Pinky (1949)

Elia Kazan's Pinky falls into that category of movies with which I have a true love-hate relationship. On the one hand, the movie is one of the earliest and best films about "passing" that has ever been made, showing both the reasons why those who can do it do so and the toll that it takes on both them and their families. On the other hand, I balk at the use of white actress Jeanne Crain to play the light-skinned black woman, Pinky. I've heard tell that Lena Horne was originally slated for the lead role but was eventually rejected, because the script calls for Pinky to kiss her white boyfriend and Kazan feared the audience reaction to a white man kissing a black woman - no matter how light-skinned - on screen in 1949. So a white woman portrays a black woman pretending to be a white woman. Such were racial politics in the good old days. The movie was, in fact, banned in Marshall, Texas, which spurred a court battle that wound up in the U.S. Supreme Court. That case resulted in the First Amendment of the Constitution (i.e. freedom of speech) being extended to cover motion pictures. Yes, Pinky was - and still is - a controversial film.

The story revolves around the title character, Patricia "Pinky" Johnson, who has been sent north by her Granny, Aunt Dicey Johnson (Ethel Waters), to go to school. But once Pinky gets there, she's mistaken for a white woman, and she decides not to correct that mistake. Throughout her school years, and later during her hospital training, Pinky passes for a white woman, using her real name. When her white boyfriend, Doctor Thomas Adams (William Lundigan), proposes to her, Pinky panics and heads back to her Granny's cottage in Mississippi, where she grew up. Once back home, Pinky is chastised by her granny for the "sin" of passing; although, Granny understands the reasons why Pinky passed for a white woman, she cannot overlook the sin of denying her heritage, and she tells Pinky so. The next day, Pinky is subjected to a barrage of racial abuse, including being arrested when she tries to recover money that was stolen from her Granny and nearly being raped by two white men on a lonely country road. After this last incident, Pinky decides to go back up North where she can be treated like a white person. When Granny asks her to stay and help nurse the dying Miss Em (Ethel Barrymore), Pinky refuses flatly, arguing that she won't step-and-fetch for a mean old white dowager. But Granny prevails by playing the guilt card. Seems Miss Em had cared for Granny when she was sick with pneumonia. Feeling guilty, Pinky relents and grudgingly agrees to tend to the old white woman during her last days. Gradually, Pinky develops a close relationship with Miss Em, who turns out not to be such a bad person after all. When Miss Em finally dies, she leaves Pinky her house and land.

At this point, the movie moves into its third act, if you will. Miss Em's only living relative, Melba Woolley (Evelyn Warden) contests the will. She claims that Miss Em must have been crazy to leave her house to a black woman. Furthermore, she argues that Pinky was keeping Miss Em drugged and used undue influence to get her to write the will. Tempers begin to run high in town, and more racial hatred ensues. Eventually, the case goes to court. Pinky is defended by retired Judge Walker (Basil Ruysdael), who was a long-time friend of Miss Em. It looks as if the trial is going Melba's way, with the prosecution using racial slurs and innuendos, all of which are allowed by Judge Shoreham (Raymond Greenleaf). In the end, however, everyone is shocked when Judge Shoreham declares the will to be valid and decides in favor of Pinky. At this point, Dr. Adams shows back up and begs Pinky to sell the house, the land, and the furniture, leave "these people," and come away with him. He's taken a post in Denver, where he points out that nobody will find out about her. But Pinky has decided to that she's tired of lying, tired of pretending, and tired of denying who and what she is. Besides, now she has a purpose in life. She sends Dr. Adams packing, and, with the help of the local white and black doctors, she turns Miss Em's mansion into a clinic and daycare for local black children and a school for black women who want to become nurses. And that's where it ends, with Pinky helping her own people to better themselves.

The world that Pinky shows is one that truly existed in this country until the Civil Rights Movement swept it away. Black folks lived separate from white folks, but not equal to them. There were few - if any - economic opportunities available to black people. Most were relegated to jobs as servant or laborers. Aunt Dicey is a wash woman, scrubbing the clothes of white people by hand, using a wash board and water that's heated on a fire. And since the courts and the police were all white, there wasn't much of a chance for blacks to receive anything like justice. Kazan shows all of this in Pinky, from the run-down shacks in the black neighborhood to the subtle - and not so subtle - forms of racism that went on all of the time. The sets are marvelous, and the actors all do superb jobs in their roles. I have no argument with this film on any technical grounds. As I stated earlier, my only argument is with which actors Kazan chose to showcase the racial inequalities that existed in Jim Crow's America. The movie is very good. It would have been outstanding had Kazan only had the chutzpah to cast a black actress in the lead role.

Pinky is filmed in glorious black-and-white and is rated G. It has a 102-minute runtime.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

I've been trying for several weeks now to figure out what to say about Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. (I hate titles with colons. Don't you? Makes me feel like I'm back in college, reading academic articles.) Anyway, what can I say about this movie? Well, it was very good. It was very well made, artistic, technically sound. It was suspenseful and exciting and it kept my interest throughout. There were moments of great humor. Robert Downey Jr. was magnificent in the lead, as was Jude Law in the number two slot. In short, it was a very good movie and I'd gladly see it again. In fact, I'm seriously considering purchasing both this movie and its predecessor. I just have one niggling little problem with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. It's not Sherlock Holmes! Let's be blunt about this. Sherlock Holmes was not - I repeat, NOT - and action figure. He didn't go in for fisticuffs, and he especially didn't engage in modern martial arts style kickboxing. Sherlock Holmes was an intellectual detective. He solved crimes not by racing about, fighting, shooting and that sort of thing. In quite a few of his cases, in fact, he scarcely leaves his smokey rooms. Instead, he holes up and ponders the case, sending his Baker Street Irregulars all over the city looking for clues, firing off telegrams to gain information. For Sherlock Holmes, it was always a game of the mind.

So who was a good Sherlock Holmes? Well, Basil Rathbone did a serviceable job in the fourteen Homes films shot in the 1940s, but Rathbone is such a cold fish that it's hard to be sympathetic with his character the way you can be with Downey's. And Nigel Bruce's Watson was a bumbling idiot who couldn't tell which end of the gun the bullet came out of, not anything like Law's passionate, hard-fighting, pistol-wielding Watson. The best Holmes - at least to my mind that is - was Jeremy Bret, a consummate actor who literally made the character his own. Bret's Holmes was intense, cerebral, yet he possessed a compassion for those who were the victims of crimes. When he would pontificate at length on the quality of a piece of paper or a bit of tobacco, you knew you were seeing a master at work, a man who devoted himself to his craft to the exclusion of everything else. And he scarcely needed to use his fists or a gun, because he could talk most criminals into giving themselves up to him peacefully.

But back to our new Holmes. As I say, Downey gives a superb performance as this new, fast-talking, fast-acting Holmes, and there's nothing wrong with that, I guess. Young people today, having been raised on music videos, action films and video games, want a faster-paced, wittier Sherlock Holmes, and Downey and Ritchie give them just that. And Law's Watson is, I suppose, a character more in keeping with someone who was both a doctor and a soldier. And I will give kudos to the set design. Watching A Game of Shadows, you truly get the feeling you are in Victorian England, with its mix of incredible wealth and extreme poverty, luxury and filth, high society and working classes. There's dirt and mud and horse droppings. Everything seems to be under construction - the buildings, the bridges, the streets, all of the landmarks that we associate with Jolly Olde England. And there is a lot of action and gunfire - including one very big gun - and racing about on horseback and people getting thrown off of trains, and all that sort of thing. As I said - the film kept me riveted. I highly recommend it. But once you've seen A Game of Shadows, go grab a copy of Arthur Conan Doyle's work and find out what the "real" Sherlock Holmes was like. You never know. You may find that you prefer the original.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is rated PG and has a runtime of 129 action-packed minutes.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is the granddaddy of all Christmas movies; although, it certainly didn't start out that way. The movie nearly flopped when it opened, and during its first theater run failed to earn back the money it took to make it. Still, this film has endured down through the decades to become one of the most beloved movies of all time. And it's not hard to see why. The film's got a lot of power in it. Filmed in 1946, a lot of the actors were still carrying raw memories of World War II. The strain of the war shows in their faces and in their voices. This was probably Jimmy Stewart's first really serious role, and he pulls a lot of emotion from his time in the war into his character. When he's praying in the bar scene, those tears on his face are real. When he kisses Donna Reed for the first time, that's real passion you're seeing. In fact, that scene had to be cut short, because it got a little too hot for the censors. So, yeah, this is a powerful movie. I thought so the very first time I saw it when I was about ten years old. I've thought so every time I've watched it since then. I still think so today. In my book, that's what makes a film a classic. It never gets old. It never runs out of gas. As they say, it's got legs.

Stewart plays George Bailey, a man who had big dreams when he was younger. Didn't we all? Well, he was gonna sail around the world, go to college, become an engineer, design dams and bridges and skyscrapers. He was gonna be somebody. People would remember his name. He'd leave his mark on the world. Remember when you were gonna do all of that? I do. But life got in George's way, like it does for a lot of us. When his father dies, George takes over the running of the savings and loan bank that his family owns. Why? Cuz if he doesn't, then the board of directors will sell out to the greedy Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), the richest man in town. If Potter gets a hold of the savings and loan, he'll foreclose on most of the people who have mortgages there. That's just the kind of sweet soul he is. So George takes over and he gives his college money to his younger brother Harry (Todd Karns). When Harry finishes college, he's supposed to come back and take over the savings and loan so that George can go to college too. But Harry meets and marries Ruth (Virginia Patton). Ruth's father owns a company and wants Harry to come to work for him. George is left to run the savings and loan. He marries Mary, and instead of going on a honeymoon George struggles to save the bank during the Great Depression. Time goes by. George and Mary have children. George starts designing houses and creates a new subdivision. When World War II comes, George is declared 4F and has to stay at home. Meanwhile, little brother Harry goes off and becomes a hero. Wins the medal of honor. On the day that Harry is set to come home, tragedy strikes.

Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell), George's partner, loses $8,000 of the savings and loan's money, which conveniently ends up in old Mr. Potter's grasping hands. He neglects to tell George about his latest windfall. Instead, he threatens to call the police and have George arrested for embezzlement. To top things off, the bank examiner comes to town. Distraught, George leaves home and goes to a bar, where he offers his urgent prayer. Then, deciding that his life has been a complete failure, George decides to kill himself. This is where Clarence (Henry Travers) enters the picture. Clarence is an angel. He's been sent down to help George find his way back home. George tells Clarence that he wishes he'd never been born. Clarence grants him his wish. Suddenly, a thousand tiny - and not so tiny - changes take place in George's home town of Bedford Falls. George gets the opportunity to find out what the world would have been like if he had never been born. The savings and loan would have gone under when his father died, and old man Potter would have taken away the homes of a lot of people. What's worse, Potter would have gained control of the entire town and renamed it Potterville. It would have been a nasty place to live too. Mary would have been a spinster her whole life. George's children would have never been born. Hundreds of people that George helped over the years would have led much worse lives. Most importantly, Harry - whose life George saved when they were kids - would have died, and he wouldn't have been there during the war to save the lives of a lot of other soldiers. In the end, George realizes that during his insignificant life, he touched the lives of countless people, who in turn touched the lives of still others. George's goodness and generosity, his habit of putting other people's
needs ahead of his own, created a circle of goodness that spread outward over the passing years. With a little bit of heavenly intervention, George learns that he truly did have a wonderful life.

It's a Wonderful Life is definitely a feel good film, and if you don't feel good after watching it, then there's something wrong with you. It celebrates the contributions of the common man (and woman), the people who, in George's words, "do most of the working and and paying and living and dying" in this world. It tells us that each one of us, whether we realize it or not, whether we are important or rich or famous or not, touches on the lives of a lot of other people, sometimes for good, sometimes not. But we do, and when we do, we cause a ripple effect, just like the old rock and pond analogy. It's a Wonderful Life reminds us that this is so, that we really can't behave any old way we want with impunity, because our words and deeds will have an effect on those around us. And, as my mother used to say, eventually the chickens will come home to roost. We all get our payback in the end. For George, who always put others first, his payback is good. By the end of this movie, you'll be wondering what kind of a payback you're in store for. I know I wonder.

It's a Wonderful Life is rated G and is filmed in glorious black-and-white. It has a runtime of 130 minutes.

Scrooge (1951)

Everybody has their own favorite film adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol, and this just happens to be mine. Titled simply Scrooge, it starred the great Scottish character actor Alastair Sim as the vile Ebeneezer Scrooge. In fact, Alastair Sim is the very reason that I love this version of the story. While all of the other actors who have played Scrooge are very capable of portraying the hard, wrenching, grasping, covetous, old sinner, no one has ever managed to capture the happy, joyful, reformed Ebeneezer anywhere near as well as Sim did. So while the likes of Michael Cain, George C. Scott and Patrick Stewart can play mean Scrooge with ease, they simply are not believable as the happy Scrooge. In fact, George C. Scott looks like he's in pain every time he attempts to force a genuine smile across his face, and the outcome is rather scary. But when Alastair Sim smiles, his entire face lights up, and he beams joy and youthful exuberance as he tries to stand on his head, or sends the little boy to buy the goose for the Cratchets, or promises to raise Bob Cratchet's salary. His laughter bubbles out of him like a little child's. And it's infectious laughter. You can't help but smile and laugh yourself.

I'm not going to summarize the plot for you. There's really no need for that. Unless you've been living under a rock your entire life, you probably already know the story, how four ghosts haunt the miserly Scrooge on Christmas Eve, showing him his life as it was, as it is, and as it soon will be, how he devolved from a decent person to the wretch that he now is, and what effect he's had on those around him. Oh yes, we all know the story well enough. What makes one version better than another is not the story itself. You can't go wrong when you're starting with something so well written (although Bill Murray's updated version came close to murdering the original story). No, what makes one version good and another not so good lies in how the story is told, and director Brian Desmond Hurst sets the bar pretty high in his Scrooge. First of all, screen writer Noel Langley pared down the story so that it flows more quickly. Then Hurst films it in black-and-white, which is not only cheaper to use, but it also lends the movie a certain dreariness that is perfect for telling a ghost story. All of the sets are exquisitely done, and are true to mid-19th century England. Scrooge's quarters are heavily paneled and sparsely furnished, and the tiny fire on the grate does little to cheer or warm them. Watching him move about his rooms, you can almost feel the cold that the pitiful flames cannot drive out. In fact, the one sensation that pervades the entire movie is one of cold. The only times we really see or feel any warmth are when Scrooge is in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Present, played wonderfully by Francis De Wolff.

In fact, all of the actors in Scrooge put in very fine performances. Mervyn Johns makes an excellent Bob Cratchet, and Hermione Baddeley is wonderful as his hot-tempered wife. Michael Horden portrays one of the best Jacob Marley's that I've ever seen, and a very young Patrick McNee is pretty good as the young Marley. But it's Alastair Sim's movie all the way through. Not that the other actors don't carry their own weight, but Sim simply steals the scene every moment that he's on camera, something that he was guilty of all through his career. It wasn't something that he set out to do, either; he just did it without even trying. With his great bald head, his bulging eyes, and his deep, ghoulish voice, Sim was forever out-shining more seasoned actors, sometimes stealing entire movies from them. His presence could make a bad movie good and a good movie better. Scrooge is an outstanding movie, and Sims is largely to credit for that. The only weak spots in the entire film are the fact that Tiny Tim is simply too big (almost as tall as his father) and the fact that they cut some of the greatest lines from the story. For instance, when Marley shrieks at Scrooge, "Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business!" he leaves it right there. The entire line reads, "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business." As you can see, the entire line carries much more weight and would have improved the film substantially.

But these are minor critiques. Over all, Scrooge is an outstanding movie, and one that I'm sure you will enjoy. Scrooge is rated G and has a runtime of 86 minutes.

Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)

Okay, yeah, so everybody likes to point out that Robinson Crusoe on Mars is scientifically inaccurate, that Mars is nothing like they portray it here, and that no one could possibly survive there like Commander Christopher "Kit" Draper (Paul Mantee) does. But who the hell cares about any of that. This is a cracking good story. Helmer Byron Haskins takes Daniel Defoe's classic adventure story and sets it not on a tropical island but instead on the angry red planet itself. When their mother ship is nearly clobbered by a passing astroid, Draper and his co-pilot Colonel Dan McReady (Adam West) are forced to land on Mars. Well, they crash, really, and McReady is killed. Left with only the ship's mascot - a monkey named Mona - Draper must try to survive as best he can, while his supply-laden mother ship orbits the planet, forever out of reach. In short order, Draper and Mona find shelter and discover water, oxygen and edible plants. With all of his basic needs taken care of, Draper slowly starts to go nutty from the isolation. Fear not, though, for soon to arrive on the scene is his man Friday (Victor Lundin), a very-human looking alien slave who is forced to labor in Martian mines by other aliens who buzz about in ships that closely resemble the Martian spacecraft from the 1950 War of the Worlds. Not surprising, either, since Haskins worked on that film too. Friday is pursued relentlessly by his alien task masters, who are able to home in on him by means of his electronic handcuffs. To escape the bad guys, Draper and Friday go underground, following a deep cavern that runs for thousands of miles beneath the surface. In due time, Draper is able to rid Friday of his wrist monitors, and when the two finally emerge near the Martian North Pole, the bad guys are nowhere to be seen. Our two heroes press on to the pole; although, why they do so is never adequately explained. As they near the pole, another earth ship flies over and Draper is able to contact them assuring his and Friday's rescue.

I first saw Robinson Crusoe on Mars when I was about five years old, making it one of that small group of movies that has had a profound impact on me ever since. As a result, I love this movie. It has adventure, thrills, scary stuff, exploding meteors, great special effects that stand up well even today, and even a ghost. Oh, yeah, and don't forget the monkey. The story is a classic, of course, and you can almost never go wrong when you use a classic as your foundation. The screenplay by John C. Higgins is really first rate, and the entire thing is shot in widescreen technicolor, quite an achievement at a time when most scifi films were shot in black and white. The best thing about Robinson Crusoe on Mars, though, is the incredible performance by Paul Mantee. This is, after all, essentially a one man movie, so Mantee must carry the entire film for most of its 110 minute runtime. To say that he pulls it off is an understatement. This veteran character actor does a phenomenal job, bringing a nuanced performance to a film that could have so easily tripped over the edge and fallen into the morass of camp. But Mantee is restrained, subtle. While the common man in him is scared and lonely, the military officer maintains strict discipline, and the scientist in him rationally catalogues all of Mars' many sights. It's all too easy to believe that this man really is seeing these sights for the first time and trying to hold them in his memory for future reference. That's the sign of a truly great actor.

Robinson Crusoe on Mars is one of the finest examples of mid-century science fiction film making. It's rated G, for GREAT!

Silent Running (1972)

Let me start right out by saying that there are a LOT of things wrong with Silent Running, not the least of which is THE MESSAGE, which it beats you over the head with until you're dizzy. Here's the set up. Earth is ecologically destroyed. So, the human race in its wisdom has taken all of the earth's remaining natural habitats, enclosed them in these really cool glass domes, attached them to these two-mile-long space ships and sent them on a round the solar system cruise while we clean up the earth and get it ready to receive its forests once again. Ah, but people being the greedy and short-sighted cretins that they are decide that they really don't need all of those trees as much as they need those really cool space ships, which could be pressed into service hauling fee-paying cargo to...someplace. So the crews of the ships are ordered to jettison the domes and - wait for it - blow them up! But one poor sot named Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) can't accept this. The forests must be saved at all costs. So he kills his fellow crew members in order to save the last dome. Then he takes control of the ship and heads out away from earth where he will ostensibly find...I dunno...something. To help him run the ship and tend to the last dome, Lowell has three little robot companions that he names Huey, Dewy and Louie. And so this happy quartet happily maintains their ship and forest. But, guilt begins to wear on Lowell. And his little robot companions start to get picked off one by one. Finally, there's Lowell and one good droid remaining. Realizing that he is going insane with grief and that the remaining ships from earth are pursuing him, Lowell teaches the his one undamaged droid to tend the forest on its own. Then he jettisons the dome and blows up his ship, killing himself and his remaining crippled droid. The last thing we see is the little dome floating in the vastness of space as Joan Baez clobbers us over the head once more with THE MESSAGE.

So what's wrong with the film? Well, okay, for starters, why are the domes in outer space to begin with? I mean, if the earth is so polluted that all of the remaining forests have to be put under glass, wouldn't it have been a whole lot cheaper - not to mention safer - to build the domes right there on terra firma, rather than blasting them into deep space? And couldn't a world capable of building such awesome spaceships figure out a way to protect its remaining natural resources? And if the little droids could be trained to take care of the plants and animals in the domes just as well as a person, then why did they need the people up on the ships to take care of the domes? Why not just program the robots from the start? And when they decide to return the ships to commercial service, why BLOW UP THE DOMES?? Why not simple jettison the domes with the little robots on them to take care of them and send the ships home? That way they could always go back and pick up the domes at some future date when they wizened up. After all, it's not like they need the domes - they BLEW THEM UP! And finally, why did we have to have Joan Baez driving THE MESSAGE home in song like someone driving spikes through our skulls? The movie pushed THE MESSAGE just fine without her whiny singing.

Having said all of that, I would now like to say that I really love this movie. No, it's true. Silent Running has great visuals, outstanding models (this from the era when they used to actually construct space ship models), a pretty good story, and what is probably Bruce Dern's finest on-camera performance ever. I mean, Freeman Lowell is a really complicated character. Here's a guy who commits a serious wrong (killing all of his crew mates) in order to prevent another serious wrong (the wanton destruction of earth's remaining habitats) and then goes slowly insane trying to deal with the grief he's suffering on account of what he's done. And Dern pulls it off brilliantly. This is essentially a one-man movie (not counting the robots, who almost steal the show). Dern is passionate, even zealous in his love of nature. Yet he's also a scientist, and so he has the cold, rational aspect to him as well. But above all, he's a human being who cannot deal with the fact that he has taken the lives of other human beings and that he must spend the rest of his life in isolation. It takes a really good actor to pull all of this off and make it believable. The only other actors I've seen do it as well are Will Smith in I am Legend and Paul Mantee in Robinson Crusoe on Mars. I will also point out that the destruction of the Valley Forge at the end of the movie is so well done that it puts the destruction of the Death Star at the end of Star Wars to shame. Lucas should have taken a cue from Douglas Trumbull and gone with the less is more theory.

Silent Running is rated G and has a runtime of 89 minutes. It's filmed in technicolor and widescreen.

To Have and Have Not (1944)

Howard Hawks' To Have and Have Not spawned one of the greatest Hollywood romances of all times as well as one of the greatest lines ever uttered on screen. Adapted from Ernest Hemingway's novel of the same title, the film stars Humphrey Bogart as Harry "Steve" Morgan, a charter fishing boat captain. Based in Martinique, and so under the authority of the Vichy government in occupied France, Steve and his sidekick Eddie (Walter Brennan) try to eek out a living while dealing with crooked customers, avoiding the local authorities and dodging gun battles between resistance fighters and government agents. When his most recent customer dies before paying Steve, he's forced to take work transporting resistant fighters to the island. Into this mix of bullets and intrigue steps Marie "Slim" Browning (Lauren Bacall), a down-on-her-luck cabaret singer who's just trying to earn enough money to get back home to America. This was the first on-screen pairing of Bogart and Bacall and the electricity between them is palpable. Steve is loner and a tough guy, but Slim may be tougher than him. She casts her line and reels him in by simply telling him he can have her. "You don't have to say anything," she says, "and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow." And hence history was made. But things don't go all that easily for Steve and Slim. The French Resistance fighter that Steve is transporting panics when he should keep his cool and gets himself all shot up. Then Steve has to operate on the guy and remove the lead from him. Meanwhile, the authorities are circling in for the kill. They try to get information out of Eddie by plying him with booze, but Eddie's a lifelong drunk and he can take a lot of booze. Finally, in true Bogart fashion, the evil Vichy agents are defeated and Steve, Slim and Eddie escape on Steve's boat, bound for Florida and happily ever after.


Apparently, Hemingway had bet Hawks that Hawks could never make a film of To Have and Have Not. Hawks rose to the challenge and did so, but only by cutting out most of the novel and substantially rewriting the rest. He focused on a single incident at the book's beginning, expanding and embellishing it to get a full-length movie. The setting was moved from Cuba to Martinique, and the time was moved to after the war had started. In the book, Steve hauls illegal immigrants to Florida, while in the movie he's hauling resistance fighters. He's also a much nicer guy in the movie. This film also has the distinction of being the only movie to have been co-written by two Nobel-prize winning authors: Ernest Hemingway wrote the novel on which it was based, and William Faulkner wrote the screenplay. In spite of this high literary pedigree, it turns out - according to the IMDB - that most of the dialogue was actually improvised by the actors on camera. That's okay, though. It all works out great. As does the presence of the great Hoagy Carmichael as Cricket, the pianist at the local bar. In fact, this film was my introduction to Carmichael at the ripe young age of twelve, and I have been a fan of his music ever since. And all of this is wrapped up in a cracking good yarn with bad guys you can hate and good guys you can sympathize with. You can't do better than that.

To Have and Have Not is rated G and is filmed in glorious black and white. It has a runtime of 100 minutes.

The Triplets of Belleville (2003)

Let me say, right off the bat, that as a general rule I greatly dislike animated films, especially those of the Disney variety. That being said, however, every once and a while an animated film comes along and just knocks my socks off. Sylvain Chomet's The Triplets of Belleville is just such a film. It is so unlike anything that has been produced in this country for that last 30 or 40 years, and it puts the saccharin-soaked Disney stuff to shame. The film is not only entertaining, not only funny, it's also a visual feast. Every scene is packed so full of detail that it's tempting to stop the DVD so that you can take it all in. But don't do that. Let it run, and enjoy the ride. And I know that some people will be put off by the fact that this is another of those foreign films that you have to read. Not so. There is virtually no dialogue in the film. In fact, The Triplets of Belleville is just about the closest thing to a silent movie that has come out since Mel Brooks' Silent Movie. There's no language barrier to cross watching this movie; although, there are some cultural barriers. A lot of the characters that show up in the film are actually caricatures of real French people. But whether you know who they are or not, the movie is still great fun to watch.

The Triplets of Belleville tells the story of Madame Souza, who finds herself taking care of her grandson Champion. We're never told why or how she ended up with custody of Champion. She just has him. They live in a tall house far out in the French country side. Champion is a sad little boy. Madame Souza tries various ways of cheering him up. She even buys him a puppy, but soon the novelty wears off. Then Madame Souza discovers that Champion longs to race a bike in the Tour de France. She runs out and buys her little ward a tricycle, and he's in heaven. Fast forward many years. The city has encroached on the tiny house nearly knocking it over. The puppy - Bruno - has grown big and fat and lazy. And Champion is now a young man who spends all of his time training for the Tour de France, and Madame Souza is his coach and number one fan. As he peddles up and down the streets of their home town, she peddles along behind him on the old tricycle, panting out a beat through a whistle. After the ride, she massages his muscles, tunes his bike, and feeds him nutritious - albeit unappetizing - meals.

Finally, the day of the big race arrives. Champion pants his way through the Tour de France with all of the other athletes as crowds of fans line the raceway, cheering on the riders. Madame Souza and Bruno follow along behind Champion in their van ready to offer assistance when necessary. Suddenly, The Square Shoulder Men show up and disable the support van. While Madame Souza and her driver try to get the van back in the race, The Square Shoulder Men kidnap Champion and two other riders. They drive their hostages to Marseille, where they embark on a ship. Madame Souza and Bruno, arrive just as the chip is disappearing. The ever-resourceful old lady rents one of those little peddle-powered paddle boats and she and Bruno set out after the ship. Sometime later they arrive in the city of Belleville, looking an awful lot like New York City, complete with a bloated statue of liberty. Madame Souza and Bruno are befriended and taken in by three old ladies, The Triplets of Belleville, who used to have a jazz act that they performed many years ago. Their glory days gone, they live now in a run-down flat, surviving on frogs that they catch from a local swamp, and performing in a local restaurant. Madame Souza joins them in their act and bides her time. Meanwhile, The Square Shoulder Men have pressed Champion and his fellow cyclists into slavery, forcing them to peddle stationary bikes that control the movements of toy bikes on a miniature track. Mafia men from all over Belleville come to place bets on whose toy bicycle will reach the finish line first. But Madame Souza soon finds Champion, storms the Mafia hideout, and escapes with her grandson. All ends happily.

Okay, I know that doesn't sound very interesting when you write it out that way. But this film has got to be seen, has got to be experienced, in order to fully appreciate its charm and beauty. Note how everything in the background is tall and thin - buildings, bridges, boats. Note the cheering fans along the raceway - how well even these periphery characters are drawn. Note the fawning French waiters who look like they have no spines. Note how droll almost all of the characters are. Note the incredible detail that went into drawing every single scene. And this isn't a computer animation. This is animation done the old-fashioned way, by hand, with pen and ink and wash. And it shows in every frame. I love this movie. It is the antithesis of every thing that is cranked out by Disney and Pixar et al. The Triplets of Belleville is an animated film that doesn't insult your intelligence, that doesn't send you into a diabetic coma, that's truly enjoyable to watch.

The Triplets of Belleville is rated PG-13 (lots of shooting and killing during the final chase seen) and has a runtime of about 78 minutes.

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

I am a fan of the late Philip K. Dick. No...let me correct that. I am a HUGE fan of the late Philip K. Dick. So it was with eager anticipation that I purchased my tickets and entered the theater to watch The Adjustment Bureau, which was adapted from Dick's short story "The Adjustment Team." I was, I am afraid to admit, underwhelmed. Which is a bad sign. This movie had all of the makings of a great film. It had fantastic source material. It had an outstanding cast. The leads had class and sex appeal and chemistry and a great meet-cute. It had shadowy-men-in-black. What it did not have, unfortunately, was a screen play that could carry it all through a full-length motion picture. Instead, it relied on interminable chase scenes. Yes, our hero and heroine are running away from the eponymous adjustment bureau, but come on! How many scenes do we need of them running down the street? Through a door? Up the stairs? Through another door? Along the corridor? Through yet another door? Around the corner? Through - wait for it - yet another door? Are you starting to get tired of this already? So was I. Oh, and did I mention that they go through doors? Yeah, they do that. Doors. Lots of `em.

Let me throw you the plot so you know where I'm going here. David Norris (Matt Damon) is just about to win a seat in the US Senate. Then he meets Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt) in a men's room. Sparks definitely fly. This is the real thing. They both know it. But, enter the shadowy-men-in-black who do everything in their power to prevent David and Elise from getting together. At least, most of the shadowy-men-in-black do. One of the shadowy-men-in-black (Anthony Mackie) is not so shadowy after all. He kind of runs interference for them. Tells them who they're up against. Shows them the doors. (Oh yeah, you knew they'd be back.) Once everything was established and I was all ready to hunker down with my bucket o' popcorn and gallon o' soda for a bit of good, suspenseful repartee with the shadowy-men-in-black, the film devolved into a rather insipid version of Running Man...with lots of doors. Yeah, cuz the doors let you move around sort of behind the scenes, between the space of reality as it were. Unfortunately, the film doesn't show you any of the space between the space. Instead, we just see our plucky hero and heroine enter a door in one place and - jump cut - exit a door someplace else. Not much to work with there. Then the whole thing ends so abruptly that I almost cracked a tooth on the rim of my soda cup.

In the pantheon of films made from P.K. Dick stories, The Adjustment Bureau ranks pretty near the bottom. Even the 1995 film Screamers had more on the ball that this one does. And as I said before, that's really too bad, because all of the right elements are there. It just needed a better screenplay, one that was a little more fleshed out, maybe a bit more philosophical, maybe one that actually had something worth saying in the end.

The Adjustment Bureau is rated PG-13 and has a runtime of 106 minutes, which is a long time to watch two people running.

Lifeboat (1944)

World War II. Battle for the Atlantic. A ship is torpedoed. Eight people scramble aboard a damaged lifeboat. They're a cross-section of American society, from a common sailor to a tycoon. Seven white, one black. One of the women - a bit unhinged from the London Blitz - jumps overboard after her baby dies and drowns herself. That leaves seven souls. This in itself would be a pretty gripping story. Seven people in one small boat pitted against the entire North Atlantic. Will they survive? Will they reach the safety of America? Or will they succumb to their baser natures, tear each other to bits, resort to cannibalism when they get too hungry? Most other directors would have taken that route. But not Alfred Hitchcock. A bunch of people in a lifeboat adrift on an angry sea wasn't enough for him. He throws in a little something extra, just to spice up the mixture a bit. He adds the enemy to the pot.

Lifeboat begins in media res. We don't meet the people in a cute little montage as they are boarding the ship that will carry them into the war. The ship's funnel is slipping under the water as the credits end. The camera pans across the sea, and we see the ejected detritus of human lives - books, crates, food, clothing, playing cards. Then we see the lifeboat, damaged but still afloat. In it sits Connie Parker (Tallulah Bankhead), completely incongruous in her mink and her perfectly coiffed hair, filming the spectacle with her hand-held camera. Soon she is joined by John Kovac (John Hodiak), a rough-and-tumble seaman. Others come soon. Stanley (Hume Cronyn), the radio operator; Gus (William Bendix), a stoker; Alice (Mary Anderson), a nurse; Charles S. Rittenhouse (Henry Hull), the tycoon; Joe (Canada Lee), a steward; and Mrs. Higgins (Heather Angel), the young mother who takes her own life after having survived the shipwreck. These people don't exactly like each other. They come from various socio-economic backgrounds, and they have been thrown together by the war. If they are to survive, they must learn to work together. And they might just do that. But then Willy (Walter Slezak) arrives. Willy came from the German u-boat that sunk their ship. Now he claims a place on their lifeboat. He says he's just a common seaman, but can they trust him? After all, he is a German and this is war. Willy soon proves his usefulness when he successfully amputates Gus' gangrenous leg, saving his life. After this, the others pretty much accept him as one of their own. After Willy saves every one's lives during a storm, they pretty much let him run the show. Eventually, though, Willy's true colors show through. He pushes the ailing Gus overboard and calmly watches as he drowns. When the others realize what he's done, they turn on Willy en masse and kill him. Not long after, they encounter a German supply ship. Just as they resign themselves to being captured, an American ship arrives and sinks the German ship. While waiting for the Americans to arrive and rescue them, another German climbs aboard their lifeboat and pulls a gun on them. He's quickly disarmed. He asks if they're going to kill him. "What are you gonna do with people like that?" Stanley asks. No one has an answer for him.

The lack of answers is one of the reasons that Lifeboat is the least known of all of Hitchcock's films, and it's one of the things that - to me - make it one of his best. There are no real answers to questions about hatred, intolerance, thuggery, genocide and the rest of the host of problems that beset the modern world. What are you gonna do with people who kill indiscriminately and - seemingly - for the fun of it? What are you gonna do with people who would rather hate than love, would rather look for the negative than the positive? What are you gonna do with war criminals? Can they be rehabilitated? Or will they always carry their hatred with them? Hitchcock doesn't provide us with any answers to these questions. He just shoves seven people into a leaky boat lets them go at each other. And the forces of democracy don't make a very good showing for themselves. First, they're too busy fighting amongst themselves. Then they abdicate all authority to their enemy, because he's strong and willing to take charge. Finally, when the leader's mask slips off and they see him for who he really is, they turn on him and slaughter him with a vengeance. This is a fairly accurate analogy for America's involvement in World War II. You could also say that it's a pretty good analogy for every dictatorship that has ever existed, from Julius Caesar right on down to Muammar Gaddafi. Dictators take advantage of fractions and infighting to assume control. Everyone sees them as strong, take-charge leaders and cedes authority to the dictator. Eventually, the dictator's actions grow so audacious that those who allowed him into power turn on him and destroy him. So, in Lifeboat, Hitchcock gives us a primer - and a warning - about dictatorship. And he wraps the entire thing up in an extremely engrossing film that takes place entirely within the confines of a single lifeboat.

Lifeboat is rated G and is filmed in glorious black and white. Running time is 97 minutes.

The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)

Seen a good Western lately? It's tough these days. They just don't make `em anymore. Frequent readers already know of my love affair with Roy Rogers movies. Well, I'm afraid I have to admit that it extends to all Westerns. I'm just a sucker for them. But, as I say, they don't make very many of them these days. Fortunately, Hollywood has a rich history of Western movie making and a plethora of Westerns worth watching. And The Sons of Katie Elder is one of the best. Directed by Henry Hathaway, it tells the story of four brothers who come back to their home town of Sweetwater, Texas, for their mother's funeral. John Wayne plays John, the eldest, a gunslinger wanted in several states. Dean Martin plays Tom, the next in line, who went off and became a gambler. Earl Holliman plays number three son Matt, and Michael Anderson, Jr., plays the youngest brother, Bud, who their mother was intent on sending to college. Once there, they discover to their shame that their mother was destitute the last years of her life, living on the kindness of strangers. The brothers set out to determine who murdered their father 6 months prior to Katie's death, and they uncover a trail of deceit and treachery that leads back to a shifty gun-smith who cheated their father out of his ranch. The sheriff is murdered and the brothers are arrested. As they're being sent to Laredo for trial, they're ambushed. Much gun play ensues. Some dynamite is employed. Matt gets himself skewered. Bud gets shot. So does Tom. But in true Western fashion, the weaselly-eyed varmint what caused all the commotion gets his come-uppance in the end.

I first saw this movie when I was about five years old, and it's one of those films that has formed a part of my world view. In late-era Westerns like The Sons of Katie Elder, there's good and there's bad like in all of the best Westerns (movies not motels), and then there's the bad that sometimes does good for all of the right reasons. The Sons of Katie Elder is, at heart, a redemption movie, a story about how a bunch of boys who all went South can turn their lives around and do something good, even if it is just getting one of them through college and into a decent life. In this film, the Duke plays - well - the Duke. That's all there is to it. And Dean Martin pretty much plays the same character he always played, only this time he's wearing a cowboy hat instead of a tuxedo. Earl Holliman - several years away from Police Woman fame but several years beyond Forbidden Planet, puts in a serviceable portrayal of Matt. The weak link is Michael Anderson, Jr. - he overacts to the point of inanity. The rest of the cast is pretty incredible: George Kennedy as the evil gunslinger Curly; James Gregory as the bad guy, Morgan Hastings; Denis Hopper as Hastings' whiny son, Dave; even the squeaky-voiced Percy Helton as the local store owner. The film was shot on location in Mexico and Colorado, and the scenery is breath-taking - first clue that we're not in Texas. "Those are my favorite mountains in Texas," I said to my wife. But who cares. The geography of the cowboy movie has never been faithful to the true American west. Roy Rogers fought North Dakota bad guys on the same SoCal rock formations that James Kirk fought space aliens on decades later. It doesn't matter. If you're making a movie about cowboys and gunslingers and such, you've gotta have craggy rocks and mountains looming in the distance, even if you are in North Dakota. Or Texas. Or wherever. If you're in the mood for a good shoot-em-up Western, check this one out.

The Sons of Katie Elder is rated G. It's filmed in widescreen Technicolor and has a running time of 122 minutes.

l'Avventura (1960)

What would you do if your best friend disappeared? Search for her? Call the cops? Panic? All of the above? Sure you would. If you were a normal person, that is. But that doesn't happen in Michelangelo Antonioni's l'Avventura (The Adventure). When Anna (Lea Massari) disappears while she and her friends are exploring a tiny island near Sicily, her friends aren't exactly distraught. In fact, it's more like they're simply put out. How dare she go missing? Anna's friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) and her boyfriend Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) make a half-hearted search for her. They send for the police. Anna's father shows up. Even he's irritated at being called away from his important business for such a tedious matter. Soon, everyone gives up the search and goes home. And before the day is out, Sandro is putting the moves on Claudia. Anna is never found. In fact, she's quickly forgotten, as Sandro and Claudia go in search of fun and pleasure. "What?" you ask. "Can they be so thoughtless?" Well, yes, they can and they are. Claudia and Sandro check into a hotel together. Claudia is tired and wants to go to bed, preferably with Sandro. He, on the other hand, has already started to lose interest in her, and he heads downstairs to join the party that is already in progress. Come morning, Claudia comes downstairs and finds Sandro in the arms of a prostitute. She runs away. He chases her. In the final scene, Sandro sits crunched on a bench facing a stone wall, Claudia stands over him looking out to sea. You don't gotta be Freud to figure that one out.

And really, that's all there is to this movie. Someone goes missing and nobody really cares. Nothing much is done about the disappearance, and no one's especially concerned about that either. We never see, or hear from, Anna again, and no explanation is ever given for her mysterious vanishing act or her closest friends' bizarre behavior following it. Everybody just goes back to their wealthy, idle, bored lives. And in those last three words you have the entire crux of l'Avventura. Wealthy, idle people who are so utterly bored that they can't even raise an emotion when one of their own goes missing. All they can think of is finding something that they think will relieve their boredom. They don't have relationships, because those are apparently too boring; instead, they just have sex, and they try to make that suffice. They have big, empty holes inside of them where their souls are supposed to be. They spend their time grabbing anything that they think will give them pleasure and stuffing it into that empty space trying to fill it up. They might as well try to mop up the ocean with a sponge. Their boredom consumes everything they touch, like some stomach parasite that sucks all of the nutrition out of the food you eat before your body can use it. This is ennui (ahn-wee), a feeling of utter weariness and discontent that results from satiety, when everything and everyone bores you, when nothing in the world holds any interest at all, when you go through your entire life on autopilot.

Antonioni - like Fellini - picked up on the horrendous ennui and alienation that gripped Italy (and the rest of Europe) in the late fifties and early sixties, something that the US is only now having to deal with. A new upper class had emerged, professionals in their thirties and forties with lots of money and lots of time on their hands. They also had lost their moral bearings and were adrift in an endless sea of relativism and agency. They could do what they wanted and their money would protect them. But they were alienated from everything and everyone, even from themselves. They could have sex when and where and with whom they wanted, and never mind the consequences. Antonioni shows us what some of those consequences are as Claudia and Sandro struggle for something meaningful in a world where life itself has lost its meaning.

Gabrielle Ferzetti gives a strong performance as Sandro, striving for something without even knowing what it is. And Monicca Vitti became a superstar on account of her performance as Claudia, who seems to have a slightly better grasp on what's important in life. Even so, she's the one-eyed queen in Sandro's sightless world. And all of this is filmed against that stark, gritty black and white that is the hallmark of Italian cinema. The pacing is slow, deliberate, as Antonioni carefully unwraps the souls of his characters. Dialogue is sparse. This isn't a talky film; its an observational one. Claudia and Sandro are placed in one situation after another, each one fraught with enough ethical dilemmas to keep a first year philosophy class going all semester. Having lost interest in their friend's disappearance, what will the protagonists do next? Will they move on with their lives? Or will they remain trapped in the same tiresome, dead-end existence. If you aren't sure, I direct your attention back to the final image of the film. It speaks volumes without saying a single word. Therein lies Antonioni's genius.

l'Avventura is NOT RATED. While the film has no objectionable scenes, it does deal with adult situations that may not be suitable for children. On the other hand, it's doubtful that children would even sit through the 143-minute running time. You should, though. It's worth every second of it.

Tomorrow Is Forever (1946)

The year is 1917. America has finally entered WWI. Young John McDonald (Orson Welles) signs up to do his patriotic duty. His pregnant wife, Elizabeth (Claudette Colbert) isn't so sure that this is such a good idea. He tells her not to worry, that the war will be over in no time and he'll be back home with her. She's not so sure. Maybe she has a premonition. John walks out the door, never to walk back into it. Fast-forward twenty four years. America is on the verge of another world war. Elizabeth has been happily married to Lawrence Hamilton (George Brent) since John disappeared. She has two sons: Drew (Richard Long) and Brian (Sonny Howe). Brian is Lawrence's son; Drew is John's. Lawrence has raised him as his own son, however, so he doesn't know that he's not. One day, a man comes into Lawrence's factory to look for a job. His name is Erik Kessler. He's a chemist. He fled Germany with his young daughter Margaret (Natalie Wood). Lawrence hires Kessler. What nobody knows is that Erik Kessler is John McDonald. He was severely injured during WWI, his body crippled, his face disfigured. Instead of going home, he stayed in Germany. He didn't want to burden his young wife with a crippled husband. Better, he decides, if she thinks he's dead. He became a chemist, lived his life. Margaret was the daughter of John/Erik's best friend, Dr. Ludwig (John Wengraf), the surgeon who saved his life. When the doctor was killed by the Nazis, John/Erik adopted Margaret.

When Elizabeth first meets John/Erik, she finds him oddly familiar, but she can't place where she's seen him before. Besides, she has other problems. Her son Drew wants to enlist in the war. Elizabeth fears a repetition of the tragedy with John and refuses to let him. One rainy night, when Lawrence is out of town, Drew runs away with some of his buddies to enlist. Not able to reach Lawrence, Elizabeth turns to John/Erik for help. He goes out into the stormy night and catches up with Drew at the train station. He tries to convince the boy to wait until he has finished school before enlisting. After some serious arm twisting, Drew finally agrees and accompanies John/Erik home, still not knowing that the man in the cab with him is his true father. Later, John/Erik takes ill from being out in the storm. To his dying breath, he insists that he is Erik Kessler, even though Elizabeth knows that he is really her long, lost husband, John McDonald. Referring to Lawrence, John/Erik tells Elizabeth, "Here is the one you wait for. No other man is your husband." After John/Erik dies, Elizabeth and Lawrence adopt Margaret.

Irving Pichel's Tomorrow Is Forever is one of the finest films that Orson Welles ever made. Sure, he's great in Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil, but he's never played a more tender role than that of Erik Kessler. He is simply fantastic. His character is a broken, sad man, and the depth of passion that Welles is able to evoke with just the slightest movement of his sad eyes is unbelievable. And Claudette Colbert is fantastic as Elizabeth, the woman whose dead husband walks back through her front door one day. As the film progresses, and you watch Elizabeth slowly figuring out who Kessler is, your heart aches for these two souls, but mostly for John/Erik. And that's due entirely to the strength of Welles' performance. George Brent puts in a strong performance as Lawrence Hamilton, the man whose entire world stands on the brink of destruction, and Richard Long is great as the hot-headed Drew, the young man who wants so badly to get into the war, not understanding - as his parents do - just how destructive war can really be. Natalie Wood (this was her 3rd film) is charming as little Margaret, who knows far more about the destruction of war than Drew does. And therein lies the message of this film and the reason that it still works so well today. Tomorrow Is Forever was made just as America was emerging from its second world war in less than three decades. Americans knew well then what Americans are just finding out again - war destroys lives.

Tomorrow Is Forever is rated G. It is filmed in glorious black and white and has a running time of 105 minutes.

The Quiet American (2002)

"I can't say what made me fall in love with Vietnam - that a woman's voice can drug you; that everything is so intense. The colors, the taste, even the rain. Nothing like the filthy rain in London. They say whatever you're looking for, you will find here. They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived. The smell: that's the first thing that hits you, promising everything in exchange for your soul. And the heat. Your shirt is straightaway a rag. You can hardly remember your name, or what you came to escape from. But at night, there's a breeze. The river is beautiful. You could be forgiven for thinking there was no war; that the gunshots were fireworks; that only pleasure matters. A pipe of opium, or the touch of a girl who might tell you she loves you. And then, something happens, as you knew it would. And nothing can ever be the same again."

Thus begins Philip Noyce's The Quiet American, starring Michael Caine as Thomas Fowler, a world-weary foreign correspondent stationed in Saigon, and Brendan Fraser as Alden Pyle, a young and idealist CIA agent working undercover to defeat the communist movement in the north. The year is 1951, and the French still control Viet Nam. Ho Chi Minh's communist forces are gaining ground, though. The French are losing their hold. But other people don't want the communists to take over Viet Nam. The Americans want to set up another government in the south to take over from the French. And that's where Pyle comes in. He's working to set up a third party, not French, not communist, who can take over when the French decide to leave. Pyle wants to establish a democracy in Viet Nam, and he doesn't seem too worried about how many people get killed along the way, as long as there's a democracy. Fowler asks him one of the most obvious questions: "What happens if you give them a democracy and they vote for Ho Chi Minh?" Would the Americans allow that? Pyle doesn't know the answer. But slowly, his belief in what he's doing begins to crumble as the body county begins to rise. Meanwhile, Fowler is beginning to think that Pyle and the Americans need to be stopped, not for the good of the French but for the good of the Viet Namese. He arranges with an associate who is connected with the communist underground to arrange a meeting with Pyle at a restaurant. Pyle never makes it there. Sadly, removing Pyle won't, as we all know, stop the Americans from getting involved in Viet Nam. It would take us another twenty years and over 50,000 American lives to learn that lesson.

But The Quiet American isn't really about any of this. While all of this political intrigue has been going on - and there's a lot of it - a love triangle has also been in the works between Fowler, his girlfriend Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen), and Pyle. Fowler and Phuong live together. Fowler would love to marry her, but he can't. He's already married, and his wife won't grant him a divorce. Phuong's mercenary sister (Pham Thi Mai Hoa) doesn't like this situation one bit. She wants to get Phuong married to one of the rich foreigners, so there will be someone to take care of the family financially. And Pyle seems like just the man to do it. And he doesn't need a lot of encouragement. He's more than willing to steal Phuong away from Fowler, to save her from the corrupt Englishman. In Pyle's mind saving a country and saving a girl are one and the same thing. Of course, he's very gentlemanly about it. He even asks Fowler ahead of time if it would be okay for him to steal Phuong away. Fowler, thinking the guy is a few fries short of a Happy Meal, tells him to go ahead and try. So Pyle tries. And he succeeds, much to Fowler's great dismay. All of which throws Fowler's subsequent actions into a different light. Does he set Pyle up because of his political beliefs? Or does he do it because Pyle stole Phuong away from him? And are the two even separate? Is it even possible to disconnect the people from the country. Here are two foreigners fighting over a indigenous woman that both want to possess. Is that any different than two foreign governments fighting over a third country that they want to possess? Or is all politics personal, and vice-a-verse?

Based on Graham Greene's 1955 novel of the same title, The Quiet American is beautifully filmed, superbly acted, deliberately paced. For a war movie, there's surprisingly little war going on. Only two very short battle scenes, and one car bombing. The rest is politics and an achingly painful love story. And this gives me another chance to rant and rave about the rating system in this country. The highly secretive MPAA ratings board seems to have no criteria whatsoever for handing out ratings. The Quiet American is rated R. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. It says "for violence and some language." Did you see The Lord of the Rings Trilogy? Then you saw ten times more violence than this film contains. And as for the language, it was nothing compared to the language in most of the utterly inane comedies that come out every year with PG-13 ratings. Personal opinion? Americans don't come up smelling like roses in this film. In fact, America is shown as the country that caused the carnage in Viet Nam. Special news flash for those of you who haven't heard. We did. And I think the ratings board penalized the film for saying so. IMHO. Decide for yourself.

The Quiet American is filmed in color and has a running time of 101 minutes.