - he refuses to execute prisoners or attack Italian civilians - but this shouldn't bother any but the most reactionary viewers.

Hollywood typically depicts Fascist Italy as Hitler's bumbling sidekick but Lion of the Desert shows them as evil enough on their own. The megalomaniacal Mussolini fancies himself a new Caesar with ambitions far in excess of his competence. Italy's justification is laughably based on Ancient Rome's regional dominion and they have no qualm with using extreme tactics. Men and children go to concentration camps, rebels are sprayed with mustard gas, the country is threaded with a "Hadrian's Wall" of barbed wire, and in a particularly gruesome scene, Italian tanks crush wounded rebels. An interesting sequence has Graziani arranging a peace conference with Mukhtar that he knows will fail, giving him time to strengthen his forces.

To be fair, Akkad doesn't demonize the Italian people: Raf Vallone's diplomatic Colonel and Stefano Petrizi's hero-turned-conscientious objector show that good men existed under Fascism. Even Graziani is shown as a human character who respects Mukhtar and regrets his fate. But Italy's atrocities speak for themselves, belying Italian notions of "civilizing" Libya. It's one of the most searing indictments of imperialism outside of Gillo Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers and Burn!

Moustapha Akkad (killed in a 2005 terrorist attack) is best-remembered for producing the Halloween films, but he'd previously directed Anthony Quinn in the sensitive Mohammed, Messenger of God (1977). He mixes beautiful Libyan landscapes and period detail with battle scenes that are both exciting and viscerally brutal. A rebel stand at a desert village, and a huge set-piece ambush near a bridge, are really impressive, Akkad using thousands of extras, horses and period vehicle for exhilarating spectacle. H.A.L. Craig's script is thematically on the nose, but the story structure and characterizations are sound. There's also a superlative score by Maurice Jarre that somehow avoids resembling Lawrence of Arabia.

Anthony Quinn gives a superlative performance. The usually-boisterous Quinn is remarkably restrained, making his protagonist thoughtful and religiously devout, but a tough fighter in the clutch: Gandhi with a jezail. Oliver Reed's (Royal Flash) is equally impressive, making Graziani a restrained yet ferocious villain. Raf Vallone (El Cid) has some choice scenes as an Italian with a conscience. International stars Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront), John Gielgud (Becket) and Irene Pappas (The Guns of Navarone) have brief cameos.

Lion of the Desert is an unfairly overlooked gem. Its pro-Arab viewpoint is certainly unique, and it's a handsomely shot, exciting epic to boot.

The Caine Mutiny

The Caine Mutiny (1954) is a superb film on many levels: a powerful character drama, a pictorally-handsome epic and a thoughtful look at the pressures of military command. Producer Stanley Kramer and director Edward Dymytryk were prone to obnoxious "message films," but their adaptation of Herman Wouk's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is an unqualified success.

Newly minted Ensign Willie Keith (Robert Francis) is assigned to the Caine, a small minesweeper run ineptly by Commander de Vriess (Tom Tully). Keith befriends the ship's officers, steadfast Lieutenant Maryk (Van Johnson) and snide would-be novelist Keefer (Fred Macmurray), but struggles in his first days at sea. Things change when Captain Phillip Queeg (Humphrey Bogart) assumes command. Queeg is a martinet who whips the crew into shape, but his erratic actions - cutting a tow line during a training exercise, turning tail during a military operation - cause his officers to question his competence. An incident involving pilfered strawberries brings Queeg's sanity into question, and Keefer convinces Keith and Maryk that mutiny is the only answer to the Caine's problems.

The Caine Mutiny is superbly crafted. This could easily have been a Mutiny on the Bounty tale of nautical tyranny, but Wouk, Dymytryk and scenarist Stanley Roberts make things far much more complex. Queeg is not a conventional villain, but a badly damaged man with crippling personality flaws. He's seen heavy action in the Battle of the Atlantic, being attacked by one submarine too many. The scenes where he half-apologizes to Keefer for his first rant, and a scenee where he practically begs his officers for help, show that he's all too aware of his shortcomings, even if he's loathe to admit it. Regardless, his obsession with shirttails and strawberries destroys crew morale, and his instability makes him a dangerous man.

The conflict between Keefer and Maryk drives the story. Keefer is marvelously complex, a cynical agitator who nudges Maryk towards mutiny, but an inveterate, self-serving coward in crunch time. Maryk knows something's wrong with Queeg, but can't think of a course of action, allowing Keefer to dictate events. The trial scenes place events in stark relief, showing that the mutiny, while justified by immediate circumstances, was not inevitable. Nor are Keefer and Maryk heroes. Instead of helping Queeg or going through proper channels, they fail to act until events force their hand. This is much more interesting than the usual "When is insubordination justified?" dilemma, which assumes the captain is always at fault.

Dramatically the film is solid, with only a few clunks. The film is marvelously fast-paced, given that it's a straight drama, alternating seemlessly between sweeping ocean scenes and quiet conversations. There's an admirable balance between high adventure and personal conflicts that few films achieve. On the other hand, we spend a lot of time on Keith's romance with a pretty singer (Mae Wynn), a subplot completely disconnected from the story. Greenwald gets a pointed final rant which spells things out for slower audience members. These bows to audience sensibility are forgiveable, however.

Dymytryk toned down the novel's rougher edges to ensure Navy cooperation, but the results seem worth the artistic compromise. Franz Planer's beautiful Technicolor photography makes the film function as an epic even with the focused drama, with use of real Navy ships, archive footage and a few well-placed miniatures. Max Steiner's score feels a bit too bombastic for the material, blaring Navy ballads even as characters plan and deliberate.

This is Humphrey Bogart's best late-career performance. Queeg seems a typical martinet at first, with barely-concealed neuroses, an eye for petty details and an obsession with discipline. But he's a much more complex character than Captain Bligh, a war hero who's simply seen too much combat to function properly but too proud to admit it. Bogart plays the part beautifully, mixing his forceful personality with scarcely-concealed inner pain, allowing us to pity Queeg even in his worst moments.

The supporting cast is phenomenal. Newcomer Robert Francis (The Long Gray Line) gives a superb performance, holding his own against his seasoned co-stars. Sadly, Francis died in a plane crash in 1955, cutting short a promising career. Fred Macmurray (Double Indemnity) has never been better, subverting his usual charm with a wonderfully snide, loathsome character. Van Johnson's (Battleground) conflicted, tormented Maryk is easily his best performance. Jose Ferrer's (Lawrence of Arabia) sardonic attorney doesn't show up until the last forty minutes, but completely steals his section of the film. E.G. Marshall (Nixon) ably plays the Navy prosecutor, and Lee Marvin and Claude Akins (Rio Bravo) can be spotted as sailors.

Strangely, of all the supporting cast only Tom Tully's brief, one-note portrayal of Queeg's predecessor received an Oscar nod. Tully is easily the weakest cast member aside from May Wynn's superfluous love interest.

A few minor flaws aside, The Caine Mutiny is a gripping, superbly made film. Rarely has a movie better explored the difficulties of military command, and the consequences of miscommunication and incorrect action.

King & Country

Fresh off their collaboration on The Servant (1963), a landmark of British cinema, Joseph Losey and Dirk Bogarde reteam for King & Country (1964), a middling mediation on war and military justice. The film's story is nothing special, playing as Paths of Glory's English cousin. Still, powerhouse acting and some neat directoral flourishes make it worthwhile.

During World War I, Captain Hargreaves (Dirk Bogarde) is assigned to defend Private Hemp (Tom Courtenay), accused of desertion. The naive Hemp makes no attempt to hide his crime, arguing that it was a momentary lapse in judgment. Hargreaves dislikes Hemp, but his own experiences in the war make him sympathetic to his predicament. The trial is a foregone conclusion, however, with a Doctor (Leo McKern) refusing to admit Hemp was shellshocked and Hemp's past record declared irrelevant. With the verdict inevitable, Hargreaves tries to argue for leniency.

Until Vietnam came along, World War I was the ideal setting for anti-war films, with its muddy trenches, mechanized slaughter, inconclusive combat and political ambiguities. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) defined the genre, and later films like All Quiet on the Western Front, The Grand Illusion and Paths of Glory piled on the doom and gloom. For the war's "adventurous aspects," filmmakers usually had to look to the air (The Dawn Patrol, Blue Max) or peripheral theaters (The African Queen, Lawrence of Arabia).

King & Country works well-enough, but it can't help but remind viewers of other, better films. The film lacks the hectoring tone of the aforementioned Kubrick film, but it's not as dramatically powerful either. While Hemp earns our sympathy, Hargreaves isn't very well-drawn, with a past trauma only hinted at and his growing investment in the case not very convincing. The depictions of army callousness won't shock anybody and the bizarre interstitial material (especially the "trial" Hemp's colleagues give a rat) doesn't work either. Even in 1964, there can't have been much fresh about King & Country.

Losey provides some neat directoral flourishes, especially interesting montage work, intercutting speeches with flashbacks, photographs and fantasies (shades of Oliver Stone?). The strict focus on the mud-filled trenches, and absence of battle scenes, lets the anti-war message hit home. The court martial, held in a mouldering trench, makes an interestingly informal setting, and certainly the gloomy, muddy atmosphere is well-conveyed.

The actors sell the drama. Tom Courtenay made this film in the midst of his early career boomlet: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, Billy Liar, Doctor Zhivago. He's excellent as usual, making Hemp inarticulate and naive, a believable and compelling stand-in for Great War soldiers everywhere. Dirk Bogarde struggles with an underwritten part, making Hargreaves compelling through sheer charisma. The supporting cast includes Leo McKern's (A Man for All Seasons) callous doctor, James Villiers (The Ruling Class) as a trial prosecutor, Jeremy Spenser (Fahrenheit 451) as a soldier and Barry Foster (Frenzy) in a tiny part.

King & Country is okay, but aside from the acting it's just another denunciation of the Great War. Its greatest legacy is inspiring the "Flanders Pigeon Murderer" episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, for which we owe Joseph Losey our eternal thanks.

Eight Men Out

Baseball films enjoyed a resurgence in the late '80s, but they mostly took the form of life-affirming fantasies: The Natural, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams. John Sayles's Eight Men Out (1989) is a much more realistic film, taking an angry look at pro sports' biggest scandal: the Black Sox Scandal of 1919.

The Chicago White Sox dominate professional baseball in 1919, and are a shoe-in to sweep the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. But owner Charles Comiskey (Clifton James) refuses to pay his players a fair salary, and first baseman Chick Gandil (Michael Rooker) approaches a pair of two-bit gamblers (Richard Edson and Christopher Lloyd) with an offer to throw the Series. Other players, including reluctant shortstop Buck Weaver (John Cusack), ace pitcher Eddie Cicotte (David Straitharn) and Shoeless Joe Jackson (D.B. Sweeney), get in on the fix, and New York gambler Arnold Rothstein (Michael Lerner) agrees to bankroll the series. The Sox throw the first few games, but Rothstein fails to pay off, and the players consider blowing off the fix - until Rothstein raises the stakes.

I've never been a huge baseball fan (the Pirates haven't been much help), but I've always been fascinated by the Black Sox Scandal. Football and basketball have supplanted baseball in America, and pervasive steroid scandals undermine superstars like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, but in 1919 "America's pass-time" dominated the sports world, and American culture. Its stars were larger than life, and the idea that they weren't angels was unthinkable. In contemporary terms, it would be like the Miami Heat throwing this years' NBA Finals, or Tom Brady taking a dive in the Super Bowl. If nothing else, Eight Men Out puts baseball's substance abuse problems, and the NFL's deadlock over multi-million dollar contracts, in their proper perspective.

Sayles frames the Black Sox as an American tragedy. The players have a legit beef with the pennypinching Comiskey: he benchs Cicotte before he can reach 30 wins (and hence a bonus), and awards the players with flat champagne rather than money. But their decision to throw the series backfires badly: they're double-crossed by Rothstein and shamed before their fans, destroying the integrity of the sport and the faith of the American public ("Say it ain't so, Joe!"). When the fix is uncovered, they take the fall, not the high-placed Rothstein or his allies. Ruthless commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis (John Anderson) comes in to clean up the sport, setting a harsh but effective precedent ignored by his successors.

Sayles makes it into a taut, effective show that never puts a foot wrong. The period details are authentic, the dialogue crisp and clear, and the pacing perfect, helped by effective montage work by John Tintori and Robert Richardson's handsome photography. This is a powerful story, simply told.

John Cusack makes a good protagonist but the supporting cast is more interesting. Michael Rooker (Tombstone) is appropriately loathsome as Chick Gandil, the one player unreservedly committed to the fix. D.B. Sweeney's Jackson is a tragic character, a babe in the woods easily manipulated by co-conspirators. Charlie Sheen, Don Patrick Harvey, David Straitharn and John Mahoney play other players. Clifton James (The Untouchables) is a bit colorless for his role. Calculating Michael Lerner, gladhanding Kevin Tighe (Geronimo: An American Legend) and Christopher Lloyd (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) represent the gambling world. John Anderson (Ride the High Country) appears briefly as the ferocious Kennesaw Mountain Landis. Sayles and Studs Terkel play the journalists who uncover the fix.

Eight Men Out is probably the best film made about baseball, and one of the all-time great sports movies. Most baseball films opt to focus on the magic of baseball, but John Sayles unflinchingly shows the harsh, gritty reality.

For a more personal take on the film, check out Rich's review on Wide Screen World.

The Prisoner of Shark Island

The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936) is one of John Ford's more obscure films. Undeservedly so, as despite some overanguished pleading, it's a compelling, artfully made film.

Samuel Mudd (Warner Baxter) is a Maryland doctor with Southern sympathy who, one night in April 1865, mends the broken leg of a mysterious stranger. Turns out it's John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln's assassin, and Mudd is soon arrested and convicted of treason, railroaded by a government out for vengeance and not concerned with Mudd's innocence or guilt. Mudd is sent to the Dry Tortugas, a forboding island in the Gulf of Mexico swarming with sharks and mosquitos. He tries to break out of jail with the help of wife (Gloria Stuart), irascible father-in-law (Claude Gillingwater) and an ex-slave (Ernest Whitman) who just happens to be stationed there as a soldier, but it's foiled by the sadistic Sergeant Rawlins (John Carradine). Finally, when the prison is laid low by yellow fever, Mudd must choose between his desire for justice and his code as a doctor to help any patient.

A lot less nuanced than the recent, similarly-themed The Conspirator, Shark Island takes a feverishly indignant stand against injustice. The bloody-minded prosecutors are determined to sacrifice Mudd to appease the nation's conscience, with a War Dept. official lecturing the prosecutors not to let justice get in the way of a guilty verdict. There's not much historical veracity to claiming Mudd's innocence, and some questionable racial politics (Mudd is the only one who can "handle" the prison's black garrison when they mutiny) don't help either. But it makes for compelling drama all the same, and the movie spends as much time on Mudd's survival as the injustice of his convinction.

The movie is a treat to watch, thanks to a rip-roaring pace and some forbidding photography and art direction. Bert Glennon's moody, expressive photography catches the right note of doom, and Ford stages some impressive set-pieces: Mudd's escape attempt is a long, thrilling and extremely suspenseful scene with an unexpected ending. Ford plays up his favorite North-South reconciliation themes, including a nice scene where Lincoln requests a band play Dixie ("I've always liked that song"), and uses period music like Maryland, My Maryland to good effect.

Warner Baxter makes an appealing protagonist, convincing as the family man, the forthright doctor, and the indignant victim of injustice. You'll definitely be cheering for Mudd to break out of jail, and as he treats yellow fever patients single-handed during a hurricane. Gloria Stuart (My Favorite Year) is radiant as Mudd's wife, and Claude Gillingwater provides jots of comic relief. John Carradine gets top acting honors, devouring scenery with relish ("Hiya Judas!"). Harry Carey Sr. (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) gets a nice role as the firm-but-fair warden. Ernest Whiting's Buck is definitely an Uncle Tom stereotype, but he does get a few nice moments - the movie ends with him.

Despite some dubious passages, The Prisoner of Shark Island is an intense, affecting look at injustice and human survival.

The Conspirator

My first theatrical viewing since January, Robert Redford's The Conspirator (2010) is an unexpected treat. Covering much the same ground as The Prisoner of Shark Island and The Andersonville Trial, it intelligently examines difficult questions about guilt, justice and civil liberties.

In April 1865, the American Civil War is finally ending, but another traumatic event shatters the peace: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Conspirator John Surratt escapes custody, but his mother Mary (Robin Wright) is arrested and charged as an active member in the plot. Senator Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) takes Mary's case, entrusting it to his protege Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy). Aiken is initially convinced of Mary's guilt, but finds himself more disgusted with her trial, a military tribunal manipulated by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Kevin Kline), where Mary is assumed guilty and witnesses are "influenced" or made unavailable.

The Conspirator follows a routine trial movie structure but remains compelling all the same. The courtroom scenes are gripping and Redford opens things up just enough with flashbacks and montage to make things appropriately cinematic. James D. Solomon's script definitely wants to consider the Lincoln Assassination in light of Gitmo and 9/11, with Stanton mouthing very Bush-like comments about national security, and concerns that disregarding the Constitution in wartime is a betrayal of American values.

Whether it's fair to frame things this way is debatable. Mary Surratt was probably guilty in real life, and any analogy between the War on Terror and Reconstruction is farfetched, to say the least. In the film, Mary's guilt is unclear but it's largely beside the point: her trial is unconstitutional and therefore wrong regardless of her guilt or innocence. One can accept Surratt's guilt and Redford's argument at once.

For all his speechmaking, Redford doesn't veer into Stanley Kramer territory, investing his plot and characters with welcome nuance. Aiken is sincere in his convictions, but comports himself obnoxiously both in and out of court. Mary isn't a high-minded idealist but a relatively simple woman concerned for her son - a very interesting (and unusual) characterization in this sort of film. She's also an uncooperative witness, complicating Aiken's case to the extreme. There's no "a-ha!" moment when Aiken suddenly becomes Perry Mason-lite, as in Breaker Morant, with the tribunal decidedly unimpressed by his antics. Despite its occasional bows to formula (Aiken's love interest and social life), this film treats its audience with respect.

James McAvoy (Atonement) is a decent protagonist, going through the motions of righteous indignation and hopelessness. Robin Wright (Forest Gump) owns the film: intelligent, calm, restrained yet fiery, more concerned with personal matters than her own guilt. I'll posit her as an early Oscar candidate. Kevin Kline gives a smart, subdued performance, making Stanton human if not sympathetic. Danny Huston's (John Adams) fiery prosecutor, Tom Wilkinson's (Valkyrie) principled Senator and Stephen Root's (The Men Who Stare at Goats) suspect witness steal their respective scenes. Evan Rachel Wood (Across the Universe) makes an impression as Surratt's sister, but Johnny Simmons and the other assassins don't really register. Alexis Bledel (Sin City) has a throwaway part as Aiken's love interest.

The Conspirator is an intelligent, well-executed courtroom drama. It does preach on occasion, but it also entertains and provides some food for thought.

Fury

Fritz Lang's first American film, Fury (1936) is a rather garbled attempt at a message film. The first half of the movie is astonishing, but the last half is poorly thought-out and self-contradictory. Lynching is bad, but apparently it's wrong to punish the lynchers. Okay, whatever floats your boat.

Joe Wilson (Spencer Tracy) is an ordinary guy, trying to find work so he can marry sweetheart Katherine Graham (Sylvia Sydney). Just when, Joe is arrested outside the town of Strand, a suspect in a kidnapping and murder. Circumstantial evidence points to Joe's guilt, and the townspeople, convinced he'll get off somehow, storm the jail and try to lynch him. Joe somehow escapes, and enlists his crook brothers (Frank Albertson and George Walcott) to help get revenge. Soon twenty-two townspeople are on trial for Joe's murder, but Katherine - the prosecution's key witness - begins to suspect Joe isn't dead after all.

Anti-lynching films seem quaint now, but they were a pretty brave thing to make in the '30s. As the film states, 6,000 people were lynched in the fifty years leading up to the film - a truly disquieting figure. Like Try and Get Me!, the movie draws inspiration from the 1933 Brooke Hart case, with the Governor refusing to send troops to guard the jail and college kids joining in the lynch mob. Lang plays it safe by making Joe white and innocent, but this is to be expected. The big speeches against lynching are couched in a convenient court room setting, but get the job done. And certainly Lang's clever plotting is a sleight-of-hand that Hitchcock would envy.

The movie is also rather pointed in its depiction of '30s America. It's nearly impossible to find work, and Small Town America is small-minded, self-righteous and violent. The events depicted leave Joe a bitter shell of a man, redeemed only by the phoniest of Hollywood endings (but more on that later). Joe and Katherine's dreams are shattered by the lynching, and Lang uses the effective device of a store bridal display to dredge up broken memories. Whatever the studio interference, Lang's rage at Depression-era America, which he feels betrays American institutions, is palpable.

The highpoint of the film, of course, is the lynching scene. Following a series of montages of gossip spread through town, it has a believably spontaneous air. In Young Mr. Lincoln, Wyatt Earp and a million other films, a gutsy lawman can singlehandedly disarm a mob through soothing speech or tough talk, but no such luck here. The sense of uncontrollable fury and rage, the madness of a mob and the violence of lynching, is perfect even if the subject isn't actually lynched. It's an astonishing set-piece. One only questions why Lang put such a powerful scene midway through the film.

All this is superb, but it takes up only about 40 minutes of a 96-minute film. At that point, the movie shifts gears to an anti-revenge parable. Which would be fair enough, if Lang presented it believably. Instead, the movie really drops the ball, and we're asked to swallow some pretty big whoppers that lead to a rather unpalatable message.

Think about it. The prosecuting DA is a sarcastic jerk, and the mob members brought to trial seem pathetic rather than hateful. Frankly, knowing what I do about lynchings, the vigilantes' guilt is implausible, to say the least. These sort of people expressed pride in their work, and posed for pictures afterward! In the Brooke Hart case, people collected bark from the hanging tree for years afterwards. Worst of all is Katherine's plea to Joe, trying to dissuade him from taking revenge. "A mob doesn't have time to think!" she proclaims, then giving a speech that more or less absolves the suspects: it's okay that they tried to lynch you, because they failed! I can imagine Franklin Turtle's dad telling Joe "I'm sure they didn't mean to do it!"

Frankly, I'm with Joe on this one. Sure, taking the law into your own hands is as bad if you're an individual as a mob. But this isn't what comes across at all; it seems like Lang is excusing the individual members of the mob, which really doesn't help. I don't think turning the other cheek or forgive and forget really applies to lynch mobs, no matter how contrite they are. The ultimate message is: Think about what you did, Small Town America, or you'll get a Time Out.

Then there's Joe's final speech, which wreaks of studio interference. In its current form, it seems like three different speeches pasted together: first, Joe begins with an eloquent and angry denuniciation of vigilante justice, showing he hasn't forgiven his would-be killers. Immediately thereafter, however, he gives a pathetic proclamation of guilt, saying he couldn't live knowing he sent "innocent" people to their death. Huh? Even more bizarrely, it ends on a happy note as Joe proclaims his love for Katherine and embraces her. Roll credits. Is there a more confused scene in film history? Because I can't think of one.

Lang's direction is superb. Lang was never a subtle director, and he retains a lot of Expressionist tricks, namely heavy use of double-exposure and obvious "symbolic" images (the clucking hens). But the film gets a wonderful atmosphere of violence, hate and desperation across - at least in the first half - helped immeasuribly by Joseph Ruttenberg's stark photography and Franz Waxman's frantic score. The script is ingeniously plotted, with extremely clever "Macguffins" driving the plot along, making the movie mechanically sound even as the message clunks.

Spencer Tracy gives one of his best performances. He makes Joe seem, in turn, an ordinary guy, a bitter avatar of righteous fury, and a broken man who's lost everything. Sylvia Sidney is fine as Joe's love interest. Bruce Cabot (King Kong) gets an excellent part as the leader of the Mob, a sleazy public servant of the worst kind. There are also good roles for Frank Albertson (Psycho) and George Walcott as Joe's brothers, Edward Ellis (The Thin Man) as the Sheriff, Walter Abel (Mr. Skeffington) as the District Attorney and Walter Brennan (Red River) as a half-wit deputy.

Fury is a well-made, passionate film that gets across a progressive message very well. Too bad about the second half, which completely undercuts it.

Anne of the Thousand Days

This sterling adaptation of Maxwell Anderson's play is one of the few Tudor-related films worth watching. Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) provides both a fine history lesson and a gripping drama, helped along by excellent writing and a near-perfect cast.

Henry VIII (Richard Burton) is angry that his wife, Catherine of Aragon (Irene Papas) is unable to produce a male heir. He becomes infatuated with Anne Boleyn (Genevieve Bujold), the pretty, headstrong daughter of a minor nobleman (Michael Hordern), but finds Anne less than thrilled by his attention - not the least because Henry's minister, Cardinal Wolsey (Anthony Quayle), has refused her request to marry Henry Percy (Terence Wilton). Anne demands Henry annul his marriage to Catherine before submitting to his advances, initiating the "Great Matter" where Catherine's intransigence and the Catholic Church's subservience to Spain lead England to break from Rome. Henry and Anne are finally wed, but Anne proves equally unable to bear a son. With his eye now on demure Jane Seymour (Leslie Paterson), Henry enlists the wholly unscrupulous Thomas Cromwell (John Colicos) to affect Anne's downfall.

A lavish Hal Wallis (Becket) production, Anne of the Thousand Days is a ravishing film to behold. Director Charles Jarrott provides restrained but beautiful direction, helped immeasuribly by Maurice Carter and Lionel Couch's impeccable art direction. Georges Delerue's lively period score is another highlight. But Anne isn't just a bloated costume drama: Bridget Boland and John Hale contribute a script bursting with muscular period dialogue, wit and well-drawn characters that make this messy slice of history understandable and interesting.

Anne's center is a twisted romance with a pre-ordained tragic ending. Anne's intransigence intrigues Henry, and their early scenes crackle with spark and wit. Some of the film's best scenes have the clever Anne outflanking Cardinal Wolsey, unafraid to exercise her sexual hold on the King. But once Henry actually possesses her, Anne's days are numbered. When her position is threatened, Anne becomes believably shrewish, demanding the execution of dissidents like Sir Thomas More (William Squire) and Bishop Fisher (Joseph O'Conor) for questioning her right to rule. The headstrong Anne, forced into a romance she didn't want, and the capricious Henry, ruled by a wandering eye and tempestuous emotions, are a match made in hell.

Unlike other takes on the subject (The Tudors, The Other Boleyn Girl), Anne never degenerates into mere soap opera through the quality of writing and characterization. Henry and Anne's romance is the main subject, but the political and religious upheaval resulting from their doomed love affair is given full breadth. A centuries-old clerical system is uprooted, England's political system revolutionized, and the body count is staggeringly high. It's easy to argue that the English Reformation did much good, allowing England to flower through increased independence, but Henry's reasons for affecting the break are supremely selfish - all for a romance that will dissipate at earliest convenience.

Anne's biggest fault is a rushed second act, which hurries through Anne's reign with undue dispatch. This is redeemed by some powerfully-staged scenes, like More's execution and especially Anne's final confrontation with Henry, but the movie ends with a leaden clunk, as Anne's monologue is echoed in narration as we see Princess Elizabeth toddling about. Yeah, Elizabeth will be Queen one day - we get it.

Genevieve Bujold is by far the best screen portrayal of Anne Boleyn. While many films portray her as a scheming bitch queen (looking at you, Natalie Dormer), Bujold's Anne is an intensely sympathetic character. Trapped by her relatives and ensnared by Henry, Anne refuses to bend to his will, engaging him in verbal one-upsmanship and taking full advantage of Henry's infatuations: if the King wants her, it will be on Anne's terms. Only after they're married does Anne fall for the King, and by then it's too late. Bujold's sensitive, layered performance maintains the audience's sympathy throughout: we tear up at her tragic monologue recounting her "thousand days," and cheer when she bitterly tells Henry off in their last confrontation.

Opposite Bujold, Richard Burton gives one of his best performances. Burton was never a subtle actor but his hammy stylings fit Henry perfectly. Besides a passible physical resemblance, Burton wonderfully embodies the capricious, hot-tempered monarch and bites off Boland and Hale's meaty dialogue with gusto. Aside from Robert Shaw in A Man for All Seasons and Keith Michell in The Six Wives of Henry VIII, he's one of the best screen Henries.

The film benefits greatly from a stellar supporting cast. Anthony Quayle (Lawrence of Arabia) got a well-deserved Oscar nod for his tragic portrayal of Cardinal Wolsey, far more sympathetic than his usual showing as an arrogant, greedy schemer. John Colicos's (Battlestar Galactica) shifty fly-on-the-wall Cromwell makes a suitably devious antagonist, and Michael Hordern (Royal Flash) is dryly amusing as Anne's scheming dad. Dependable pros William Squire (Where Eagles Dare), T.P. McKenna (Straw Dogs), Esmond Knight (A Canterbury Tale) and Vernon Dobtchef (The Day of the Jackal) also make impressions. Only the awkwardly-cast Irene Papas (The Guns of Navarone) is disappointing.

Anne of the Thousand Days is one of the best Tudor-related films to date. With its skillful mixture of romance, political drama and period detail, it comes highly recommended.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

German cinema has produced a number of really excellent period dramas in the past decade: Downfall and The Baader-Meinhoff Complex chief among them. Their thematic honesty, unflinchingly addressing Germany's troubled past (the Third Reich, left-wing terrorism), is highly commendable: would that Hollywood were half as brave. Neither are these stuffy British period dramas with good-looking actors in pretty costumes acting in service of dull scripts and stories. There's real drama, passion and originality in these films that makes them unique and extremely valuable.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005) is a truly remarkable film. The second major film about Sophie Scholl's brave stand against Nazism (after Michael Verhoeven's The White Rose (1982)), it's one of the most moving and powerful films made about Nazi Germany. Long on talk and thematic concerns, it's nonetheless gripping from beginning to end, with director Marc Rothemund and star Julia Jentsch providing a powerful story of pure, unremitting decency in the face of oppression.

Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) and Sophie Scholl (Julia Jentsch) are two young students studying in Munich during the Second World War. The two are members of the White Rose, a clandestine anti-Nazi group who distributes leaflets questioning the Nazi war effort. Sophie and Hans are arrested and subjected to intensive interrogation, refusing to reveal to Gestapo Inspector Mohr (Gerald Alexander Held) the names of their accomplices. The Scholls realize just how high of stakes they're playing for, when they're charged with High Treason and threatened with execution. But Sophie refuses to bend even an inch, ignoring offers to save her life by betraying her comrades or to recant her politics.

Plenty of films have been made about the military resistance to Hitler, from Night of the Generals to Valkyrie, but those hand-wringing equivocators aren't half as moving as Sophie Scholl, a 21 year-old medical student whose simple decency and conviction shakes the foundations of the Third Reich. Sophie isn't a naive babe in the woods like Anne Frank, but a very conscious and conscientious protestor. The military experiences of her brother, friends and fiance have turned her against the war, and Sophie's vague knowledge of the Holocaust and other atrocities makes Nazism unpalatable. Her interrogators lambast her as an ungrateful fool, unable to see how a privileged and intelligent girl could dare act against their institutionalized evil. That she's a decent person with a mind and conscience of her own never occurs to them.

Often forgotten is how sensitive Nazi Germany was to public opinion. The Nazis were, of course, an absolute dictatorship, but they'd also come to power on a slim plurality vote and constantly feared the German public turning against them. The T4 program, with the euthanization of the crippled and mentally ill, had been shut down in 1942 due to public outcry and church pressure. Thus, vocal dissenters like Sophie and Hans pose a very real threat to Nazi credibility and power, especially during wartime. So afraid of them, indeed, is the Nazi leadership that Roland Freisler (Andre Hennicke), the frighteningly-hammy judge of the People's Court, is brought in to prosecute them. Of course, their prosecution of the Scholls only brings their evil into stark relief, as any regime that considers 21 year old pamphleteers a moral threat is irredeemably loathsome. Virtue stands little chance of winning, but it scores an irrevocable moral victory.

Dramatically, Sophie Scholl is extremely powerful. The film contains long arguments about politics and philosophy that could be boring in other hands, but Fred Breinersdorf's script pulls no punches. Mohr's pompous pronouncements on Nazi are convincingly deflated by Sophie's moral bluntness: basic good is unmovable in the face of convoluted, torturously-justified bad. It's no less compelling a "drama of conscience" than the genre's best work, like The Passion of Joan of Arc and A Man for All Seasons, and its relative immediacy makes it arguably more affecting than either.

Rothemund's direction is solid. Most of the action takes place indoors, but the film retains a crisp pace and Rothemund manages some fine stylistic touches; a few bits are heavy-handed (especially the coda) but it's an admirably restrained and direct bit of storytelling. Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek's moody score is also memorable.

Julia Jentsch gives an exceptional performance. She avoids making Sophie a saintly character without diminishing her basic good. She's very much a real twentysomething girl, with relatable dreams, interests and personality, who's nonetheless willing to die for her conscience. Certainly, she's one of the most compelling and original protagonists you're likely to meet, and Jentsch is nothing short of spectacular.

Fabian Hinrichs is solid; we see far less of Hans than Sophie but he still makes a powerful impression. Gerald Alexander Held's Gestapo chief makes a superb antagonist: he's a dedicated Nazi functionary given a glimmer of humanity, being both frustrated and grudgingly impressed by Sophie's conviction. Andre Hennicke's Freisler is alternately comic and terrifying, the perfect embodiment of Nazi evil. Smaller roles are ably handled by Florian Stetter, Petra Kelling, Jorg Hube and Maria Hofstatter.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days is a superb film that explores tyranny and human decency in a wonderfully unique and affecting way. If nothing else, it shows that, despite seventy years of books, films and documentaries, there's still plenty of interesting, thought-provoking material to be culled from Nazi Germany, if only one knows where to look.