The Great Escape-Paramount Summer Classic Films Series

 

One of the reasons I took the approach I have for this blog, was so I can do exactly what I am doing now, writing about a film I love, because I saw it in a theater. I have watched "The Great Escape" dozens of times, I own it on Laserdisc, DVD, and Blu-ray, but I have never seen it in a theater on the big screen, what a magnificent film! The story of the biggest prisoner escape during WWII is told in a straight forward narrative with plenty of suspense and great characters along the way.

Take a look at this cast, it is very impressive. There are a ton of British actors that you will recognize, even if you don't know their names, and the American cast is stacked with legendary stars like Steve McQueen and James Garner. The film is nearly three hours long but never feels too long because all the pieces are put together so well. The plan is laid out for us, we know who everyone is and what their responsibilities are. There are great character points and a bit of humor here and there, but no one simply exists as comic relief. The one plot line that suggests it was designed to amuse us with humor, ends tragically and sets one of the characters on a different trajectory. 

Donald Pleasance, who had made dozens of things before this, first appeared on my radar as Blythe in this film. His fish out of water forger was sympathetic and ultimately tragic, which I think made him stand out for me for the rest of his career. He was Blofeld in "You Onley Live Twice", he was in "Fantastic Planet", "THX1138", a terrific TV Movie version of "The Count of Monte Cristo" and he is Dr. Loomis in the "Halloween" series. Heck, I even liked his parody of Robert Stigwood in "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". The relationship he and James Garner develop in the film is one that will resonate well with people who come together under trying circumstances.  Garner is great as a scrounger, he basically played the same character the next year in "The Americanization of Emily". Garner's aw shucks flim flam style will sustain him through a dozen future feature films and the television show "The Rockford Files". 

For a decade,  I was was sure that Charles Bronson was once an Academy Award Nominee for supporting actor for this picture. It wasn't until sometime in the 1990s, when I looked it up on line, that I discovered I was mistaken. Watching his performance however, I can easily see why I thought it was true. His character, Danny, The Tunnel King", is a man of strength who has a weakness that he faces repeatedly, but has finally reached a tipping point. His temporary abandonment of the tunnel as the escape route has some great moments of close up and voice performance. He is so solid in this part, and he mostly is stoic for the rest of his career, I see so much more that did not get played out as it could have in lesser films in his future. 

I don't know if anyone has ever talked about "The Great Escape" without mentioning Steve McQueen, and if they have, how could they do it and Why? McQueen is the top billed star in this film, but it is an ensemble picture, and he is not in it any more than many of the other actors. The reason everyone remembers him in the movie is because he is magnetic. His character is a defiant iconoclast,  who never the less fits into the military structure very effectively. His casual interplay with Richard Attenborough and Gordon Jackson contrasts nicely with the defiant reminder to the German Commandant,  that he is Captain Hilts. That was a moment of charisma so important, that it is reimagined for "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood". Of course the biggest moment for him in the film is the motorcycle escape. My wife and I used to joke that if we watched the film one more time, this time he will make it over that second fence. 

Director John Sturges had a way with masculine adventure stories that seemed to peak in the 1960s. In addition to this film, he made "The Magnificent Seven" (also with Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Charles Bronson) and "Ice Station Zebra" the baby boomers gateway drug to submarine movies. Sturges often used Elmer Bernstein to score his films and in addition the his theme for The Magnificent Seven",  his iconic score for this film is well loved. I read somewhere, probably on IMDB, that soccer fans hum it during games. (I would have thought whistling Colonel Bogey's March would make more sense).

The fact that this is based on a true story and the techniques used by the prisoners were pretty closely followed in the film, give rise to even greater respect fore the fighting men of the Allied forces in WWII. The film makers do what must always be done in creating an entertainment, they romanticize some things, ignore the inconvenient, and have to change characters around. Still the film feels very honest, in part by the fact that there are no speaking roles for women in a P.O.W. camp. Hogan's Heroes would fix that later. This is one of those thousand films you must see before you die. so I have several lifetimes worth of viewing it to my credit.

TCM Film Festival Day Three

The original plan was to see "Kiss Me Deadly" and try to squeeze in a program called "Crackin' Wise" and finish off the day with a nitrates screening of "Spellbound". None of those three things happened. This was still a jam packed day and there were other programs to see that held all kinds of allure for me.

His Girl Friday

The first change of the day began before anything had really started. I was with my daughter and while we are not locked at the hip, I do enjoy taking in the films at the festival with her as much as possible. Although I wanted to keep a Noir thing going by seeing the Mickey Spillane based "Kiss Me Deadly". I have seen it before however and missing it was not going to hurt that much. Amanda had not seen His Girl Friday before and that's where she was headed so I chose to tag along. There was another reason I chose this, my friend Michael, who is a blogger here in Southern California, was going to see this and I hadn't seen him in almost a year so this would be a good chance to catch up because he was going to see Rosalind Russel and Cary Grant as well.

Sure enough we caught up with him and we spent several screenings together for the rest of the festival.

Cary Grant and Rosalind Russel are great in this rapid fire remake of "The Front Page". The switch in gender and relationship from the previous film works really well, and Ralph Bellamy gets pushed off as a third wheel in another picture that he stars in. Author Cari Beauchamp, an Academy Scholar and contributor to numerous publications, walked us through some background on the film and mentioned something that particularly interested me. The average person speaks at a rate of 120 to 150 words a minute, according to Beauchamp, Grant and Russel both exceed 200 words a minute in most of their scenes. Even with that active pace and shap direction, because of the two late nights in a row, I dozed in a couple of spots. I may have missed five to ten minutes of the film, fortunately, I've watched it a number of times. Amanda was very entertained by the whole thing.

Bullitt

Jaqueline Bisset was scheduled to appear at this which was one enticement to see this movie, but she had to cancel at the last minute for a family emergency. Host Eddie Muller was particularly disappointed, but vowed to try to get her on the program next year. [My suggestion is a screening of "The Deep"]. Miss Bisset however was not the main reason I wanted to see this screening. The car chase that begins and ends all car chases was the main draw. This looked like the movie that was going to have the biggest crowd at the festival, despite being perceived by many of the fans as outside the "classic" studio period. I had just seen a story on CBS Sunday Morning about the Mustang that was featured in the film.










Amanda also has the wits to recognize McQueen as the King of Cool. She dotes on him almost as much as her favorite, Robert Shaw (tomorrow). McQueen's image was everywhere at the festival, including the "Essential" passes that we wore around our necks for admission to every Festival activity.

The sound design on this movie is tremendous and when the Charger and Mustang take over the streets of San Francisco, it is a wonder to behold and especially to hear. I saw "Bullitt" in it's original theatrical release in 1968. My older brother Chris took me, it was playing with a long forgotten George Peppard film, "House of Cards". I remember describing to my friends on the playground the violent shotgun killing of the witness, but especially detailing the car chase.

McQueen looks so cool in his turtleneck sweater and blazer, the sunglasses cap off the effect and you have an authority figure that the rebel generation of the 1960s can relate to.

An Invisible History: Trailblazing Women of Animation

This was flat out my favorite program at this years TCM Film Festival. The gathering of talent and history was incredible and the stories these women shared were fascinating insights into the world of animation, particularly at the Disney Studios.

Mindi Johnson introducing Ruthie Tompson

To begin with, author and animation historian Mindi Johnson, introduced us to Ruthie Tompson, who as a little girl was a model for the kids featured in Disney's original Alice shorts, which mixed animation and live action, before Mickey Mouse. If you can do math, you will have figured out that Miss Tompson is not exactly a kid. Here she is in her 108 years of glory.  She sounded great and made just a couple of remarks as an introduction to the rest of the program. She ended up going to work for Walt and did ink and paint on the first real Mickey Mouse short, "Plane Crazy" which was screened as part of the audio visual presentation put together by the host.

What followed that introduction was a long line of innovators in the animation arts. Mindi Johnson described the bungalows that the inkers worked in and showed us a variety of pictures that illustrated the labor intensive process that was required to get these cartoons in shape. When color entered into the scene in more abundant ways, the painting process became more complicated and the women who participated in putting these shorts together began to be designers in addition to the detailed ink work they did.

On the program, there were women who contributed to every Disney Feature Film ever released, including Pixar films and Roger Rabbit.

After the presentation, there was a book signing at the Roosevelt Hotel Lobby. Amanda and I scrambled over there, bought a beautiful copy of Mindi Johnson's book, and then had it signed by all the women on the panel. 

I frankly pity any animation fan who was not there for this wonderful look at the hidden history of outstanding women in the field.

Heaven Can Wait

We headed back to the Main Chinese theater and reconnected with Michael for our next screening, the comedy "Heaven Can Wait" which was nominated for nine Oscars in 1978, including the big one, but walked away with just the prize for set decoration. This film had Warren Beatty's influence all over it. Three of the actors were nominated [including Beatty] and the film was co-directed by Beatty and Buck Henry , who was one of the guests for the presentation. We saw Henry last year at a screening of "The Graduate", and he was a little more mobile then. This year he did not get out of his wheelchair. He was also a bit more cryptic and slow with his answers, but when he interjected a comment, the wit and sharpness are still there.

Ben Mankiewicz lead the discussion and Dyan Cannon, nominated for her role in the film, took the lead on most of the background, allowing Buck to participate when he was good and ready and not before. 

This film is a loose remake of "Here Comes Mr. Jordan, which was screened last year at the festival although I missed it. This was the 40th anniversary of the film, although Dyan Cannon did not want to acknowledge that, I know what she means, it just does not seem possible that it was that long ago. 

The movie is a featherweight story of a heavenly mix up with some body swapping comedy and slapstick humor from Charles Grodin and Miss Cannon. Amanda had never seen it before and she enjoyed it while recognizing that it was largely a frothy entertainment from the decade of cinema that she most loves. Ben made mention of the fact that Cannon was at one time married to Festival favorite Cary grant, and she quikly volunteered that their love life was great. It was a big laugh and she does have a book coming which looks back on that time so that should be interesting. 

The Big Lebowski

The one thing that could lure me away from the nitrate screening of "Spellbound" that was was originally planning on, was the last minute addition of Jeff Bridges to the line up of guests to talk about the Coen Brother's stoner film noir. Lebowski is twenty years old this year, and I know many classic film fans would probably find it's inclusion problematic because of it's recent vintage. I did hear a few people complaining because there is a Fathom Screening in conjunction with TCM coming up later this year so maybe this showing was superfluous. Forget that, the movie is entertaining as hell and still completely weird. Which was pretty much a description of Jeff Bridges as well. 

Just as Mel Brooks and William Friedkin had, Bridges barely sat during his time in front of the audience. He roamed the stage and actually lead us all in a Buddhist style chant before the interview actually began. 

Eventually, Ben managed to corral him and get him to sit for some questions. It is probably well known that much of The Dudes" costuming came directly from Bridges own closet, including the sweater jacket that is so iconic. Bridges mentioned that co-star John Turturro was not quite sure that the film was something he thought much of, but after several years he has come around and it seems that it may be his most recognized part. 

Bridges had very nice things to say about the late Ben Gazzara, who had been a contemporary of his father. Even though the subject might have called for it, and in California, the laws do not frown on it, I did not detect the scent of herb in the air. Bridges loopy conversation might suggest that he was taking advantage of the new policy, but I suspect he was mostly high from the warm reception he got from the crowd at the festival.