The Fountainhead (1949) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

The Fountainhead is a novel by Ayn Rand about an architect named Howard Roark who embodies Rand’s ideal of the individualist.  It was made into a movie with Rand providing the screen play.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Gary Cooper is Howard Roark, a young man who wants to build buildings where the form corresponds to the function of the building and the materials it is made from.  But the architectural profession demands that only the established patterns, like classical columns and facades be used.  Unwilling to compromise on these points he is scorned by his profession and denied any commissions by the corporate establishment and is forced to get work wherever he can find; a gas station here, a factory there.  But slowly he gains a reputation as an innovator who can build modern buildings that are structurally sound and gracefully beautiful.

During these years he meets friends and enemies that help or hinder his career and he meets his soul mate; Dominique Francon (played by Patricia Neal) who is the daughter of a prominent architect and is the first to recognize Roark’s great talent and integrity.  But because she sees that the world will try to destroy him, she leaves him to spare herself the agony of watching it happen.  He meets Gail Wynand (played by Raymond Massey) the owner of the New York Banner, a tabloid newspaper that profits from yellow journalism.  He is also Dominique Francon’s new husband.  Wynand recognizes Roark’s talent and hires him to build a mansion for him in the country where he will live with his wife.  Neither Dominique nor Roark keep their former relationship from Wynand and in fact Roark and Wynand become close friends.

Working for Wynand at the Banner is Ellsworth M. Toohey, the newspaper’s architectural critic (if you can imagine such a thing).  He is also Ayn Rand’s mouthpiece for the collectivist ideology.  He believes that individualists like Roark are criminals for defying the will of the majority and should be treated as such.

Eventually we reach a crisis when Roark agrees to design a low-income housing project on the condition that his design would be adhered to completely.  When the powers that be betray him and change his designs, he dynamites the buildings before they are completed and is put on trial.  Wynand attempts to defend Roark in the Banner but Toohey organizes a boycott of the paper and Wynand is defeated and must recant his defense of Roark.

In the climax of the picture Roark gives a summation speech to the jury defending every man’s right to the fruits of his labor, in his case the design of his buildings and the agreement that they would not be altered.  And of course, he is found not guilty.  Wynand sells the Banner and uses the funds to commission Roark to build the tallest building in the world and then shoots himself.  The movie ends with Dominique Roark taking a construction elevator to the top of the million story Wynand Building tower with Howard Roark standing there with his hands on his hips while the wind whips his shirt.

O good grief.  Where to start?  Ayn Rand was a novelist and social critic who proposed a theory of human values that she called “objectivism.”  It seems to be a justification for a libertarian view of human interaction.  It espouses individualism and the right of everyone to live life according to the individual’s free will without constraint as long as no one else’s existence is constrained by this behavior.  For Rand, the antithesis of objectivism and the epitome of evil is communism.  Since Rand had grown up under the Soviet regime, she knew something about how communism worked.  She was also a novelist and her books reflected her philosophy.  And Howard Roark was one of the exemplars of her philosophy.  And the book is a very interesting read in some respects.  But subtlety was not one of her attributes.  There are no shades of gray.  Howard Roark and Dominque Francon are demigods of individualist virtue and Ellsworth M. Toohey is a communist slug dripping slime wherever he goes.  But even this would be a starting point for a movie.  What is missing though is anything like actual human behavior.  The characters are there more or less only to mouth talking points and diatribes for their particular points of view.  Even the romantic entanglements are presented as examples of how these mythical objectivist supermen and women would behave.  At no point can you find yourself suspending disbelief and becoming immersed in the characters.  It’s more like one of those public service film documentaries from the fifties where you are told about how the air raid shelter will allow us to survive World War III and get on with our lives in the glorious future that awaits us.  I enjoy watching the movie as a lark.  But except as a philosophical treatise on Ayn Rand and objectivism I don’t think it can be recommended for entertainment value.

Sergeant York (1941) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

“Sergeant York” stars Gary Cooper as the eponymous WWI hero.  The story relates his pre-war life and shows how he overcame a wild youth to “find religion.”  He lives in a log cabin with his mother and younger brother and sister.  Being hillbillies, the soil of his family land is very poor.  When he finds a girl, he wants to marry he sets his mind to buying some “bottom land.”  But a rival in love frustrates this ambition and it was when he was set to settle this feud with his rifle that divine intervention steps in.  Lightning knocks him off his horse and damages his rifle and Alvin ends up at the church where Pastor Rosier Pile played by Walter Brennan, welcomes Alvin back to the Lord’s flock.

But when America enters World War I Alvin York has to somehow square his biblical aversion to killing with his duties as an American citizen.  This conflict and how the reality of the modern battlefield affects him is the climax of the film.  As was stated in his Congressional Medal of Honor citation Alvin single-handedly killed 28 German soldiers with his rifle and pistol and in doing so forced the surrender of 132 Germans and 35 machine guns.  In the movie York explains to the investigators of his actions that he killed the Germans to stop the guns.  As he explains it his actions were meant to save lives.

After the war Alvin returns home and to his great surprise a grateful nation hails him as a hero with a ticker tape parade down Wall Street in New York City.  But even more importantly his home state of Tennessee presents him with a beautiful house on fertile land in his hometown.

Sergeant York was made on the eve of America’s entry into WW II.  In fact, Pearl Harbor was attacked while the movie was still in the theaters.  It is claimed that thousands of young men went directly from the movie theater to the enlistment station.  It could be defensibly claimed that it is a propaganda film for the war effort.  Nevertheless, York’s war time actions were not exaggerated in any way.  Obviously, the supernatural basis of his religious conversion is pure Hollywood but doubtless the portrayal of Alvin York as a simple backwoods man was quite accurate.  The reality of poverty in the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee was real and the importance of family and religion was true.

Gary Cooper’s portrayal of York is somewhat broad and even comical at times but I find that is one of the charms of the film.  The other actors in the Tennessee scenes equally play up the hillbilly stereotypical behaviors.  But recognizing those characteristics I still recommend this movie as a fascinating personal story that shows the collision of an older world with the 20th century.  Sergeant York was an American original.

What’s the Definition of a Movie Star?

I’m sure there are movie critics who have their own takes on this question.  I’ve never thought much about who the “real” movie stars were because what I was interested in was which were the good movies.  But recently I’ve been watching some old movies that were not in the top 100 movies of all time.  In fact, some of them were pretty bad.  The plots were hackneyed and the scripts were poorly written and some of the actors and actresses were pretty awful.

You might ask why I would do this.  It’s a combination of things.  Firstly, they were on Turner Classic Movies and I get that channel on my cable television subscription.  But the other reason is that I’ve just seen the good movies so often I need a break.  Even a great movie can be worn out by too frequent viewing.  So, I’ve been watching some stinkers.

I recorded a couple of movies with William Powell that I’d never heard of.  One was called “Lawyer Man” that also starred Joan Blondell.  It’s an early film from 1932 and the plot includes all kinds of stereotypical plot elements, dialog and characters that fairly scream “B” movie.  I wouldn’t recommend this movie highly although it was amusing because of the leads.

But what was obvious to me was that William Powell was a movie star.  And what that means is that regardless of the role or movie William Powell is in, he’s William Powell.  Whether he’s a lawyer or a private detective or a doctor or a stockbroker or a down on his luck everyman, he’s, unmistakably, the same person.  The persona that Powell had created is what the producers and directors wanted from him in all his films.  In one film he might be a hobo, in another a rich nobleman but in both cases, these were just the vicissitudes of life and they didn’t change his character.

This differs from a real actor like Lawrence Olivier.  When he plays Henry V, he’s a gallant hero.  When he plays Richard III, he’s a heartless monster.  And when he’s Hamlet he’s a lost soul.  Olivier becomes what the part requires.  But when we’re looking to spend an hour with a witty, pleasant, intelligent man we’d rather have William Powell.  He’ll work his way through the plot and whenever he’s on the screen we’ll be pleased.  The character William Powell plays is the man you’d wish was sitting next to you on a long train ride.  He’ll have stories to tell and probably has a deck of cards in his coat pocket and when his wife or girlfriend shows up, she’ll be a smart cute funny dame.  And if an armed robber shows up in the railway car Powell will manage to knock him out and tie him up with no apparent effort.

The movie stars I can think of were all of the sort that produced a character.  Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant always played the same part with slight differences to align with the plot and character details.  But they almost never were cast against type.  Of course, these were the pictures they made once they had reached star status.  As journeymen they had to take whatever roles they were given.  You can see this transition in someone like Humphrey Bogart.  When he started out, he had to play a lot of vicious gangsters and there was very little nuance in these roles.  But once he had done the Maltese Falcon, he was allowed to find his “type.”  He became the tough guy with a brain.  And at that point audiences knew what to expect from Bogey.

As I said, I generally am looking for a movie with a good plot and decent acting.  But there is something to be said for trying to match a movie to a mood.  If I need to relax and enjoy a reuben sandwich and a cold drink I’ll probably want a Western with John Wayne or Gary Cooper.  And If I need my spirits lifted, I’ll watch a Jimmy Stewart film or a W.C. Fields farce.  But if I’m ever homesick for the New York City that used to exist, I’ll look for a William Powell movie.  And maybe it never really existed but with William Powell to walk you through it will feel like home.  At least to me.