Review: A Face in the Crowd (1957)

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Director: Elia Kazan
Starring: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau

Sometimes films need to be seen from a distance in order to be properly appreciated. Though it seems to be accepted as a masterpiece now (as it should be; it's one of Elia Kazan's best films and Elia Kazan was no stranger to greatness), A Face in the Crowd was tepidly received on its initial release in 1957. How that could be, how critics could dismiss this film as anything less than a major work, seems like a mystery now, but maybe it was just too far ahead of its time, too caustic, too hard edged. Watching it I was reminded very much of Network, a somewhat similarly themed film but one which had the good fortune to be released at exactly the right time to be seen for what it is: a work of absolute brilliance. A Face in the Crowd is like a precursor to that film, both stories in which a nation becomes captivated by men with a certain amount of madness and then watch as he's destroyed by the very medium that made him.

The Best Picture Countdown #27: On The Waterfront (1954)

Note: this post has been modified from a previously published post

Director: Elia Kazan
Starring: Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden

On The Waterfront is a film widely recognized as Elia Kazan’s response to criticism of his cooperation with HUAC, but even though the political subtext is firmly rooted and aimed at a particular moment in time, the film itself hasn’t become dated. It remains a carefully measured study of one man’s choice between being a fellow traveller in something that he knows isn’t just, or risking his life to stand up for a principle that everyone believes in, but no one believes in enough to die for.

The film is divided into two distinct worlds. There’s the rough world of the waterfront where some men thrive by doing favours for Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), and where all men survive by being D & D (deaf and dumb) even while they’re starving from lack of work and even if their friend happens to succumb to a suspicious “accident.” The other world – still rough, but not as rough – is occupied by idealists such as Father Barry (Karl Malden) and Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint), people who believe that the only way to free themselves of tyranny is to fight against it, rather than silently accept it. Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) begins life in one world and spends the film fighting for the right to exist in the other. The driving force behind his desire for movement comes from his relationship with Edie, but before they even meet Terry knows that he can’t go on with the waterfront life. The film begins with him luring Joey Doyle (Edie’s brother) to a rooftop for Johnny Friendly. Terry thinks they’re just going to talk to him and is dismayed when he finds that Joey has been thrown off the roof to his death. His participation in Doyle’s death wakes him from his complacency with the way the waterfront is run. When he gets involved with Edie and Father Berry, he finds a way – and a reason – to turn things around, even as the people who would benefit most from change (the longshoremen) fight him at every turn.

This is a film with a point to make, but it doesn’t make it at the expense of the story, nor does it put all its energy into bashing the viewer over the head with its meaning while letting its characters languish underdeveloped. The characters in this film are full-blooded and full of life, and the story itself is made up of moments that are deeply moving. Everyone knows the “I coulda been a contender” speech that Terry makes to his brother Charlie (Rod Steiger). This speech has been referenced and parodied so much that, by all rights, it should have lost its meaning by now. But when you see it in the film, when you see the speech in the context of Terry having become fed up with the injustice of the world and men being denied their “shot,” when you see Charlie pull a gun on Terry and the way Terry just pushes the gun away, unable to believe that they’ve come to this point, you hear a speech that remains meaningful and relevant. Later, Terry finds Charlie dead and hanging from a hook, his punishment for not having made Terry fall in line. In an autobiography, Brando stated that during his first viewing of the film he had to walk out because he couldn’t stand his own performance. It’s hard to believe, given how pitch perfect his performance is, especially in the scene where Terry finds Charlie’s body, and the scene directly before it when he breaks into Edie’s apartment. This is a performance so complete and natural that you don’t think of Terry Malloy as a character being played by Marlon Brando, but as a person in his own right whom you just happen to be watching. The same can be said of Edie, a character who could easily have been a simpering victim, but is instead a strong and independent woman as played by Eva Marie Saint, who more than holds her own opposite Brando.

There are moments in the film that could easily have lapsed into false sentimentality – Terry’s walk at the end, for instance – in the hands of a lesser director. That Kazan can keep the film in line, that he absolutely earns the moments that would otherwise seem sappy, is what makes it unfortunate that in some circles he’s considered first as someone who named names, and second as a brilliant director. Whatever you think of Kazan’s politics – and keeping in mind that the HUAC/McCarthy era isn’t quite as black and white as it is often presented – his skill as a storyteller cannot be denied. On The Waterfront is a film about a specific place in time, but told in a way that ensures it remains timeless, a treasure of a film that can be returned to again and again.

The Best Picture Countdown #20: Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Director: Elia Kazan
Starring: Gregory Peck

Gentleman’s Agreement, a screed against anti-Semitism based on the novel of the same name by Laura Z. Hobson, comes straight out of Hollywood’s “We’re Going To Teach You a Very Important Lesson” files. It might sink under its own earnestness were it not for the passion and skill of its performances. I don’t think this film, directed by the great Elia Kazan (who won an Oscar for his efforts), ever completely rises above the level of sermonizing to reach the point of storytelling, but it’s not without its moments.

The story centers on Schuyler Green (Gregory Peck), known as Phil to his friends. He’s a widowed journalist who moves from California to New York with his young son and his mother (Anne Revere) to take a job with a magazine. His new publisher, John Minify (Albert Dekker), assigns him to write a story about anti-Semitism, having been given the idea by his niece Kathy (Dorothy McGuire). Phil is reluctant at first, mostly because he can’t think of how he might approach the subject in a new way, but then he hits on an idea. Whenever he’s written other stories he’s done it by immersing himself in the world he’s going to depict – when he wrote a story about coal miners, for example, he got a job in a coal mine – and so that becomes his strategy here. He’ll pretend to be Jewish and experience firsthand the bigotry that is casually tossed around throughout society.

Phil’s deception involves writing to prospective employers under two names – his own and “Phil Greenberg” – and seeing which elicits a positive response, but it also extends to all other aspects of his life. Since he doesn’t know anyone in New York, he lets everyone believe that he’s Jewish, including the people that he works with at the magazine. He discovers that the management of the magazine doesn’t quite live up to the publication’s liberal ideals (his secretary, who is Jewish, applied under two names, her real name and her the name she currently works under) and he also discovers that Kathy, with whom he’s become romantically involved, isn’t quite as open-minded as she at first appeared.

As the story works its way towards its conclusion, it becomes less about the direct prejudice perpetuated by bigots and more about those who know that such attitudes are wrong but let it pass. Kathy, despite having suggested Phil’s story in the first place, ultimately just wants to get along and not get her hands dirty. She isn’t anti-Semitic herself, but she’s not willing to take a public stand either, which eventually puts her at odds with Phil. Meanwhile, there’s another woman in Phil’s life, a fashion editor at the magazine named Anne (Celeste Holm), who is on the same wavelength as him regarding this subject and who is most definitely interested in him. Will Phil and Kathy find a way to make it work or will Phil start a new relationship with Anne? It’s somewhat strange that that is what the story ultimately comes down to.

The subject of Gentleman’s Agreement is, obviously, an important one and sometimes it truly does transcend that line between showing and telling. There is one scene, for example, in which Phil attempts to get a room at a hotel and is turned away, the manager first polite but becoming increasingly hostile towards him as Phil demands that he cut the niceties and say clearly and directly that he doesn’t rent rooms to Jews. This is a very effective and well-played scene, as Peck’s anger grows and grows only to end in impotence as he realizes the futility of the situation. The problem with the film is that more often than not it adopts the strategy of telling us about the issue rather than dramatizing it. Characters deliver great speeches elaborating on the injustices faced by the victims of prejudice, but that rings a little bit hollow because showing is always more compelling than telling. The means through which the screenplay guides the characters to these speeches is also problematic, because it often feels contrived and no matter how good the actors are (and they’re all good), they can’t really raise it above the inherent artificiality of the dialogue.

Like Spencer Tracy and Henry Fonda, Peck is an actor who brings a strong sense of authority to the screen. He’s an actor who can convey the sense that he’s on the side of right without seeming like he’s lecturing the audience. He softens the sometimes overly didactic dialogue and makes Phil more than just a cardboard crusader. Likewise, Revere renders an excellent performance as Phil’s mother, lately suffering from frail health but supporting Phil all the way. That this performance works at all is somewhat amazing given that Revere was all of 44 (and only 13 years Peck’s senior) when this film was released, but she manages to make you suspend your disbelief and, along with Peck and McGuire was nominated for an Oscar (she lost to co-star Holm). The actors really make this film worth watching; without them it wouldn’t rise very far above the level of a morality play.

Oscarstravaganza: East of Eden

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Winner: Best Supporting Actress, 1955
Director: Elia Kazan
Starring: James Dean, Raymond Massey, Jo Van Fleet, Julie Harris

East of Eden has the distinction of not only being James Dean's big screen debut but also the only film he made that he lived to see. It is an adaptation of the last hundred, or so, pages of John Steinbeck's epic novel of the same name that explores generational conflict as well as sibling conflicts based on the story of Cain and Abel. For the most part it is a very strong film, particularly in terms of the performances, but it is not without its weak spots.

The story begins with Adam (Raymond Massey) and his two sons, fraternal twins named Cal (James Dean) and Aron (Richard Davalos) in the period just before the U.S. entered into World War I. Cal and Aron have been raised to believe that their mother, Kate (Jo Van Fleet), is dead but Cal has recently discovered that she's very much alive and running a brothel in a nearby town. He keeps this information to himself for the time being as he's less interested in forming a relationship with his mother than in mending his fractured relationship with his father. Cal is the black sheep son who can never seem to do right in Adam's eyes while Aron can seemingly do no wrong. When a business plan of Adam's falls under, costing him a great deal of money, Cal goes to Kate in order to ask her for a loan to start a business of his own which he hopes can recoup the money his father has lost and also make him proud.

As Cal is waiting for his own business venture - growing and selling beans, which he knows will become a hot commodity once the U.S. enters the war - to take off, he falls in love with Aron's girlfriend Abra (Julie Harris), who slowly comes to reciprocate his feelings. She treats Cal almost like a wounded animal, a creature that lashes out because of fear rather than out of malice. Her relationship with the sensitive and naive Aron, however, causes them to hold back from each other in order to protect him. It isn't until Cal tries to give his father the money he's earned and is not only rejected but accused of being a war profiteer that Cal takes his anger out on Aron, brutally revealing the truth about Kate to him and setting in motion a series of events that may tear the family apart permanently.

In his film debut, Dean renders a stunning and effective performance, arguably the best of the three films he made. Cal is a deeply psychological character, scarred by his father's rejection, at once protective of and jealous of his brother, possessed of an almost childlike gentleness but also of a child's ability to throw a raging tantrum. Dean is often accused of copying Brando but his style is actually more a merging of Brando and Clift. He has the angry energy of the former but also the sensitivity of the latter and he shifts between them easily. You find yourself at once feeling badly for Cal but also shaking your head at his impulsive willingness to cut off his nose to spite his face and in that way Dean perfectly captures the spirit of the character from the novel. Cal wants to be good but when told that he's bad, he sets out to prove just how bad he can be even if the consequences of his actions will hurt him.

East of Eden is far from a perfect movie, it drags in the middle section and its ending is not as powerful as it might be, but I like it nevertheless. I have to admit that I liked it a lot more before I read the book and discovered how much was cut out. For example, the version of Kate we see onscreen, though masterfully played by Van Fleet, is a really watered down version of the character from the book, easily one of the most evil characters I've ever encountered in literature. A few years ago there was talk of a new adaptation of East of Eden and I would defintely be interested in seeing what a new version would do with that character because it could be a really meaty role. The problem with a new adaptation, of course, would be that you'd have to find an actor who could fill Dean's shoes as Cal, which would be next to impossible. Even Steinbeck remarked that Dean simply is Cal, and his electrifying performance ensures that East of Eden is still worth watching, even if it is one of director Elia Kazan's lesser efforts.

100 Days, 100 Movies: On The Waterfront (1954)

Director: Elia Kazan
Starring: Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb

On The Waterfront is a film widely recognized as Elia Kazan’s response to criticism of his cooperation with HUAC, but even though the political subtext is firmly rooted and aimed at a particular moment in time, the film itself hasn’t become dated. It remains a carefully measured study of one man’s choice between being a fellow traveller in something that he knows isn’t just, or risking his life to stand up for a principle that everyone believes in, but no one believes in enough to die for.

The film is divided into two distinct worlds. There’s the rough world of the waterfront where some men thrive by doing favours for Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), and where all men survive by being D & D (deaf and dumb) even while they’re starving from lack of work and even if their friend happens to succumb to a suspicious “accident.” The other world – still rough, but not as rough – is occupied by idealists such as Father Barry (Karl Malden) and Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint), people who believe that the only way to free themselves of tyranny is to fight against it, rather than silently accept it. Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) begins life in one world and spends the film fighting for the right to exist in the other. The driving force behind his desire for movement comes from his relationship with Edie, but before they even meet Terry knows that he can’t go on with the waterfront life. The film begins with him luring Joey Doyle (Edie’s brother) to a rooftop for Johnny Friendly. Terry thinks they’re just going to talk to him and is dismayed when he finds that Joey has been thrown off the roof to his death. His participation in Doyle’s death wakes him from his complacency with the way the waterfront is run. When he gets involved with Edie and Father Berry, he finds a way – and a reason – to turn things around, even as the people who would benefit most from change (the longshoremen) fight him at every turn.

This is a film with a point to make, but it doesn’t make it at the expense of the story, nor does it put all its energy into bashing the viewer over the head with its meaning while letting its characters languish underdeveloped. The characters in this film are full-blooded and full of life, and the story itself is made up of moments that are deeply moving. Everyone knows the “I coulda been a contender” speech that Terry makes to his brother Charlie (Rod Steiger). This speech has been referenced and parodied so much that, by all rights, it should have lost its meaning by now. But when you see it in the film, when you see the speech in the context of Terry having become fed up with the injustice of the world and men being denied their “shot,” when you see Charlie pull a gun on Terry and the way Terry just pushes the gun away, unable to believe that they’ve come to this point, you hear a speech that remains meaningful and relevant. Later, Terry finds Charlie dead and hanging from a hook, his punishment for not having made Terry fall in line. In an autobiography, Brando stated that during his first viewing of the film he had to walk out because he couldn’t stand his own performance. It’s hard to believe, given how pitch perfect his performance is, especially in the scene where Terry finds Charlie’s body, and the scene directly before it when he breaks into Edie’s apartment. This is a performance so complete and natural that you don’t think of Terry Malloy as a character being played by Marlon Brando, but as a person in his own right whom you just happen to be watching. The same can be said of Edie, a character who could easily have been a simpering victim, but is instead a strong and independent women as played by Eva Marie Saint, who more than holds her own opposite Brando.

There are moments in the film that could easily have lapsed into false sentimentality – Terry’s walk at the end, for instance – in the hands of a lesser director. That Kazan can keep the film in line, that he absolutely earns the moments that would otherwise seem sappy, is what makes it unfortunate that in some circles he’s considered first as someone who named names, and second as a brilliant director. Whatever you think of Kazan’s politics – and keeping in mind that the HUAC/McCarthy era isn’t quite as black and white as is often presented – his skill as a storyteller cannot be denied. On The Waterfront is a film about a specific place in time, but told in a way that ensures it remains timeless, a treasure of a film that can be returned to again and again.