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marecek's Replies
I saw more than enuf of this creep. I only wish they had let Neve Campbell off him.
This is a New Deal era film. I am certain he is referring to FDR.
They are not Nob Hill types. If you watch the taxi ride at the beginning, they clearly live in Cow Hollow, which is just to the East of the Presidio and between Pacific Heights and the Marina District. The view from their terrace is a set, but that view would be worth millions today.
Apart from the point that Audrey Hepburn would not have accepted the ingenue role, this movie almost didn't get made because of the financial risk of having Spencer Tracy, who was expected to die, as the lead. As it was, Kramer and Katherine Hepburn had to pledge their salaries. I don't know how much Poitier was paid, but I am certain there would not have been the amount needed to pay a bonafide star like AH.
I agree there are many more issues, but in the US of A in 1967 the racial issue would clearly predominate (in fact an older man choosing a pretty young woman was probably looked less askance at in that period). I don't personally remember, as I was too young, but this was a very explosive issue. While the film was being made, the US Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the remaining state laws forbidding interracial marriages (I believe there were 17), so in the dialogue, it was pointed out that they would be breaking the law in some states. My grandmother was from New Orleans and I recall an incident in the early 1970s when we were driving through SF (I'm from SF) with my grandmother in the passenger seat. Suddenly she gasped quite loudly, I looked at her and saw that she had her mouth covered (expressing shock), and was pointing out the window. What was she pointing at? An interracial couple, black man and white woman.
It's interesting because this film is considered a landmark in terms of portraying interracial romance, but it was far from the first film that did so. Perhaps it was the first to portray black/white interracial romance, but the 1950's had, in Sayonnara and Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, portrayed white/Asian romance. In 1961, West Side Story portrayed white/Hispanic romance. Perhaps the difference in these last three mentioned films was that the male was white, which was considered less threatening according to the prevalent racial stereotypes. However, in 1939's The Rains Came, Myrna Loy played a Brit who fell in love with an Indian (even if played by the white Tyrone Power). Perhaps there are others I am not thinking of.
Walt-Most, I very much agree with you. Here is what I wrote eight years ago on another post:
"I did not like this speech as written: I considered it condescending in the extreme. The film was meant to be somehow "progressive", in that it endorsed love over social convention (and wrongheaded social convention at that, but an extremely long-standing and powerful one). However, if you listen to Tracy's speech, it takes an extremely white-male perspective on matters (and I am saying this as a white male), essentially saying, inter-racial marriage is okay because the white "massuh" approved it. To be honest, I have problems with the entire script and story-line: the plot is incredibly artificial (we have one day to decide about our lives, for no particular reason other than a plane schedule and the need to create the dramatic tension that allow for "meaningful" speechifying, which is not genuine drama). So the characters go about chattering back and forth all day long, with no real advancement of the plot or their positions. The only person that seems to have a genuine and reasonable position is Sydney Poitier's mother. Finally, out of the blue and for no particular reason, Spencer Tracy adopts her position as his own (insulting her in the process, but suggesting she could not be more wrong for criticizing the position he had held until that moment and then suddenly and inexplicably changed - oh, that means she had been RIGHT). So the upshot seems to be that they all talk back and forth toward no purpose, but the key turn in the plot is when Big Daddy makes his decision, announces it to the rest, and decides the issue. I'm sorry, but that was hardly a clarion call for racial and gender equality."
I don't find the premise of the film bad; the point is that love crosses boundaries. Dr. Prentice was not seeking a trophy wife: the way the story is laid out, he was not on the hunt but simply feel head over heels in love with Joey. This brings us to another issue in the film - the casting of Katherine Houghton as Joey. Granted, the fact that she looks like Katherine Hepburn was a plus in terms of her playing her daughter, but IMHO she was simply a gawdawful actress. She butchered the lines and really conveyed the sense of an immature airhead who was just mouthing platitudes she had no notion of. Imagine casting three film legends and one dud in film with four main characters. It really marred the film in my view. And I think this is the main reason why it seems open to question that Dr. Prentice would choose her.
I think the point that was trying to be made by this character was that racism comes in many forms. Most obviously is the most overt and harmful form down in the South of Jim Crow, which had been on everyone's mind in the preceding decade as the Civil Rights Movement played out. But perhaps the filmmakers (Kramer, the screenwriter, I don't know who) were trying to convey the point that racism was not confined to the South and that even in a supposedly liberal place like San Francisco, you would find less overt, but still quite odious racism, a very hypocritical form (and the South was never hypocritical about its racism). So Hillary's attitudes are quite restrained, but entirely obvious nonetheless.
I grew up in San Francisco in the 60's and 70's, but my father came from Hawaii (moving to SF for college). My father recounts that once in the 1960's his cousin from Hawaii (who was part Hawaiian, so somewhat dark, especially with a suntan) came for a visit, and my father brought him along to one of the big athletic clubs in SF (I'll omit which one). Another older member pulled my father aside and with evident surprise and consternation asked him why he had brought a "black" to the club.
The Godfather II
Perhaps you should listen to the master himself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNkPLuBjZRM
The 39 Steps is chock full. What the hell are the 39 Steps - we spend the whole film wondering until it is finally revealed at the end. The plot of the film was to have Robert Donat run away from a false accusation of murder, try to find the true culprits, and meet his love on the way (interestingly enuf that pretty much describes North by Northwest too). What are the bad guys doing - they are stealing engine plans for an airplane to the government of "BANG!" - we never find out. The stolen info was also a McGuffin. As was the metallic sand hidden in wine bottles in the wine cellar in "Notorious". The director lets it seem like the main point of the plot, but then you are lead astray into something else. In a certain sense, we could call the the stolen money in Psycho the McGuffin - we expect the film to be about Janet Leigh's morality tale running away from the law, then "SLASH, SLASH, SLASH", the film turns into something else entirely.
Culburn asks what is the McGuffin in "The Birds". You got me there - maybe the love birds and the burgeoning romance between Melanie and Mitch. But perhaps this film does not have one. I do think the bird attacks are the main plot in this film - it is about messing with our sense of reality and security about how the world works if something so ordinary and assumed as birds being harmless suddenly changes. The world and human society would go haywire. Maybe The Birds is different in this respect from other Hitchcock films because usually the McGuffin is suggests some larger plot, such as spy rings and nazi infiltration, but that is just to divert us from the real plot of the film, which I think is usually to demonstrate the psychological reaction of people under extreme circumstances (and he usually throws some romance in).
You don't sound like a dumb American; you just sound dumb, full stop.
It was a good film, but nothing special. I guess it's major achievement was in making a typical teen movie about a gay character. I agree that the blackmail angle (and the character of the blackmailer) just didn't ring true. The ending struck me as just too forced and contrived, something like a gay fairy tale (no pun intended there) - after much travail, worthy boy gets prince charming in the end.
In effect, their status is little better than slavery, but I guess technically slavery involves the classification of a living human being as chattel property, thus not as human beings. I think all persons in the plot are treated as human beings, however, the issue is that we are dealing with a theocracy, and a highly dictatorial one at that. So essentially everyone's freedoms are extremely limited (some more than others), as everyone must live according to the dictates of what the leaders consider God's commands.
28. Henry V - Kenneth Branagh & Emma Thompson
29. Frankenstein - Kenneth Branagh & Helena Bonham-Carter
30. Annie Hall - Woody Allen & Diane Keaton (as well as many others)
31. Hannah & Her Sisters - Woody Allen & Mia Farrow (as well as many others)
I think the OP is confusing cerebral and emotionally restrained with naive. Atticus very well knew the society he lived in, including the fact that a black person accused by a white person stood essentially no chance of winning (all white juries with an unspoken custom that they would always believe the white person and find the black guilty). He was an experienced lawyer in this society; do you really imagine he wasn't aware of the situation.
Another person commenting made a agood point: What would you have him do? Should he announce to the jury that he knows the will decide in lockstep against Tom Robinson so that he is not going to bother to defend his client. I think the better question is what is a basically moral person supposed to do in a society that, at least in some respects, is ruled by immoral laws and customs. He did his best lawyerly work, demonstrating beyond any doubt that Robinson could not have committed the crime. The Ewell's testimony was utter crap by any criteria. Atticus was correct that the case should never have come to trial. This is what he would have argued on appeal. It is not naive for a lawyer to think that he might be able to prevail on appeal by citing clear legal principles. Even though the Civil Rights Movement did take off in earnest until the mid-1950's, lawyers fighting racial injustice were winning cases well before that. A propos to To Kill a Mockingbird was the "Scottsboro Boys" trial where nine black teens were sentenced to death for rape in what were clearly kangaroo courts. On appeal these initial convictions were overturned.
But I suppose one more motive that we may ascribe to Atticus was that, despite knowing the society he lived in, he felt a moral imperative to call upon the jury to listen to sense, follow the law, and let their better natures rules their action. If one lives in a society governed by immoral customs, shouldn't one try, by all appropriate means and whenever the occasion arises, to work towards change?
In general this film has great SF locations.
I agree with you that this film was extremely weak.
He testified for the defense? In the film he cooperated with the police (bringing a wire into the killers' home to get them to implicate themselves). Do you mean to say he was a witness for the prosecution.
Well, first off, the film basically sucks (I mean figuratively). I think it was poorly written, the main characters are neither appealing, nor do they inspire much interest, the acting (despite the fact that there are two good veterans in the film) was beneath mediocre to very poor. I was already bored ten minutes into the film.
I know what you mean. Personally, I have never been able to get what everyone sees in Martin Scorcese.