Category: Reviews

Reviews of books, movies, tv shows and other items

The Inside Baseball of Film Versions of “A Christmas Carol” – Part 2

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews , , , , ,

A couple of years ago, in the first installment of this essay, I wrote about the plot devices that were added in the 1951 and 1984 movie versions that weren’t written in Dickens’ novella.  And those two versions are my favorites.  The actors playing Scrooge in each case do a memorable job with the part.  And the productions are very good.

There are several other versions that I have watched several times.  There is a musical version with Albert Finney as Scrooge which has its points.  And the 1938 movie with Reginald Owens as Scrooge is acceptable.  But I’ve never cared for his acting style in the part.

But recently a friend told me he regards the 1938 version as his favorite.  Well, tastes differ so I just chalked it up to that.  But when this came up again during a conversation I asked if he thought Owens was the better Scrooge.  He said no.  What he liked about the 1938 version was the greater screen time given to the Cratchit family.  He thought that Gene Lockhart as Bob Cratchit and the rest of the family made the movie.

Since I had never analyzed the movie in that sense, I decided to give it another viewing.  In the 1938 version Gene Lockhart’s wife Kathleen plays Mrs. Cratchit and his daughter June Lockhart played Belinda Cratchit, one of the daughters.  Watching the various scenes they are in, it’s apparent that the Cratchit component of the story has been amplified.  The Christmas dinner scene is quite long and includes much more detail than any of the other versions.  And several other additional scenes involve Bob, Tim or Peter Cratchit interacting with either Scrooge or his nephew Fred.

And I noticed that Scrooge’s part had also been modified in this version.  Instead of the Ghost of Christmas Past bringing Scrooge to see his corruption by money he stops the ghost after the earlier Fezziwig scene.  Considered in the sense of time on the screen, the Cratchits are actually a larger part of the movie than Scrooge.  I think that is why someone might prefer this version.  It minimizes the amount of time spent with Scrooge.  So, if you aren’t primarily interested in Scrooge’s transformation then this would be the version that you would be drawn to.

Looked at in that light I understand the opinion.  But even though I will admit that the Cratchit family scenes in this version are attractive and enjoyable I have to go back to the story of Scrooge.  That is the center of the story and the reason for the action.

But it does bring up another trivia question.  Which is the best Cratchit family?  The most pitiable Tiny Tim is the one in the 1984 version.  He looks like he may keel over at any moment.  But for the rest of the Cratchit family including Bob I’d pick the ones in the 1951 version.  They seem the most authentic.

One thing that I notice is that no matter how many times I watch the various versions of A Christmas Carol I’m still affected by the emotions.  The Cratchits’ sorrow over Tim and Scrooge’s contrition and almost manic joy at being given a second chance always warm my heart.  Obviously, I’m over-sentimental and probably associate the feelings I felt when seeing these movies in my youth.  But whatever the reason they still work after all these years.  This is a tribute to Dickens’ genius but also to the culture that honored the humanity embedded in the Christmas spirit.  Peace on Earth, good will to men.  Or as Tiny Tim says, “God bless us all, everyone.

Mrs. Miniver (1942) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews , , , , ,

Mrs. Miniver is an American film about the beginning of World War II in Britain.  Greer Garson is Mrs. Kay Miniver, wife of well to do, British architect Clem Miniver played by Walter Pidgeon.  They live in a rural area outside of London on the Thames River where they enjoy a happy home life with their three children and the requisite maid and cook and beautiful home.

Their son Vin is just returning from Oxford while the two younger children are a boy and girl who look to be about six and ten years old respectively.  Early in the story we meet Carol Beldon, granddaughter of Lady Beldon, the local aristocrat who presides over the social world of the proper residents of their town.  Of course, Vin and Carol fall in love.  This sets the stage for the dramatic tension that defines the story.

This is 1939 and war has just been declared.  The realities of this slowly encircle the beautiful carefree life of the Minivers and then pummel it like the nightly bombings pummel their town.  Vin and Carol marry before he enlists in the Royal Air Force.  In a frank discussion Kay and Carol talk about acknowledging that it is very likely Vin will be killed in the war.  Carol is especially adamant that this reality makes her determined to charge with meaning and emotion their brief life together before his departure for active combat.

One of the most affecting scenes in the movie has Kay and Clem huddled in their backyard bomb shelter with their two young children during a bombing raid.  The children are trying to sleep in a small bunk bed while the parents sit up and try to distract themselves with chit chat about a book they enjoyed as children, Alice in Wonderland.  But the bombing runs keep getting closer and closer and finally the concussions are almost on top of them and the children become hysterical and their parents cradle them in their arms and try to sooth them while hell is unleashed around them.  Finally, the shelter door blows open and we realize that the bombs have been landing all around their house.  Finally, the attack ebbs into the distance and they sit dazed but alive.

Vin is given leave and he comes to visit his family.  He and Carol are given a room to stay in in the damaged home of his parents and they go to a local flower show where Carol’s grandmother’s prize roses are competing against a rose named the Mrs. Miniver by a local friend, the train station master.  At the suggestion of her granddaughter’s husband Lady Beldon is grudgingly convinced to allow her rival to win the grand prize.  And this happy moment is quickly followed by news of a massive air raid coming and Vin’s recall to his flight wing.

Carol and Kay drive him to his base and on the return trip home the two women are caught in the wreckage of an aerial dogfight and some machine gun bullets penetrate the car.  Carol is badly wounded and Kay rushes her home and calls for medical help by phone.  But shortly afterward Carol dies and Kay cradles her lifeless body and cries inconsolably.

In the last scene of the movie the townspeople are gathered in the heavily damaged village church and the minister preaches a sermon recognizing the deaths and injuries of so many of the parish including Carol and the station master who won the rose contest.  But he paints the war as a sacred duty to preserve their freedom and provide hope for a return to the happy lives they had before.

In many ways Mrs. Miniver was a war propaganda movie to prepare the American public for the realities of the war that the United States had just joined and to reinforce the bonds of friendship between the United States and England.  The Nazis, in the person of a German paratrooper are painted in a very negative light.  And the bombing campaign was meant to show Americans that fighting the enemy in Europe instead of at home was a great blessing for us.

Greer Garson’s portrayal is very effective.  In fact, the whole family is extremely likable and they naturally draw the audience’s sympathy at each stage of the film.  We are shown them both in their carefree earlier lives and in the midst of great tragedy and they always attract our good feeling for them.

My favorite scene takes place after Clem has been summoned by the local civil defense authorities to take his small motor boat down the Thames River.  He learns that they are looking for volunteers to pilot their boats to Dunkirk to rescue the surrounded British Expeditionary Force in France.  While he is away Mrs. Miniver is captured by an injured German paratrooper and held at gunpoint in her own home while the German demands food and drink and a coat to help him avoid detection once he leaves.  Luckily, he passes out from his injuries and she is able to take his gun and hide it and call the police.  Shortly after, Clem returns from his mission, exhausted, filthy and exultant.  Kay welcomes him and lets him bath and go to bed to fall into an exhausted sleep.  When he wakes the next afternoon, he asks how things went while he was gone and she tells him all was well.  While talking to the cook about the breakfast that Clem wants, she reminds Kay that there isn’t any ham left because she gave it to the German paratrooper.  When Clem overhears this, he is outraged accusing her of lying when she said that things were quiet while he was away.  He says, “What if he had a gun?”  And she flippantly replies, “Oh I just took it away from him.”  Now seeing that she is playing with him, as she bends over to straighten out the bed sheets, he administers a loud slap to her butt.  Now those were the days.  I have often wanted to do that to Camera Girl when she sasses me but she isn’t as amiable as Mrs. Miniver.  Her revenge might be too painful to chance it.  And for that reason, I am especially fond of this scene.

As I said at the beginning this movie is in a sense war propaganda but it was also a way for the Americans to reflect on the shared sacrifices that would have to be made in a war that had been thrust upon them after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  I found the script and the acting to be honest and compelling.  I recommend this movie when you are in the mood for a World War II picture.

The Lord of the Rings – A Book Review – Part 3 – The Various Races or Peoples of Middle Earth

photog Book Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Lord of the Rings – A Book Review – Part 1

The Lord of the Rings – A Book Review – Part 2 – Tolkien’s Creation Story

In the Lord of the Rings and his other writings Tolkien speaks of races and peoples to mean what we would call different species.  The major division between the Children of Illuvatar was between the Elves and Men (the Eldar and the Edain).  Within these two groups there were further subgroupings that I guess could best be described as tribes or nations.  But the differences between Elves and Men are profound.  The Elves do not grow old.  Therefore, unless they are killed by accident or illness they can live indefinitely.  And even when they die their spirit is constrained to remain within the Realm of Arda which is under the control of the angelic powers, the Valar.  In fact, it is hinted at by Tolkien that eventually the spirits of Elves that have died will be returned to life in Arda after some very long time.  Men are mortal just as humans are on Earth.  In Tolkien’s theology men do not remain in Arda after they die.  Their spirits leave Arda altogether and return to Illuvatar outside of the jurisdiction of the Valar.

What Tolkien seemed to be mirroring with the Elves and Men was the distinction between men who lived before the Christian era who had no chance of redemption from the Christian perspective and those who lived after.  The Elves would be like the Valar in a way.  They could serve Illuvatar and share in the smaller creation that was Arda but within Arda they were not in direct contact with Illuvatar.  Men were meant to escape Arda after their lives and then return to Illuvatar.  Despite the profound differences between Men and Elves Tolkien allowed for the possibility of love and even children between Men and Elves.  But what would the children be, deathless Elves or mortal Men?  Tolkien decided that they would be permitted a choice.  If they chose to be Men then that was a final choice for them and their children.  But if they chose to be of Elven-kind then their children also had the choice to make and in the same way.  Now what this means to me is that any child of a Man would always have the choice to choose to be Human.  And I think this is because the Fate of Man is the higher fate.  The Elves are halfway between Valar and Men.  And despite the tremendous power of the angelic Valar their fate is less than that of Men.

Then there are the Dwarves.  According to the Silmarillion the Dwarves were not created by Illuvatar but instead were the unsanctioned creation of Aulë, one of the Valar.  When Illuvatar spoke to Aulë about what he had done Aulë realized that what he had created weren’t independent beings but only shadows of himself, puppets.  Aulë was about to smash them when he saw that Illuvatar had turned them into living beings with souls of their own.  This makes the Dwarves sort of adoptive children of Illuvatar.  I believe they are like the Elves in being bound to Arda and under the authority of the Valar.  And they are odd in other ways and always seem to be at odds with the natural children of Illuvatar.  They are not naturally evil but the properties that Aulë endowed them with put them at odds with Men and Elves.

The Hobbits are sort of like nature spirits that inhabit English folklore like Puck or Robin Goodfellow but based on Tolkien’s characterization in his books I have to say I believe the Hobbits are human.  They are mortal and beside their stature they are in all ways human.  Maybe Tolkien intended to make them bound to Arda like the Elves and Dwarves but based on the Hobbits we meet I wouldn’t think they should be left out of human heaven.  They’re just too human.

In the Silmarillion Tolkien tells us that the Orcs were made by Morgoth by capturing Elves and corrupting them through his evil influence.  This always made me wonder then if Orcs also did not die of old age.  We are never shown any female Orcs which is probably a blessing but I assume they must exist.  The idea of a corrupted race is a little hard to understand theologically.  For instance, it seems possible that just by chance, an Orc might be born that wasn’t particularly evil.  And if he managed to escape the evil influence of his tribe might live a virtuous life.  I’ve heard people talk along these lines and mock the idea of “good Orcs” and based on what we see in the Lord of the Rings it does seem patently ridiculous but since Tolkien was a Christian writer, I’m sure he thought about that possibility.  Suffice it to say that no “good Orcs” ever show up anywhere in the Tolkien tests.

Dwarves and Elves are pretty standard creatures of Northern European folklore and Tolkien adapted as needed for his use but one of the most original characters that Tolkien place in his Middle Earth was the Ent.  They are the “Shepherds of the Trees.”  They resemble trees.  They are gigantic in size and have great physical strength.  Their ability to rend stone is compared to a much-accelerated version of the action that roots have for infiltrating and cracking stone that they come in contact with.  Ents also appear to live indefinitely unless killed by violence.  But they can become senescent and become completely tree-like.  It seems that the Ents must be another race of creatures like the Elves that are restricted to Arda forever.  But from their description in the Silmarillion, they are never described as Children of Illuvatar.  Possibly Tolkien never left any notes about the status of the Ents because he invented them later on than the Elves and Dwarves.  Whatever their place in the theology of Middle Earth Tolkien designed them with a distinctive and entertaining character.  They are extremely slow and methodical in their actions and extremely long winded in their method of speech.  They think of normal action by any other race as extremely hasty.  This must be to mimic the immobility and permanence of trees in the landscape.

And finally, the last of the other major peoples of Middle Earth are the Trolls.  Trolls are a well-known creature of legend but how Tolkien fits them into his creation is not well defined.  I can remember hearing the explanation that they were Ents that were twisted by Morgoth into evil creatures just as the Elves were turned into Orcs.  Honestly this seems singularly unconvincing.  There doesn’t seem to be much Ent-like character to Trolls.  But I haven’t heard any other explanation so I’ll just leave this as a loose end.  In addition to being evil the main character trait of Trolls seems to be stupidity.  But they are enormously strong and tough so they come in handy for war scenes when something special is needed.

Based on the status of the various races of speaking peoples in Middle Earth what it seems is that Tolkien has Christianized the folklore creatures of Norse mythology by giving them a place in the Genesis story of his world, Middle Earth.  It is not at all clear what the final status is of the Elves, Dwarves, Ents or even the Orcs and Trolls.  They seem to have souls like men and are judged on their deeds, good and evil.  But it is far from clear whether even the Elves can gain Paradise in this theology.  Instead, they seem to be permanently attached to sub-creation of the Valar, the Kingdom of Arda.  And that may be Tolkien’s intention.

How Do I Decide What Not to Review?

photog Reviews , , ,

Perhaps the only good thing about being a social outcast in your own culture is that you can pick and choose what you build your inner culture out of without having to worry if you’re doing it wrong.  And that’s because you’re already wrong by the definition of the dominant culture so you can’t be more wrong for leaving something out.  For instance, I like old movies.  But I’m not a big fan of musicals.  So even though I’m told that old Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies are supposed to be great I don’t see it that way.  Sure, I don’t have anything against these movies but if I’m picking my top 100 movies the only musical might be “The Wizard of Oz.”  So, whereas I won’t complain if someone wants to see some musicals from the 30s and 40s, if someone tells me that West Side Story is a great American classic, I assume we are not going to see eye to eye on most things.

So, I’m going to use my own preferences rather than whatever nonsense gave us such ridiculous things as ballet, Jackson Pollack, performance art and the Beat Poets.  I was discussing film with an old friend and we got on the topic of “Citizen Kane” and he noted that numerous critics have maintained over the years that it is the best motion picture of all time.  And that got me thinking, I don’t think Citizen Kane is even good.  It’s loaded with dysfunction, depression and annoying characters that descend into a world where life has no meaning and isn’t worth living.  And that got me thinking.  The world view that finds Citizen Kane exemplary is a distorted one that is a symptom of the problems we’re facing now.  A philosophy that sees no meaning in life, that denies the existence of good and evil always devolves into nihilism.  And when people with that philosophy create art, no matter how technically adept they are the product always celebrates death as the only reality.  And the effect such a message has on viewers is corrosive.

A distinction can be drawn between a message that is unhappy and one that is nihilistic.  There are plenty of books and films and works of art that are sad but uplifting.  After all death is an inevitable part of life and death brings great sadness to most of us.  And there are a multitude of unhappy things that happen every day in the world.  But life correctly understood is the triumph of the human spirit over all these challenges.  So portraying unhappiness and tragedy isn’t the problem.  The fault with the modernist world view is the mentality that finds no value in human life at all.  Happiness and unhappiness are equally meaningless and the only activity they pursue is to stave off boredom by portraying things that outrage the chumps who still believe in things.  And because every outrage eventually becomes dulled by familiarity each new outrage has to be more extreme and more diseased.

And so, this is the point.  Just because something is fifty or a hundred years old doesn’t mean it’s a “classic.”  And something made tomorrow can possess the qualities that make it exemplary.  The quality is either there or it isn’t and it doesn’t require a college degree in art criticism to recognize it.  All you have to do is see whether the point of view of the book or the movie says that normal life has meaning or not.  It’s as simple as that.

Lilies of the Field (1963) – A Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, Reviews ,

Sidney Poitier stars as Homer Smith, a construction worker travelling West toward California who stops in a small town in Arizona because he needs water for his car radiator.  He meets some women working a small subsistence farm who turn out to be nuns who escaped from East Germany and are now attempting to build a chapel for their local Catholic parish of poor Mexicans and a few other locals.  He agrees to do some construction chores for them that they are obviously unqualified to perform but the next day when he tries to get paid they give him an egg and a cup of milk for breakfast and give him another list of chores to start on.

At this point he begins the endless series of disagreements with the Mother Superior who rather than wanting to pay him for the work he has already done is convinced that Smith, or Schmidt as she calls him, has been sent by God to build their chapel for free.  At several points Smith either prepares to or actually does leave the convent, but each time something inside of him makes him change his mind.  As he explains to one of the characters in the story, he had always wished he had the money to go to school to become an architect or an engineer.  He had always wanted to build something of his own design and as unreasonable as it is for him to be asked to build the chapel without pay, the challenge of the project is very attractive to him.

And we also see that as much as he and the Mother Superior butt heads over the project and as impolite and unappreciative of all his help as she is, he has admiration for her faith and courage.  And he enjoys the friendliness and innocence of the other sisters and he spends his free time teaching them English and teaching them to sing some of the Baptist spirituals that he knows from his childhood.  The theme of the movie is a song called Amen which is lip-synched by Poitier onto the vocal by the song’s writer Jester Hairston.

And the story unfolds with Smith finding a part time job with a local construction company that allows him to provide the penniless nuns with the first decent meals they’ve probably had in years.  And Smith drives them to the Catholic Mass in town where the local priest performs an outdoor Mass out of the back of his camper.  There the sisters introduce Smith to the congregation and he is able to get a good breakfast at the local diner from Juan (played by Stanley Adams, a familiar face from the Twilight Zone and Star Trek).

But the dream goes bust when the Mother Superior’s efforts to obtain donated construction materials from wealthy individuals and organizations fail completely.  When Smith asks her about the supplies she explodes in a burst of ungrateful abuse and he quits and drives off.  Now the sisters must walk the miles along the desert highway again on Sundays and the congregation notices that Smith is missing.  Despair descends on Mother Superior and all seems lost.  But three weeks later as they are walking to Mass, Smith appears in his car and drives them to town.  The congregation is so happy to see that he has returned that the Mexican laborers donate adobe bricks that they have made and even offer to assist in the construction labor.

But first they must overcome Smith’s stubborn determination to build the whole chapel himself.  A funny scene is presented where a dozen laborers are sitting around watching Smith lug heavy adobe bricks up a ladder to place them on a wall in the blazing sun.  It is obvious that he is almost exhausted by the exertion and the heat.  Finally Juan brings a brick over to the wall where Smith is working.  Juan innocently states that if he doesn’t want the brick he can walk over it and climb up and down the wall with a brick of his own.  When Smith finally takes the brick the rest of the laborers start carrying bricks over.  But soon they start carrying the cement and setting the bricks themselves.  Pretty soon Smith walks away in frustration as his building is being built by others.

But things work themselves out.  The laborers and the sisters have no real knowledge of how to design a building and pretty soon Smith rescues them from the Tower of Babel that German nuns and Mexican laborers arguing about the placement of windows represents.  Smith takes control as the superintendent and the designer.  He finds himself respected and valued by the Mother Superior, the sisters, the parish priest, the townspeople and is even offered a supervisory job at the construction company that he works part time at.  And the completion of the chapel is a bitter sweet event for the sisters and Smith.  But you can see that he has learned what he is capable of and that it is time for him to move on.  So even though the Mother Superior has plans to show him off the next day at the first Mass and then to try and rope him into further construction projects; a school, a hospital; Smith knows that he will leave that night.  But to make the parting easier he starts another one of their singing lessons.  He sings the verses of Amen while the sisters sing the chorus and he sings the song right out the door and over to his car and finishes it off as he drives away.

This is a sentimental movie with its heart in the right place.  Poitier is a funny likeable character who sells his part admirably.  Mother Superior is played as an overbearing authoritarian who hides her fear behind a gruff mask of commands and scorn.  The other nuns are well played.  Stanley Adams as Juan, the philosophical agnostic who hedges his bets against Hell by helping Smith and the nuns in their project, is generally amusing.  The scenes juxtaposing the African American from the south and the German nuns trying to find common ground around religious music is genuinely charming.  This is a nice small movie for Christmas or Easter or any time of the year when you want something heartwarming but relatively lighthearted.  Recommended.

Colter Wall – Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs – A Country Music Review

photog Country Music Reviews, Music Reviews, Reviews , , , , ,

Back in 2017 a musician buddy of mine told me he saw a young country singer in Nashville named Colter Wall.  He had a murder ballad called Kate McCannon on his album that once I heard it I really liked.  And once I heard the rest of the album, I thought was exceptional.  So, I’ve been following his music since then.  And he’s getting some good play on a few movie soundtracks and on the TV show Yellowstone.  I was looking forward to his album this year.  But I’ve been so distracted by the political horror show we’ve been living through that I missed the release.  I bought the album last week and finally listened to it today.  And it was a good listen.

Now his 2017 album had a sort of alt-country feel to it.  This album is a straight up western music album.  There are songs about cattle farming and rodeos and cowboying and gunfighters.  You see Colter is from Saskatchewan Canada which is north of Montana and is still like what we think of as the old west.  None of these songs are as emotional or quirky as some of the stories on his 2017 debut and none of them knocked me out of my chair but I thoroughly enjoyed the familiarity and simplicity of the western tunes.  The guitar and fiddle play are pleasing and Colter’s baritone sound is easy to listen to.

If you’re looking for some new music and like old time western music, I think you’ll enjoy this album.  I did.

Here is the song list:

Western Swing & Waltzes

I Ride An Old Paint: Leavin’ Cheyenne

Big Iron

Henry And Sam

Diamond Joe

High & Mighty

Talkin’ Prairie Boy

Cowpoke

Rocky Mountain Rangers

Houlihans At The Holiday Inn

The Lord of the Rings – A Book Review – Part 2 – Tolkien’s Creation Story

photog Book Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Lord of the Rings – A Book Review – Part 1

 

J. R. R. Tolkien was a devout Christian. He was a member of an informal Christian writer’s society called The Inklings that also included the likes of his old friend C. S. Lewis. In fact, Lewis and Tolkien had planned to divide between them a project to write fantasy and science fiction stories with a Christian world view.  Tolkien decided his story would go back to an earlier time and Lewis decided to go into outer space.

Getting back to Tolkien, when he started writing the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, he was able to set it in a world for which he had long ago written the Genesis story.  All of this background was finally published after his death by his son Christopher as the Silmarillion.  In this pre-history we are told that God (or as Tolkien called him Eru (The One) or Illuvatar (Father of All)) created the angels (the Ainur which are divided between the archangels (Valar) and the lesser angels (Maiar)).  Then He created the Universe (Ea) and particularly our world (Arda) and allowed the Ainur to build out the place where His children, the Elves and Men, would live.  Some of those Ainur were loyal to Illuvatar and some were corrupted with the idea of power over lesser beings.  The chief of these renegades was Melkor, originally the most powerful Valar, the equivalent of Lucifer.  He leads the fallen Ainur against the Valar and is defeated.  Later on, he is thought rehabilitated and brought back into the fold by the leader of the Valar, Manwe.

The Valar are supposed to teach the children of Illuvatar about Him and help them reach their potential in goodness.  And they attempt to do this with the Elves, the firstborn of the two races.  They bring them into the Blessed Realm where the Valar live and teach them the knowledge that they possess.  But even in this Blessed Realm, Melkor plots to destroy the happiness of the Elves and Valar.  He destroys the Trees that give light to Arda and steals the jewels, the Silmarils of Feanor, that contain the light of the trees.  Feanor, who is the most powerful and proudest of the Elves, disobeys the command of Manwe and sails from the Blessed Realm back to Middle Earth to defeat Melkor (or as he now names him Morgoth, Black Enemy of the World) and regain the Silmarils.  For this rebellion all of the Elves and Men in Middle Earth are left to the nonexistent mercy of Morgoth.  Essentially, they fight without the help of the Valar.

And in this rebellion of the Elves against the Valar is the start of the downfall of the world of Elves and Men.  For when Men appear, they too are drawn into wars against Morgoth and in these wars they all are thoroughly defeated and immiserated by the powers of evil beings.  Finally, a representative of Elves and Men, Earendil sails back to the Blessed Realm and successfully begs the Valar to defeat Morgoth and allow the peoples of Middle Earth to reclaim their lives.  And this is done.  Morgoth is defeated and cast out of Arda forever.

But in time evil reappears in the person of Morgoth’s lieutenant, Sauron.  He pretends to mend his ways but instead corrupts some of the Elves with the lure of knowledge and power and teaches them to forge rings of power.  Then he creates the One Ring to rule all of these lesser rings and makes war on Men and Elves for the mastery of Middle Earth.  But he is defeated by the Numenoreans.  These are the descendants of the Men who fought against Morgoth in that earlier war and were rewarded with a great island home, Numenor, halfway between Middle Earth and the Blessed Realm.  They were also rewarded with a lifespan three times that of mortal men.  They come to Middle Earth with a great army and defeat Sauron and take him captive.  But Sauron corrupts his captors too.  Fear of death was always the weakness of the Numenoreans.  They were friends of the Elves but they envied their virtually endless lifespan.  When the King of Numenor began to feel the end of his life approaching he gave heed to Sauron who told him he could wrest eternal life from the Valar by conquering the Blessed Realm.  When he attempts this war, the Valar, rather than be forced to kill Illuvatar’s children themselves, call on Him to act directly.  Illuvatar alters the world to remove the Blessed Realm from the physical plane of the world.  In fact, instead of a flat plane, the Earth now becomes a spherical globe from which only ships with special dispensation can any longer sail to the blessed Realm.  But this power is still reserved to the Elves in Middle Earth.  When they grow weary of the mortal lands, they can sail off the western shore of Middle Earth and find their way to the Blessed Realm which is now considered the proper home for the Elves.

As part of this reshaping and as a direct punishment for their sin, Numenor sinks below the sea.  Only the Numenoreans that had settled in Middle Earth and a few ships of the faithful who were not party to the King’s blasphemy were able to escape the downfall.  It is this remnant along with the remaining Elves in Middle Earth who now have to deal with Sauron.  Because when Numenor sank he lost his material form but his spirit returned to Middle Earth and joining to the One Ring which he had left in Middle Earth he was able to reform his body and then renew his war against Elves and Men.  And once again Elves and Men were victorious against him, though at a terrible cost.  The Kings of the Elves and Men, Gil-galad and Elendil are slain by Sauron along with the remaining strength of the Elves.  But Elendil’s son Isildur cuts the One Ring from Sauron’s hand, causing him to lose form again.  But Isildur refused to destroy the One Ring and it was lost in the Great River, Anduin.  And because it was not destroyed Sauron retuned and plagued Middle Earth until the time of the War of the Ring which is the subject matter of The Lord of the Rings.  And all down their long history the descendants of Elendil recreated the sins of their ancestors in Numenor and sought power and long life rather than wisdom and happiness.

Wow, that’s a long prologue.

If you look over that history what you’ll notice is that it parallels the Old Testament.  Of course, there are differences.  Fantasy elements like elves, and silmarils don’t occur in the Bible.  But you can find analogs for both types of angels, good and evil.  There is a flood sent to wipe out transgressors.  And the majority of the text describes a chosen people who forget their responsibilities and choose power and lust for earthly possession over wisdom and love.  And behind all of the misery stands Lucifer and his successful temptation of Adam and Eve.  And that is the basis for the story of Morgoth and Feanor and also the story of Sauron and the elven ringsmiths.  They were tempted by the lure of forbidden knowledge to trust the devil.

Tolkien wanted a fantasy history of the world that would allow him to incorporate the elves, goblins, dwarves and other creatures that inhabit European folklore.  But he wanted it to be a Christian universe.  And that is what he built.  In this world men must contend with a world in which evil is always present but can be defeated by the good people if they stand up against it and don’t allow the evil within themselves to corrupt their intentions.

And in the Lord of the Rings this can be seen in the fact that all of the greatest of the leaders of the good are afraid to even touch the Ring lest it corrupt them too.  It is only the simplest and least sophisticated of creatures, the hobbits, that can resist the ring the longest.

Casting this worldview behind the story allowed Tolkien the direction he needed to expand the Lord of the Rings into the epic length story it is.  In each of the chapters it is the challenge to ignite in each of the allies they meet, the determination to fight the evil no matter how impossible the odds may seem.  Often it is the simple hobbits declaring their simple-minded faith in doing the right thing that shames the sophisticated and jaded leaders who up until that point are almost relieved to surrender and allow evil to win the day.

And having the Christian framework behind the story also gives a sense of the familiar world that most of us have grown up with.  And also allows it to act as a contrast to the monstrous evil that Frodo and the other hobbits encounter.  So, although Tolkien’s story may resemble other fantasy worlds with respect to the creatures that inhabit it and the magic that exists, he has added a spiritual dimension that he believed would render the stories valid in a deeper sense.  From his point of view, they were in a sense true stories because they conveyed his understanding of how God interacted with mortals and angels in the actual world.  Interesting idea.

 

The Lord of the Rings – A Book Review – Part 3 – The Various Races or Peoples of Middle Earth

The Third Man (1949) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews , , , , , , , ,

If someone asked you to name a movie starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, I suppose your answer would be Citizen Kane.  Well, here’s a different answer, “The Third Man.”  And here’s another difference, Welles isn’t the filmmaker here, he’s just a supporting player.  Of course, being Orson Welles in 1948 means that “just” has a little more to it than just “just.”

Joseph Cotton is Holly Martins an American writer of dime novel westerns.  He arrives in Vienna which at the time is an occupied city divided into sectors controlled by the post-WWII victorious allies (the United States, Britain, France and Russia).  This is narrated for us along with the realities of such a conquered place.  The locals survive by supplementing their impoverished legal trades with black market transactions on everything from cigarettes to tires to adulterated pharmaceuticals.  Holly has come to Vienna to work for his childhood friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles).  It is never explained what exactly he was supposed to be employed as but that quickly becomes an academic question.

When Holly reaches the building where Harry lives, he’s told by the building porter that Harry was run over by a truck and killed a day or two before.  Holly goes to the burial and there we see the film’s other main characters although not all of them are introduced.  After the funeral Martins is approached by two British military policemen, Major Calloway, played by Trevor Howard and Sergeant Paine played with great cockney panache by Bernard Lee.  It turns out Sergeant Paine is a literary fan of Matins’ novels and indirectly facilitates the plot by introducing Martins to a literary society in Vienna that will bankroll Martins’ travelling expenses in return for a lecture on modern literature, a subject with which Martins is sorely unfamiliar.

But what Calloway and Paine are really interested in is warning Martins to leave Vienna to avoid the fallout from the police investigation into the criminal activities of his friend Harry Lime.  Martins is insulted by the statement that his friend was a criminal and decides to stay in Vienna to find out what really was the case with his friend and somehow clear his name with the police.

Through a meeting with one of Harry’s friends Holly finds out about Harry’s girlfriend Anna and he goes to see her to try and get the true story from her.  As Holly and Anna talk about Harry, we find out that she is like Holly an idealistic individual that Harry charmed and dragged into his dangerous but exciting life.  We begin to suspect that the police are right about Harry.  And together Holly and Anna discover some strange details about Harry’s death.  The building porter reveals to them that when Harry was run down by the truck, in addition to the two friends of Harry’s that stayed to give testimony to the police about the accident there was a “third man” who did not stay but rushed away.  And the porter’s story differed from the account that Holly was given by Harry’s friends, in ways that could only be obvious lies.

As the couple begin to ruffle feathers there begins some fallout.  Anna is visited by the police, including Calloway and Paine.  It turns out that she has a passport that Harry manufactured.  And because of this she will have to be deported to the Russian zone for eventual deportation to Czechoslovakia.  Further fallout occurs with the subsequent murder of the porter.  And finally, one of Harry’s “friends” threatens Holly if he continues looking into Harry’s death.  When Holly defies him, some thugs pursue Holly through the nightscape of bombed out Vienna.  He escapes and ends up at Anna’s apartment where we find that he is falling in love with her.  But just when the movie is drifting away from Harry, Anna’s cat down on the street below her apartment signals that a stranger is lurking and when a window in one of the adjoining apartments flashes on, it reveals that the lurker is Harry Lime.  Holly runs out to catch him but Lime escapes into an entrance to the sewers of Vienna.

And now Holly contacts Harry’s friends that he knows Harry is alive and wants to meet him in a public (safe) place; a giant Ferris Wheel nearby in the city.  And sure enough, Harry shows up and they get into one of the cars of the wheel and talk.  And now Holly learns the truth about Harry.  He is the criminal mastermind who runs a stolen penicillin racket.  Holly tells him that the police have discovered that a medical orderly that was in on the penicillin racket was murdered to provide Harry’s “body” for his faked death.  When Holly confronts him with the deaths that have occurred from the diluted drugs he sells Harry reveals just how callous and Machiavellian he truly is.  Harry reiterates his desire to have Holly join him in his criminal enterprise but he also clearly warns him that bringing in the police would be a very dangerous thing for Holly to do.

Holly decides that because of Harry’s poor treatment of Anna he will make a deal with Calloway to allow them to catch Harry in exchange for Calloway fixing Anna’s deportation problem.  When Anna finds out that her freedom is being purchased at the cost of Harry’s betrayal to the police, she rejects it and also rejects Holly’s affection.  She says she will remain loyal to Harry.  Holly then decides to leave Vienna and leave Harry, Anna and the police to their own devices.  But on the way to the airport Calloway brings Martins to the hospital where the child victims of Harry’s drugs are housed.  Their broken bodies fill Martin with remorse and he agrees to be the bait in a trap to catch Harry.  Harry shows up and at the last second Anna shows up and warns Harry away.  A pursuit follows with police guarding all the exits from the sewer system.  Holly, Calloway and Paine are in on the hunt.  Finally with Harry cornered, Holly too openly approaches Harry.  While Paine attempts to pull Holly back out of the line of fire, he is himself fatally shot by Lime.  Calloway manages to shoot Lime as he retreats to a last exit below the street.  Unable to exit the sewer grating he waits as Holly approaches him with Paine’s gun in hand.  Harry looks at Martins and nods his head in acceptance and a shot rings out followed by Martins walking back to the police line.  At the second burial of Harry Lime we see Calloway and Martins.  Anna is there separately.  Calloway has his jeep and is once again supposed to drive Martins to the airport.  But as they pass Anna, Martins tells Calloway to let him out.  The final shot is a long take of Anna approaching a waiting Martins and then continuing on without looking at him at all.

This is in many ways an utterly strange movie, especially from an American point of view.  There is something disturbing to the American sensibility about the degraded and broken aspect of Vienna.  This is communicated in the images of the broken cityscape but also in the furtiveness and guarded nature of the inhabitants’ speech and behavior.  Dishonesty and criminality and just the wretchedness of life in the shattered place pervades the movie.  Also, the film has a soundtrack that is a repetition of a song played on a zither.  This is a stringed Eastern European instrument that I can’t claim to enjoy all that much.

By contrast, the Anglophone characters, Martins, Calloway, Paine and eventually Lime are wholly different.  They exude energy and confidence.  They seem to be bits of normalcy suspended in this fog of hopelessness.  Even Harry Lime, the criminal mastermind has that American quality to speak openly and unashamedly even about his evil.  He swims in this putrid ocean but he hasn’t assumed the coloration of his surroundings.

As I said the story is very strange and I think off-putting.  But the scene at the Ferris Wheel is very interesting.  We get to hear the devil defend his trade.  And that I think is the interesting thing about the movie.  Calloway and Paine are fun in their proper Englishness.  The Holly/Anna relationship really didn’t do much for me.  So, the show is Holly and Harry.  And coming right down to it it’s Harry.

And the essence of Harry is his parting shot to Holly at the Wheel.  “Don’t be so gloomy.  After all it’s not that awful.   But what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.  In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce?  The cuckoo clock.  So long Holly.”

So Harry is the charming, interesting devil you know and like.  The point of the story, if there is a point, is that charming and familiar as he is, he’s still the devil and you can’t let him kill kids even for old times’ sake.

So am I recommending the movie?  Maybe I’m a bit of a xenophobe.  I’m put off by the atmosphere of the movie.  And I know that is mostly my parochial tastes.  Because after all this is a film noir and they’re always supposed to exude seediness and unwholesomeness.  I seem to excuse it in many of the film noirs from America.  So, let’s say I call this a good film, which it is, but throw in some cautions for those who are xenophobic like me and despise zither music.

The Lord of the Rings – A Book Review – Part 1

photog Book Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , , , , ,

Tonight, I was looking through my old posts to see if I had any unfinished series that I should continue on.  About three and a half years ago I wrote the first part of a review of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movie series.  I called it “Tolkien: A Very, Very Long Story – Part 1 – On the Screen vs. the Mind’s Eye.”  That’s a good name for a review of the Jackson films.  But going over it, I realized that starting with the films would short circuit an enormous amount of material in the books that I would much rather discuss first.  So that is what I’m going to do.  When I get back to the movies, I’ll reference these posts on the books as a baseline for my opinions on Tolkien and his remarkable creation.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I read the Lord of the Rings over fifty years ago.  Over time some of my opinions of the work have changed somewhat.  But my enjoyment of the story remains intact.  The world building that Tolkien did provides the reader with depth and scope to enjoy the story on several levels.  There is the quest for the destruction of the Ring.  There is the story of Aragorn.  There is the fading of the elves and the other non-human beings.  There is the mission of the wizards.  There is the Shire.  And most of all there is the War of the Ring.  And under all these themes we have the panorama of Middle Earth.  The quaint Shire, the lonely wilds of Eriador, the harrowing heights and abysmal depths of the Misty Mountains.  The grassland of Rohan, the grandeur of Gondor and the shadowy horror of Mordor.  Tolkien brings all these things alive in our minds.  And he populates this world with a crowd of characters of all manner of creatures.  We have several kinds of men and we have several kinds of elves.  We have dwarves and hobbits.  There are wizards and orcs and trolls and ents.  There are undead creatures and intelligent animals of several types; wargs (a kind of wolf), eagles and even an ancient and giant spider.

All of these creatures, wizards, elves, dwarves and orcs are now common characters in all the fantasy books and movies around.  But people forget that Tolkien was the one who resurrected these creatures from fairy tales and returned them to the level of mythical creatures full of menace and wonder.  The Lord of the Rings was the template for every epic fantasy, both well-written or awful that has emerged in the last half century.  And not taking anything away from some well-crafted creations that some talented writers have produced, none of them has displaced Middle Earth as the touchstone of this particular type of fantasy world.  Because Middle Earth is the creation of a worldview that incorporates the myths of northwest Europe and imbues them with the moral philosophy inherited from medieval Christianity.  The Shire is Britain.  Rohan is the Germanic Tribes.  Gondor is the legendary Roman Empire, once spanning Middle Earth from Britain to the Near East now ceding territory to younger tribes and hedged in by Eastern and Southern foes.  Mordor is the infidel barbarism at the edges of the world.  Tolkien was a gifted philologist and historian of medieval Europe with a deep and wide knowledge of its literature and folklore.  And he was a devout Christian.

This re-imagining of European history with the non-human peoples and the angelic and demonic creatures that are analogs of Christian theology make a very powerful mythic background to fill out the story of Frodo and his friends.  And that is the point I want to make in this introduction.  In future installments I’ll give my thoughts on various aspects of Tolkien’s story.  Since they’re my opinions I won’t apologize if I commit any sins against the Tolkien orthodoxies.  I’ve been thinking about this stuff for a very long time so I feel I have the right to have my say.  But I also welcome comments both agreeing and disagreeing with my opinions.

 

The Lord of the Rings – A Book Review – Part 2 – Tolkien’s Creation Story

High Sierra (1941) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews , , , , , , , ,

High Sierra was Humphrey Bogart’s first starring role.  He plays Roy Earle, a veteran gangster sent to prison in Chicago for life.  But after ten years one of his old bosses, Big Mac, manages to get him a pardon and arranges for a car and some money to allow Roy to come to California to head up a jewelry heist in a wealthy desert resort where the ultra-wealthy winter.  Mac has recruited a couple of young small-time thieves Babe and Red to assist Earle.  The other part of the ring is the hotel night manager Louis Mendoza who will provide the inside information.

But Roy gets a surprise when he arrives at the meeting place, a mountain cabin park.  Babe has picked up a girl named Marie from a dance hall and brought her along. Roy angrily tells his crew and the girl that she has to go.  Marie, played by Ida Lupino, goes to talk to Roy and convinces him that she is the most trustworthy member of the crew.  She admits that she knows the plan of the heist because Mendoza talks too much.  After a few more incidents between Marie and Babe and Red, Roy decides to have her stay in his cabin and lays down the law with the two young men.

After this a romantic relationship begins between Roy and Marie, although he warns her that love is not a possibility for her with him.  Roy’s heart has been caught by a young farm girl that he has met while travelling to California.  Velma is travelling with her grandfather and grandmother from Ohio to live with her recently remarried mother in Los Angeles.  Roy has had the chance to help the family out as they struggle to pay for the trip cross country.  Their country roots remind him of his own family from rural Indiana and Velma’s unspoiled beauty and unaffected manner charms him.  The girl has a clubbed foot and Roy enlists a mob doctor he knows to arrange for a surgeon to operate on the girl’s foot to repair the problem.  But after the surgery Velma declines his offer to marry him.  She has a boyfriend back in Ohio that she is still interested in.  Roy takes the refusal hard but promises to come back when she has healed from her surgery to see her walk and say goodbye to the family.

Finally, conditions at the hotel are right for the heist.  Marie and Roy take one car and Babe and Red in another.  While Babe and Red are breaking open the safety deposit boxes Roy guards the lobby and Marie is in one of the cars watching for trouble.  She warns them of the approach of a late-night couple arriving at the hotel and Roy holds them on one of the lobby couches along with the bell boy.  But finally, an armed security guard enters.  Roy gets the drop on him but when the scream of the woman on the couch distracts Roy the guard pulls his gun and they exchange shots.  The guard is fatally wounded and Roy is struck on the side.

Rattled by the shooting Mendoza refuses to remain behind to claim his innocence as the plan required and instead goes in the car with Babe and Red.  The two cars take off but the car with the three men takes the wrong road and crashes along a hairpin turn.  Babe and Red are killed and Mendoza injured.  Mendoza is picked up by the police and Roy and Marie return to the cabin without incident.  Roy goes to visit his friend the mob doctor who tends to his wounds.  Then he goes to Mac but finds he’s died of a heart attack.  Following instructions Mac had given him earlier he passes the gems onto a mob contact who gives Roy a little money in advance and the promise that the deal with the big boss would be transacted soon and Roy would get his cut.  While waiting for this Roy goes to see Velma and meets her fiancé whom he immediately takes a strong dislike to.  Velma berates Roy for his jealousy and he leaves.  Now Roy sees Marie’s loyalty and love for him in a new light and promises that as soon as they get their money, they’ll start a new life together.

But all his plans fall apart as the newspapers are full of the story of the heist.  Mendoza has confessed and named Roy as the mastermind of the plot and the murderer of the guard.  Roy puts Marie on a bus to escape the dragnet and promises to catch up with her later when he gets clear.  But Roy is soon identified and the police pursuit corners him in a blocked pass in the Sierra Nevada.  Roy climbs up into the hills and holds the police off with a machine gun.  Marie hears report of the stand-off and heads back to be near him.  A reporter recognizes her from her description and the police try to persuade her to call to Roy to give himself up.  But she refuses.

The police manage to get a sharp shooter with a high-powered rifle on the cliff that overlooks Roy’s position.  And when Roy’s dog Pard escapes from Marie and runs toward Roy’s voice as he banters with the police the dog’s barking reveals to Roy that Marie must be nearby.  He runs out onto the exposed rocks calling her name and is killed by the sniper.

This movie is a sort of combination gangster movie and melodrama.  Even though Ida Lupino got the top billing because of her established reputation at the time really the movie belongs to Bogart.  He plays the part as naturally as any of his later roles.  The plot moves along pretty well and even the Velma plot line isn’t too distracting.  At times I think Lupino is given a little too much melodrama to successfully portray but I think the movie holds up pretty well.  And there are a few character actors in supporting roles; Henry Hull as Doc Banton, Henry Travers as Velma’s grandfather and Donald MacBride as Big Mac that add human interest to the story.  One sort of interesting bit of trivia, the dog Pard was played by Zero, Bogart’s own pet dog.

I think Bogart has half a dozen movies in his resume that are better than High Sierra.  That being said this is a good movie.  I can recommend it.