The close of the decade of Hollywood’s explosion into international stratosphere leads to their best year yet, with somewhere between 4 and 7 all time great films that have withstood the test of time, including one of the greatest entertainments the industry would ever produce.
The racial angles in this Rudyard Kipling adaptation have aged horribly. However, the rest of this movie is a rollicking fun time, about generals trying to stop a rebellion by a federation of religious fanatics, aided by an unlikely tiny ally. George Lucas basically took this movie and turned it into Phantom Menace, including the bad racial stereotypes.
Henry Fonda, perfectly cast by John Ford, dons the long face of our 16th president. Actually he dons the face of rising senator from Illinois, as Fonda gives Lincoln this quiet power and presence that makes him such a beloved historical figure.
Greta Garbo was one of the early superstars of Hollywood, at this point in her career, she was on the way out, so Billy Wilder writes this meta part for her, where the movie hinges on a humorless Garbo suddenly laughing as one does in a romantic COMEDY. It’s not the greatest story ever told, but it’s a lovely sendoff to Garbo, someone who catapulted film into the stratosphere.
Go big or go home, as the saying goes. William Wyler takes the Samuel Goldwyn producer money and goes big, making a grand spectacle out of Emily Bronte’s novel. Laurence Olivier, no stranger to literary classics, plays (amusingly) the Gypsy looking Heathcliff, full of rage and jealousy and charisma, enrapturing Catherine (Merle Oberon) in his aura. Wyler makes happiness elation, sadness desolation, basically amplifying the emotions to Goldwyn level theatrics.
Of it’s time, but still hella exciting is Howard Hawks’s tale of a South American airline company. Cary Grant leads the fledgling company out of a port town filled with pilots and commoners coming and going. Hawks immerses everyone deep into the world of these risk takers seeking flight, and how hard it is for people like Bonnie Lee who care for these people but risk losing them on a daily basis, coming runner-up in the things Cary Grant truly loves.
One of the early French masterpieces. Jean Renior’s tale of how society works with respect to male and female relationships, for the rich and poor, is keenly observed, acted, and directed, with Renior using long takes to establish how repartee between the various parties at a weekend country estate getaway. Think Downton Abbey but more fun and more French!
Frank Capra’s hopeful look at politics. Jimmy Stewart plays Jefferson Smith, a local hero who gets a chance to help his people, becoming a junior senator in a state who’s other senator is Claude Rains, his hero. This is requisite high school viewing: what follows is a great lesson for kids about the dangers of the political system, and how money can corrupt even the most noble seeming person in power. It also gives hope to those kids with a rousing conclusion and a faith in those fighting for the lost causes, delivered by a never better Stewart. I do prefer the Simpsons alternate ending though.
No Hollywood epic will epic the way this film epiced. Vivien Leigh plays Scarlet O’Hara, Southern Belle hoping to be married to Leslie Howard’s Ashley Wilkes. Instead, she winds up in a will they won’t they affair with Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler, a black sheep of a rich family. Throw in Civil War issues here (Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Oscar), plantation management issues there, with several romantic dalliances, and you’ve got yourself a nearly 4 hour picture. That being said, a 4 hour picture that looks amazing, thematically is deep and rich, and contains some all time great characters and lines, particularly the legendary last one.
Of course John Ford created the template for the Western. The movie centers around a ragtag group of people (Claire Trevor, John Carradine among others) led by George Bancroft’s Sherriff from Tonto, New Mexico to another far away city. Also on board is John Wayne’s Ringo Kid, an outlaw willingly handcuffed for the ride. The group, in Ford’s amazing Monument Valley shots, has to avoid Geronimo and other Apache Indians in their drive, with Ringo Kid maybe proving his worth beyond a criminal, and the assortment of people being deeper than meets the eye.
You all know it by now. Dorthy. Toto. Ruby slippers. Yellow Brick Roads. Wicked Witches. Scarecrows. Tin Men. Lions. Tigers. Bears. Oh my! It’s that rare film I eagerly enjoy watching whenever it comes across my screen. Calling this film legendary is an insult to its legacy. It’s pure, living, breathing memory, implanted in every kid, who no longer wonders what’s over the rainbow.
