1955: Marty

Even the poster is unassuming! Seriously, compared to On the Waterfront, this is a terrible poster.

“See, dogs like us, we ain’t such dogs as we think we are.” – Marty (Ernest Borgnine) giving the ultimate in left handed compliments, Marty

If you were looking for a trend in the Best Pictures from the mid-1950s, average people struggling to get by in the big, cruel world would be a good starting point. From Here to Eternity and On the Waterfront both had everyday Joe’s toiling against corrupt systems, lost among the bigness of society. 1955’s Best Picture, Marty, took this new fascination with the struggles of the “little guy” even farther. One of the more unusual Best Pictures in terms of scope and theme, Marty is an unglamorous tale of an unglamorous man with unglamorous dreams. It’s a sweet little movie that is lifted by a great performance by the year’s Best Actor, Ernest Borgnine.

Marty is a 34-year-old bachelor who still lives with his mother in inner city New York. The oldest of a large brood of siblings, Marty is the only one who hasn’t married, causing him to be constantly bombarded with the question “When are you going to get married, Marty?” Marty has more or less given up on any aspirations of love, and has settled into a boring, uncontended life with some equally bored pals. After being guilted by his mother, he attends a dance club, where after another night of rejection, he meets Clara (Betsy Blair), a plain Jane school teacher who has been abandoned by her blind date and also carries the baggage of years of rejection. The two have an instant connection and spend the whole night talking.

But events are conspiring against Marty. In a seemingly unrelated subplot, Marty’s mother has agreed to take in her sister, Catherine. Catherine had been living with her son and daughter-in-law and fighting with them constantly, turning all parties involved quite bitter. Catherine warns Marty’s mother that all children turn against their mothers when they finally find love and wouldn’t you know it? Suddenly Marty has found love and his mom isn’t so sad to have a bachelor son around. So after being lambasted by his mom and jealous neighborhood pals, Marty decides to cut Clara loose until a last minute change of heart moves us to a happy ending.

Marty, like its title character is a very plain sort of movie. It’s mostly a slice-of-life piece about 24 hours in Marty’s life. Many of the characters – the jolly, plump mug with a sweet heart, the nagging worrying mother, the bitter old widow – come off like stereotypes today, although it is possible (although probably not true) this is the movie where a lot of these stereotypes come from. The movie lives and dies on Marty’s shoulders and in this case it is very lucky because Ernest Borgnine is GREAT. He is instantly likeable and sweet. You feel sorry for him when he is shunned for a dance and happy when he’s excited by the possibility of real love (“I’m going to have a date for New Years!”).

I felt the story itself was a little weak. It felt both rushed, padded at times, and oddly structured. The movie is only 94 minutes long – the shortest Best Picture in Oscar history – and Marty’s major conflict, should he stick by Clara, only comes around in the final twenty minutes. In a lot of ways, this movie is a lot like Sunrise where in the first third of the movie a lot happens, in the second third the characters enjoy there happiness but there isn’t much in the way of actual stuff happening, and in the final third, a sudden, near-tragedy occurs that almost derails everything. John Candy made a very similar movie to this in the early 1990s called Only the Lonely and its story took place over the course of months, not 24 hours. Marty’s decision to go back to Clara is unsatisfying because we only see him call her; we don’t actually get to see them reunited.

Another strange aspect is the ages. The bitter aunt is said to be only 56, but she gimps like a rheumatic 80-year-old. It also doesn’t really make sense she’d be abandoned and bounced around like she is, given she should still be spry at that age.

I liked Marty for certain reasons. One crazy night movies hold a special charm for me, even if the night isn’t that crazy. As noted I thought Borgnine was great. And much like the moral of the movie, it’s nice to root for the little guy to win Best Picture on occasion.

Other Oscars: Ernest Borgnine, Best Actor; Delbert Mann, Best Director; Best Writing, Screenplay

Box Office: $3 Million (Not Top Ten for the Year, which had a cut-off of $4.6 million)

Other Notable Movies of 1955: Cinerama Holiday$, Mister Roberts*, Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls, Lady and the Tramp, The Seven Year Itch, Blackboard Jungle, Love is a Many Splendored Thing*, Picnic*, The Rose Tattoo*, East of Eden, Davy Crockett, The Kentuckian, It’s Always Fair Weather, The Man With the Golden Arm, Rebel Without a Cause

*Best Picture Nominee

$Top Grossing Movie: $10 million

1954: On the Waterfront

“I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it,” – Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), On the Waterfront.

Holy poop – what a poster! It looks like a dime pulp novel from the 30s and Johnny Friendly is an eyeless demon.

If Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet is considered the pinnacle of Classic Hollywood/stage acting, the emergence of Marlon Brando and the “Method” actors blew everything people considered “good” acting away just a few short years later. This new style of more naturalistic, less histrionic acting is epitomized in 1954’s Best Picture On the Waterfront. Although this movie has garnered some controversy in later years, taken at face value On the Waterfront is a fantastic movie with a tour de force performance by Marlon Brando that includes one of the single most quoted scenes in movie history (at least from a scene that’s not in Casablanca).

The taxicab scene between Charley (left) and Terry is one of the most famous in film history.

Terry Malloy (Brando) is a dim-bulb dockworker and former boxer on the titular waterfront. Terry is a gentle soul (he raises pigeons, just like Mike Tyson, another former boxer!), but his brother, Charley (Rod Steiger) is the right hand man to corrupt union president Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). Johnny terrorizes the dockworkers, stealing from their paychecks and withholding work if they go against him. As the movie opens, Charley and Johnny use an unwitting Terry to lure Joey, another dockworker, to his death because Joey was going to testify against Johnny. Terry feels guilty about his minor role in Joey’s death, especially after meeting Joey’s sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint), who he falls in love with.

Terry is subpoenaed by investigators regarding Joey’s death and Friendly’s corrupt activities in general. Father Barry (Karl Malden) a good-heartened, one-of-the-boys’ priests, tries to convince Terry that testifying is the right thing to do. Charley tries to convince Terry to keep quiet, but fails, leading to Charley’s own murder. Terry finally testifies against Friendly. At first, the dockworkers turn their backs on Terry, but when he refuses to back down, even after a vicious beating from Friendly’s thugs, the men gain respect for him.

Lee J. Cobb as Johnny Friendly. He may be an SOB, but he’s a pretty smooth operator in his own right.

I loved pretty much everything about this movie. It’s a simple but effective story (man struggles with conscience) filled with rich characters. Sweet, simple Terry is a great character, a tough guy with a heart of gold who finally learns to respect himself enough to do the right thing, even if nobody else does. Even though we mostly think of Marlon Brando as a mushy-mouthed weirdo today, he was rightfully considered a great actor (and sex symbol!) in the 1950s who changed acting with his more natural, nuanced and semi-improvised performances.

The movie starts out rather slowly – much of the first house sets up Terry’s conflict and establishes his budding romance with Edie. But this part is devoted to character-work so that we understand everyone’s motivation and grow to care about Terry, who could come off as an unlikeable dunce without the establishment of his softer personality. The movie becomes not just about a man wrestling with his conscience, but about Terry’s struggles to earn and deserve Edie’s love.

And then there is the taxi cab scene. A scene so great that the On the Waterfront DVD includes a 25 minute documentary about it (five times longer than the actual scene itself). In the scene, Charley confronts Terry about his subpoena and basically attempts to strong-arm him into not testifying. But Terry, instead of reacting with rage, is hurt by the betrayal and lets spill a torrent of pent-up disgust and blame at his brother for convincing him to throw his boxing matches and give up a chance at a better life beyond the waterfront (hence this essay’s opening quote). The two men give an amazing, tear-jerking performance as brothers torn apart by greed.

 

Another famous scene among Method acting scholars (Methodists?) is this one where Brando inexplicably tries on Eva Marie Saint’s dropped glove. It does not have the emotional impact of the taxi scene.

In a vacuum, On the Waterfront is a great movie, period. However, over the years, it has gained something of a negative reputation. Its director, Elia Kazan testified against men in Hollywood who had belonged to the Communist Party, basically getting those he named blackballed from the industry (the infamous Blacklist). Although Kazan denied it, many see this movie as his answer to those who criticized his testimony, since the moral quandary that sets the movie in motion is whether or not Terry should testify. Some also claim the movie is anti-union, since the dockworkers union is blatantly corrupt, but that’s not really the case. Many times, the men state they want to be a “legit, up-and-up” union and Father Barry says that no other union in the country would stand for such practices. In this regard, the movie is not anti-union, but more anti-mafia, a pretty commonly held sentiment (at least until 1972, when we’ll see Mr. Brando again).

Whatever the personal motivations of the filmmakers, I cannot help but hold On the Waterfront in the highest regard. I was surprised at how much is really moved and entertained me. This is definitely a high point in the history of the Best Picture award.

Trivia: On the Waterfront won 8 Oscars, tying the record (at the time) with Gone With the Wind and the previous year’s From Here to Eternity (Starting a movie with a preposition is a good way to win Oscars, apparently). Cobb, Malden and Steiger were all nominated for Best Supporting Actor – and none of the three won!

Other Oscars: Elia Kazan, Best Director; Marlon Brando, Best Actor; Best Story and Screenplay; Eva Marie Saint, Best Supporting Actress; Best Art Direction/Set Direction (Black and White); Best Cinematography (Black and White); Best Film Editing

Box Office: $4.5 Million (Tied for 14^th place)

Other Notable Films of 1954: White Christmas$; The Caine Mutiny*; The Country Girl*; Seven Brides for Seven Brothers* ; Three Coins in the Fountain*; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; Rear Window; Dial M For Murder; The Barefoot Contessa; A Star is Born; Sabrina;

$: Top Grossing Picture of the Year ($30 Million)

*Best Picture Nominee

1953: From Here to Eternity

Pvt. Prewitt: I love the Army.

Alma: But it sure doesn’t love you.

Pvt. Prewitt: A man loves a thing, that don’t mean it’s got to love him back.

Alma: Yeah, but a person can stand just so much.

Pvt. Prewitt: You love a thing, you’ve got to be grateful.

-Pvt. Robert Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) and Alma (Donna Reed) discuss Army merits, From Here to Eternity

 

When I was 16 or 17 I vividly recall the Entertainment Weekly review of The English Patient describing the movie as “less than the sum of its parts.”

“That’s a ludicrous notion,” I thought to myself, because I freakin’ loved The English Patient. (Do I still love it? I guess we’ll find out together, a scant 43 movies from now!) But I liked the actual phrasing – less than the sum of its parts – and have kept it in mind ever sense.

From Here to Eternity is perfectly described in my mind as less than the sum of its part. As I was watching it, I was enthralled. This was a much different movie than I was expecting, full of macho vigor and real pathos and conflict. But when it was over, I was left felling sort of empty, like what the hell did I just watch? To be more specific, what was the point of it all?

The famous beach romance scene with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr

From Here to Eternity is most famous for a single scene of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Karr making out on a Hawaiian beach while waves run over them (copied and parodied endlessly), but the movie is far more manly than such a scene would suggest. This is a movie about rugged career army men featuring torture, fist fights, knife fights, adultery, air battles and prostitutes. Honestly, what more could you want out of a movie?

From Here to Eternity starts with Private Robert Prewitt transferring to a new base in Hawaii in early 1941. Prewitt was in the bugle corps but a petty slight led him to transfer to the rifle corps. Commanding officer Captain Dana Holmes wants Prewitt to fight on his squad’s boxing team, but Prewitt refuses because he severely injured a man boxing once. In retaliation, Holmes and his goon squad of underlings torture Prewitt with physical endurance trials. His only friend is the goofy, easy going Maggio (Frank Sinatra).

Holmes himself is an absentee commander who rarely is present on base, leaving most of the day-to-day operations to Sgt. Milton Ward (Burt Lancaster), who is sympathetic to Prewitt’s situation but refuses to rock the boat for fear of disputing his own station. Ward despises Holmes but falls for the Captain’s neglected wife Karen (Deborah Kerr). The two begin a torrid affair which could cost both dearly if caught.

Prewitt meanwhile falls in love with local prostitute Alma (Donna Reed). Despite her own low station, Alma dreams of getting away from the island and marrying into high class society. Maggio runs afoul of a cruel stockade sergeant and through a series of events ends up in the stockade and is eventually killed. Still refusing to join the boxing team, Prewitt hunts down the stockade sergeant and stabs him to death but is injured himself. Both Prewitt and Ward end up breaking up with their respective mistresses when neither will leave the army. After the base is bombed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, Prewitt tries to sneak back onto base (he was still recovering from the knife fight) but is killed by guards. Alma uses his death as a way to leave the island, slightly modifying the details of his death to make him a hero and her as the widow of a martyr. Ward notes bitterly that the boxing championships will now be cancelled and Prewitt’s prideful struggle to not join the team was pointless.

Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra and Montgomery Clift

Pointless is actually how I would describe From Here to Eternity. The characters are mostly tied together by the stupidity and dereliction of duty of Captain Holmes, but Holmes himself is barely a character in the movie, almost an absentee villain. I guess the point is that under Holmes absence – or the absence of any leader – something close to anarchy will result due to the cruelness and stupidity of human nature. It’s a pretty deep metaphor and the movie could use a few more deft touches to pull it off. The parallel stories of Prewitt’s physical torture and Ward’s love affair never really tie together well (except both happen because Holmes is a scumbag). Prewitt’s death is particularly infuriating because it’s such an abrupt and inconclusive end to his story. I guess the point is that Prewitt finally succumbs to his savagery by punching out one of his tormentors and stabbing the stockade sergeant. But his actual death feels disconnected from his conflict throughout the film. It would have been better had he died in one of the aforementioned fights than just being shot by guards later.

I hate to slag on this movie because I really did like it while I watch. As noted, it’s a very manly movie with a lot of strong characters and real conflict. Prewitt’s struggle to not fight is a GREAT story. Ward, silent and tormented by the conflict of duty against love, is a great performance from the stone faced, granite-jawed Burt Lancaster. And yet, the movie ultimately left me frustrated. I think it was the ending. I don’t mind that the lead died but his death didn’t really play into the movie at hand. But then maybe the whole point of the movie is the pointlessness of life.

Clift and Sinatra

Trivia: From Here to Eternity was Frank Sinatra’s comeback after declining sales as a singer, and his landing the role in the movie was rumored to be because of mob ties, a rumor that lead to the famous “horse head” scene in fellow best picture winner The Godfather. Most sources say Sinatra actually got the role with the help of wife Ava Gardner. At any rate, the role put Sinatra back on the map and he won Best Supporting Actor for it.

Oscar Trivia: From Here to Eternity won 8 Oscars, a tie for a record at the time. Other awards included Best Supporting Actor (Sinatra), Best Supporting Actress (Reed), Best Director (Fred Zinnemann), Best Writing, Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Black and White, Best Sound Recording, Best Film Editing

Box Office: $30.5 million, third highest total for the year

Other Notable Films of 1953: The Robe*, Julius Caesar*, Roman Holiday*, Shane*,Peter Pan$, House of Wax, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire, Hondo, Stalag 17,

*Best Picture Nominee

$Top Grossing Film ($87.6 Million)