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On this the seventieth anniversary of our forefather's supreme sacrifice on the beaches of Normandy, my good friend Mister Muleboy and I drove down to the AFI-Silver to see Castle Keep, a 1969-vintage war movie starring Burt Lancaster, Peter Falk and Bruce Dern, directed by Sydney Pollack.
With a pedigree like that, what could go wrong? Well, as it turns out, everything.
The story: During the Battle of the Bulge, Burt Lancaster and his eyepatch defend a Belgian castle that sits on a road leading through a beautiful countess's underpants to Bastogne. The problem is, Lancaster can't defend said underpants without risking a priceless collection of art.
In various subplots, Falk makes a separate peace with a baker's wife, Dern gathers twelve disciples and preaches the gospel, and the rest of Lancaster's platoon takes up a strategic position in the world's most chaste brothel.
Told straight, Castle Keep might have been The Train (also starring Lancaster) or at the very least, last year's Monuments Men. Instead, we get a half-assed knock-off of the French New Wave—soft-core porn with no nudity, black comedy with no jokes and more religious allegories than you can shake a stick at.
Throw in lots of 14-century lute music, random editing and one man's unconsummated romance with a Volkswagen, and you have the worst war movie I've ever seen, and probably one of the ten worst movies I've ever seen in a theater. And I've seen Brooke Shields in Endless Love!
I won't presume to say what my father or Mister Muleboy's believed they were fighting to protect when they served in World War II (both in the Pacific), but I'm pretty sure Castle Keep wasn't it.
My rating: 1 star (out of 5).
The Professionals is a well-made, fast-paced action-adventure western starring Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan and Woody Strode. It's a sharp, witty caper flick with a team of amusing specialists engaged in a job—rescuing a rich man's wife from a Mexican revolutionary—that should get everybody killed by the end of the first reel but you damn well know won't. A sort of Ocean's Eleven, if you will, set in the Mexican desert.
But underneath all the rousing action is a melancholy meditation on the end of things (in this specific case, the Mexican Revolution) that, to me at least, makes The Professionals both a sublime western and something other than a simple caper flick.
"La Revolución," Jack Palance says in a great speech toward the end of the film, "is like a great love affair. In the beginning, she is a goddess. A holy cause. But every love affair has a terrible enemy—time. We see her as she is. La Revolución is not a goddess but a whore. She was never pure, never saintly, never perfect. And we run away, find another lover, another cause. Quick, sordid affairs. Lust, but no love. Passion, but no compassion. Without love, without a cause, we are nothing! We stay because we believe. We leave because we are disillusioned. We come back because we are lost. We die because we are committed."
It's a very good western, and may be the best of a list of those that, despite its cast and three Oscar nominations, no one seems to have ever heard of. Written and directed by Richard Brooks, with Oscar-nominated cinematography by the great Conrad Hall.
Oh, and Claudia Cardinale is spectacularly bosomy.
My rating 4.5 stars (out of 5).
If you're anything like me, you see the year "1957" on a post and you immediately think, "Oh, yeah, the year Auburn won a national title in football."
What? That's not what you think of? Hmm, strange ...
PICTURE (Drama)
winner: The Bridge On The River Kwai (prod. Sam Spiegel)
nominees: A Face In The Crowd (prod. Elia Kazan); Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (prod. John Huston); The Incredible Shrinking Man (prod. Albert Zugsmith); Paths Of Glory (prod. James B. Harris and Kirk Douglas); Sweet Smell Of Success (prod. James Hill); 12 Angry Men (prod. Henry Fonda and Reginald Rose); Witness For the Prosecution (prod. Arthur Hornblow, Jr.)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Funny Face (prod. Roger Edens)
nominees: A King In New York (prod. Charles Chaplin); Love in the Afternoon (prod. Billy Wilder); Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (prod. Frank Tashlin)
PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal) (prod. Allan Ekelund)
nominees: Donzoko (The Lower Depths) (prod. Akira Kurosawa); Il Grido (prod. Franco Cancellieri); Kanal (prod. Zespól Filmowy "Kadr"); Kumonosu-jô (Throne of Blood) (prod. Akira Kurosawa and Sôjirô Motoki); Letyat zhuravli (The Cranes Are Flying) (prod. Mikhail Kalatozov); Le notti di Cabiria (Nights Of Cabiria) (prod. Dino De Laurentiis); Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries) (prod. Allan Ekelund)
ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Tony Curtis (Sweet Smell Of Success)
nominees: Lee J. Cobb (12 Angry Men); Kirk Douglas (Paths Of Glory); Henry Fonda (12 Angry Men); Andy Griffith (A Face In The Crowd); Alec Guinness (The Bridge On The River Kwai); William Holden (The Bridge on the River Kwai); Rock Hudson (The Tarnished Angels); Charles Laughton (Witness For The Prosecution); Toshiro Mifune (Kumonosu-jô a.k.a. Throne of Blood); Robert Mitchum (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison and The Enemy Below); Sidney Poitier (Edge of the City); Victor Sjöström (Smultronstället a.k.a. Wild Strawberries); Max von Sydow (Det sjunde inseglet a.k.a. The Seventh Seal)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Tony Randall (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?)
nominees: Fred Astaire (Funny Face and Silk Stockings); Gary Cooper (Love In The Afternoon); Frank Sinatra (Pal Joey)
ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Guilietta Masina (Le notti di Cabiria a.k.a. Nights Of Cabiria)
nominees: Marlene Dietrich (Witness For The Prosecution); Deborah Kerr (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison); Patricia Neal (A Face In The Crowd); Tatyana Samojlova (Letyat zhuravli a.k.a. The Cranes Are Flying); Joanne Woodward (The Three Faces Of Eve)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Audrey Hepburn (Funny Face and Love in the Afternoon)
nominees: Doris Day (The Pajama Game); Rita Hayworth (Pal Joey); Jayne Mansfield (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?)
DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Ingmar Bergman (Det sjunde inseglet a.k.a. The Seventh Seal and Smultronstället a.k.a. Wild Strawberries)
nominees: Federico Fellini (Le notti di Cabiria a.k.a. Nights Of Cabiria); Stanley Kubrick (Paths of Glory); Akira Kurosawa (Kumonosu-jô a.k.a. Throne of Blood and Donzoko a.k.a. The Lower Depths); David Lean (The Bridge On The River Kwai); Alexander Mackendrick (Sweet Smell Of Success); Billy Wilder (Witness For The Prosecution)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Chuck Jones (What's Opera, Doc?)
nominees: Charles Chaplin (A King In New York); Stanley Donen (Funny Face); Frank Tashlin (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?); Billy Wilder (Love in the Afternoon)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Burt Lancaster (Sweet Smell Of Success)
nominees: Red Buttons (Sayonara); Errol Flynn (The Sun Also Rises); Sessue Hayakawa (The Bridge On The River Kwai); Curt Jürgens (The Enemy Below); Walter Matthau (A Face In The Crowd); Adolphe Menjou (Paths of Glory); Tyrone Power (Witness For The Prosecution); Jack Warden (12 Angry Men)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Kay Kendall (Les Girls)
nominees: Bibi Andersson (Det sjunde inseglet a.k.a. The Seventh Seal and Smultronstället a.k.a. Wild Strawberries); Joan Blondell (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?); Mitzi Gaynor (Les Girls); Carolyn Jones (The Bachelor Party); Elsa Lanchester (Witness For The Prosecution); Kay Thompson (Funny Face); Ingrid Thulin (Smultronstället a.k.a. Wild Strawberries); Miyoshi Umeki (Sayonara)
SCREENPLAY
winner: Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, from the novella by Ernest Lehman (Sweet Smell Of Success)
nominees: Pierre Boulle (later accredited to Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson), from the novel by Pierre Boulle (The Bridge On The River Kwai); Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli (story and screenplay), Pier Paolo Pasolini (screenplay), from the novel by Maria Molinari (Le notti di Cabiria a.k.a. Nights Of Cabiria); Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson, from the novel by Humphrey Cobb (Paths Of Glory); Ingmar Bergman, from his play (Det sjunde inseglet a.k.a. The Seventh Seal); Ingmar Bergman (Smultronstället a.k.a. Wild Strawberries); Reginald Rose, from his teleplay (12 Angry Men); Billy Wilder and Harry Kurnitz (screenplay), Larry Marcus (adaptation), from the play by Agatha Christie (Witness For The Prosecution)
SPECIAL AWARDS
"Jailhouse Rock" (Jailhouse Rock) music and lyrics by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller (Song); What's Opera Doc? (Cartoon Short); James Wong Howe (Sweet Smell Of Success) (Cinematography)
The results are in on the latest Monkey Poll: Douglas Fairbanks is your favorite swashbuckling movie pirate, besting Errol Flynn, 47-29.
Johnny Depp finished a distant third with 18 votes. Burt Lancaster received 7 votes, and Tyrone Power and "Other" received 4 each.
The 109 total votes cast was the most in Monkey Poll history, and Fairbanks's improbable comeback—he trailed Flynn by a wide margin a week ago—prompted immediate cries of monkey business.
"I just want to know how Douglas beat Errol," Thingy of Pondering Life complained. "I have made my protest known on Rotten Apples. Clearly some shenanigans in the works."
Blogger has had serious issues recently, with lost comments, disappearing posts and vanishing followers lists. The pirate poll itself exhibited strange fluctuations throughout the voting period, with 25 votes mysteriously lost at one point.
"Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the poll results," Flynn himself said early this morning in an interview conducted in my head, "I accept it. And tonight, for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession. Now I'm going to sit on this beach and boff every willing broad I can lay my hands on, so frak off."
Tyrone Power was less gracious. "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore," he snapped before storming off the podium, "because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." Though unclear from the context of his remarks, the assumption in the press room was that Power was referring to Cynthia Nixon whose last movie, Sex and the City 2, was a critical and commercial disaster.
As usual, though, it was Douglas Fairbanks with the last word.
"I was rich, handsome, and married to the most desirable woman in the world," he said. "That I was also once adored by millions of movie fans, and am evidently still adored by 47 discerning readers, cannot add to the happiness and satisfaction I already feel. But it doesn't hurt."
Postscript: Don't forget to participate in Monty's on-going Best Actor Tournament over at All Good Things!
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