A Couch With a View
Video offerings from
Lovell Mahan-Moutaw

The Hill (Sidney Lumet, 1965).

Sean Connery and some other guys, including Ossie Davis, are sent to a military prison during WWII. They are there to learn how to be good soldiers again. Or good soldiers at all. Sean is a master sergeant and wears a really cool beret and has the only hairy chest in history that makes me salivate. "The hill" of the title is a man-made hill of sand that the boys have to run up and down, up and down, up and down (and up and down) fully dressed and carrying their kits. Did I mention this prison is in Africa? Did I say that this movie was two hours and three minutes? Our boys are driven on by "staff," prison wardens essentially, whose job is to make them good soldiers by breaking them and then building them back up again.

This is when I stop being flippant. Pay attention. Sean is in prison because he refused to take his men on a suicide mission, and lost it with his commanding officer. He is a career soldier who has begun to question authority. Not good for one's future in this field. Having the job of breaking a man can cause some serious side-effects for those with a bent toward sadism and those who might be corrupted by a power they think is absolute. Things can go awry. And they do. In a better world, a world in which no one I know lives, courage can conquer anything. But human nature stands in the way.

This movie is difficult to watch, painful in parts, tightly written (Ray Rigby), magnificently directed by the veteran Lumet, and beautifully acted. Ossie Davis stands out as the black West Indies soldier who laughs in the face of racism and stands for what is right but eventually gives in to the primal anger of being wronged. Sean Connery is like I've never seen him before as the quiet, heroic sergeant who challenges a system in which he no longer believes. Michael Redgrave and Harry Andrews both turn in fantastic performances at opposite ends of the spectrum.

I hated this movie with all of my heart and was fascinated by it until its final moments. Brilliant.

84 Charing Cross Road
(David Hugh Jones, 1986).

Anne Bancroft plays an antique book lover in New York City who discovers a great source for her book collecting passion in Marks & Co., a book store located at 84 Charing Cross Road, in London. Thus begins a beautiful long-distance relationship between Anne's character, Helen, and the manager of the antique book shop, Frank, played by Anthony Hopkins. Through a series of letters, Helen and Frank become friends, the other employees at the book store and Frank's wife begin to correspond with Helen, and life goes on over the decades through correspondence and book orders. Based on the true story of Helen Hanff's correspondence with Frank Doel, this movie is charming, sweet and sad. Bancroft is Bancroft, witty and spunky and adorable. Hopkins is Hopkins, reserved and charming and communicating so much without uttering a word. Simply stated, this is a moving, lovely, delightful film that will make you smile and cry. My favorite kind.

High Plains Drifter
(Clint Eastwood, 1972).

Clint Eastwood stars as "The Stranger" in this, his second directorial effort. The Stranger arrives in Lago, a town with a secret, and in the first few minutes of the film, he kills three men and rapes a woman. Since he's cool, squinty-eyed, a good shot, and talks and walks like Clint Eastwood, the town decides to give him anything he wants to protect them from three bad men they've done wrong who happen to be about ready to be released from prison. But there is that blasted secret, of course, and a whole slew of people who deserve what's coming to them. Including the woman who got raped (apparently) and anyway, even though the rape lasted all of a minute, and The Stranger barely moved except to open his pants, she ended up liking it. And coming back for more.

Don't even get me started.

Anyway, you learn pretty quickly by the way he's behaving that The Stranger isn't a stranger at all but the Lion of the Lord coming to whup some divine retribution on the townfolk's asses. There is a lot of wind whistling through - well, nothing much, since these are the high plains, you know - but wind whistles and dust blows and faces are sweaty (except the Stranger's, but God wouldn't let his angels sweat). As if the whole desolate scene weren't enough to give you a hint, the music more than makes up for it.

I saw most of the movie being played out to apologize for the rape. (See here, she deserved it...and don't you see, she's bad, she's a shrew, she's a whore, she spits at everyone - sometimes for no reason, and she wears makeup and boas. Don't you see?) But then again, I'm sensitive to that kind of thing. The rape was unnecessary to the story, so the film has a whole helluva lot of apologizing to do.

Regardless of that bit of stupidity, the movie is pretty obvious, albeit not totally lame. Clint is very intense. I tried really, really hard to get over the beginning . The rape seems all the more ridiculous because without it he would have been a pretty cool character. I imagine, though, if I must, that The Stranger needed to seem totally despicable - and the townsfolk who allowed and even participated in arranging their guilty little secret had no qualms about letting their women bear the brunt of retribution, so it serves also to further define their despicableness. Okay, maybe I'm focusing on the wrong thing. Sue me. Damned if it wouldn't have been a pretty cool film without that, though - it just ruined the whole thing for me.

Mister Roberts
(John Ford & Mervyn LeRoy, 1955).

Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell and Jack Lemmon are on a cargo ship in the South Pacific during WWII. Their job is tedious and thankless. If that isn't enough, the captain (Cagney) is a petty, ambitious tyrant (the description on the video box, but fitting enough for me to steal).

In the earlier portions of the film, I was concerned. Fonda, who hadn't done any major work in films for six years, was playing it like he was on stage performing for a theater audience. This, perhaps, was because he had played Mister Roberts in the long-running Broadway play. After some time, it seemed like he shaped up - or it may have been the extraordinary supporting cast propping him up.

Regardless, this picture was magnificent in the acting arena. I wish I could say that the writing gave the actors something to chew on, but the story is not the story here. Jack Lemmon, William Powell and James Cagney are the story, especially Lemmon as Ensign Pulver. Just thinking about his look towards Fonda when Fonda is awarded a medal gives me shivers down my spine. And if I had seen this movie before the memorial tribute at the Oscars I would have burst into tears. I watched that scene six times and cried throughout. But you could throw kudos at Powell and Cagney and yes, Fonda, and you could throw them liberally.

Operation Petticoat
(Blake Edwards, 1959).

A World War II captain (Cary Grant) is stuck with a decrepit submarine, and has to take a stranded group of Army nurses onboard. This is a cute little piece of fluff that apparently was made to showcase Tony Curtis' chest and Cary Grant's brilliance delivering droll lines. Not worth it for the chest, definitely worth it for the droll lines. It's cheering to see an older movie where the women weren't (all) made into hapless idiots. I laughed, at Grant, who is, was, and always will be, darling.

The Candidate (Michael Ritchie, 1972).

Robert Redford plays a young lawyer working for the poor and disenfranchised, who also happens to be the son of a governor and damn good looking to boot. Peter Boyle plays the campaign manager who molds Redford into a candidate for Senator, and shocks us into the knowledge that Richard Schiff, who plays the communications director on The West Wing, is riffing on Boyle's performance, yet strangely managing to improve on his model.

Notable aspects of the film include its 70s fashions of clothing and home decor that makes you long for that era, a performance from Redford that is fine in more than just the moments when his shirts and sweaters are stretched nicely over his muscles, and a line from Melvyn Douglas that sums up everything: When the union dude says about Redford, "He won't win." or something like that, Douglas laughs knowingly and says, "Of course he'll win, he's cute." God, I wish that wasn't true - but it is.

"What now?" indeed. (Shudder)

©2002 Lovell Mahan-Moutaw
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