MovieChat Forums > momur
momur (107)
Posts
Replies
Apparently, the screenwriters were writing by the seats of their pants for much of the production so I'm honestly not surprised the story doesn't entirely add up. To be honest, it's kind of my biggest regret with this film that there's not a version of it exactly the same but which doesn't completely come apart at the ending (because let's be real here, there's no way a mutually-destructive sadomasochistic couple like Johnny and Gilda are realistically getting any kind of conventional happy ending together)...
For myself, having watched this film far too often than is probably good for me, I've increasingly come to the conclusion that actually, the film ultimately makes far more sense with a queer reading than without it, even with the objectively nonsensical turn the plot takes in the third act. The entire first conversation between Johnny and Ballin on the dock, for example, I've found makes a lot more sense if you read it as either one or the other treating it as a potential pickup. Same with their next meeting with Johnny offering Ballin his services at the casino and Ballin so readily taking him up on it. Plus lots of little things like Johnny narrating that he wants to hit Ballin as well as Gilda after discovering their marriage, the whole (honestly fairly unsubtle) "swimming" conversation, Johnny going to such lengths to honour his former employer's memory with his treatment of Gilda once Ballin is out of the picture... I'm not entirely convinced that Ballin necessarily has such a straightforward orientation or if he's just a sadist (in every sense) who will take whatever he wants (again, in every sense), but Johnny to me definitely reads as more bisexual than anything else (Glenn Ford calling Johnny a homosexual was likely just due to bisexuality not really being accepted as a valid sexual orientation at that point in time since there's no doubt Johnny is also intensely attracted to Gilda).
<b>"The lamest part is that from the beginning they wrote in there a guy whose only role is to remind us that they arrested the wrong person."</b>
To be fair, that wasn't strictly their fault; that's down to a condition of the Hays Code that crime couldn't be seen to go unpunished. Since the entire main plot hinges on Arthur Kennedy's character presumably being innocent, they had to come up with something else. Hence the weird guy who is hinted to be the real murderer and is dealt with in the end. It's hokey now (and you can kind of tell it's not something they necessarily wanted at the time either) but, like with most things of this type in films of this era, there's no real way it could have been avoided.
<b>"The attempt to add credibility by a narrator feels flat and it breaks the immersion."</b>
That's kind of just a product of it being a docu-noir movie. And one can take or leave docu-noir as a style, but you're also going to have to accept there are certain narrative and dramatic techniques that come with it. Like if you go to see a musical, you need to just accept that characters will start singing because...that's how musicals work. I agree it was a mistake to add the narrator's voiceover in the middle of the film, but practically all films of that style have a narrator at least at the beginning and/or at the end.
Everything else, I kind of agree with. I don't think the blackmail plot with Ed Begley was necessary - it was enough that no one but Andrews' character believed the suspect was innocent and was facing political pressure to prosecute him. My guess is that it was just assumed that on its own, that wasn't dramatic enough. Plus the film really does take too long to really get going. But I feel it's worth noting we're looking at this through the eyes of modern cinema and its approach to storytelling which is, on the whole, vastly different than the 1940s docu-noir style this movie was going for. Taken for what it is, it's a very good movie
They simply didn't want to risk ending up in the firing-line themselves - when it comes down to a literal life-or-death situation, you'd be surprised (and upset) at just what people would be willing to do or not do in the name of self-preservation, even if it means letting another die. Consider: Richard's been absent for a while by that point (and the film repeatedly goes out of its way to demonstrate the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality held by most members of the beach community); Sal has just publicly revealed that Richard had broken the rules by copying Daffy's map; the marijuana farmers with big scary guns have made it painfully clear that either Richard dies by Sal's hand or else they're all dead, and none of them have any way of knowing that the gun the head farmer has given Sal isn't loaded. It's not that they wanted Richard dead, exactly, but more that given their knowledge of the situation, it seemed the safest solution for the rest of them 3- helping Richard at that point would effectively be tantamount to saying "you know what? You can just go ahead and put a bullet in my brain too because I'm perfectly fine with more people turning up here". Besides, there's very little any of them could have realistically done to help: the farmers had all the exits covered and were spaced out amongst the crowd. By the time Sal pulls the trigger, most of the community had completely privately probably just accepted that Richard was a dead man walking no matter what, and that since everything had become so utterly messed up, they were just going to sneak off the island the first opportunity they had once the farmers were gone - hence why no one except Bugs, Sal and Richard hesitates to run once it's revealed the gun wasn't loaded; they'd already made up their minds that they were going to leave, it was just a lucky bonus for all of them that Richard was going to be able to escape too.
"This was probably a reason why after Richard got into a relationship with Francoise he did not tell her that he was forced to cheat on her by having sex with Sal (so that she would tell no-one about him copying the map) because he possibly couldn't forgive her for that joke and wanted to find a girlfriend who he could relate to and trust well" - Honestly, I think that's hugely pushing it. Richard outright states the reason he didn't tell Francoise about what happened with Sal: he wanted things on the beach to just get back to "normal" once they returned. That's kind of a major theme throughout the entire story, people think that if they simply choose to ignore and not address the bad in their lives (the shark attack and Christo dying, the world outside the island, the marijuana farmers, etc.), it will never catch up to them. Obviously, things just don't work that way.
In a way, the prank Etienne and Francoise play on Richard by faking the shark attack runs on this idea too. In all honesty, until Richard's encounter with the baby shark, it's very likely none of them had ever seen a shark in person before but it's a fairly standard idea for a prank in any open body of water to fake an attack by sharks/jellyfish/stingrays/whatever potentially deadly fish. It's stupid and childish and immature, yes, but then...that's exactly what the three of them are as characters at that point and how they remain for much of the film. If Richard had thought of the prank first, I'm more than willing to bet he'd have done the same to Etienne and/or Francoise. The entire point is that they're not capable of taking the potential risks of what they're doing seriously. It's only when Etienne is confronted with what the results of an actual shark attack look like that he starts beginning to act like a sensible adult and becomes disillusioned with life on the beach - kind of fitting considering he's the one who instigates the shark prank on Richard.
Both are good in their own ways. The Sting is much more subdued and is more of a "dramedy" and generally requires you to have to be paying attention because there's just so many different things and layers to what's going on. I also think The Sting has better acting and a better overall script.
Ocean's Eleven is more of an out-and-out comedy with some drama and action thrown in, and the personalities of all the characters are much more clearly defined (whereas in The Sting, it's really only Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Harold Gould's characters who actually have discernible personalities as far as the core gang of con-artists go; everyone else in the gang just kind of blends together), but there are also far more noticeable weak spots in both the acting and the script.
I wouldn't say one was necessarily better or worse than the other since they're both fundamentally very different films despite the core premise of a gang of crooks banding together to take down an even worse crook being the same in both. It's just what you happen to be in the mood for at any given time.
(7 years late, but in case you're still wondering...)
SPOILERS:
Mitch had told the others where he wanted each of them to go to hide out after the raid on the bank until it's safe for them to meet and divvy up the money (in reality it's just to make it easier for Mitch to get rid of them all). Ivers was to go to a hotel in a nearby city which is exactly what he does after setting the store on fire (there's a brief scene of him checking in to the hotel). After Mitch leads the posse to the gunslinger, he pretends that the gunslinger has told him where to find Ivers with his dying words and tells the posse that they'll set off for the city where Ivers is hiding the next day. Presumably Mitch then led the posse to Ivers and tricked him out into the open to be gunned down, just like he did with the gunslinger.
I just rewatched this recently after not seeing it in years and honestly, it still holds up pretty well. It's got its fair share of flaws; I honestly find it hard to feel any kind of sympathy for the townsfolk in this - sure, Mitch definitely goes off the deep end, but it still feels more like everyone in the town is spending the movie trying to be super nice to him just because they still feel guilty for the three men causing the death of his wife and unborn kid (whether they meant it or not, the end result was the same and it's all because those three men decided to behave like total gits despite there clearly being a good reason for Mitch needing a hotel room and then needing medicine, even if it was the middle of the night), and Mitch's change at the beginning from being angry one minute to deciding to at least pretend to buddy up to them all the next is a little too jarring and it feels quite unbelievable that everyone in the town would accept that he's just suddenly decided to forgive and forget so easily. But despite all that, it's still incredibly captivating and one of the better "Western revenge" stories out there.
Probably because this entire argument really doesn't have a single leg to stand on. There's absolutely no plagiarism to speak of or even any real hint of it. Nothing about the marathon depicted in the story except the simple state of the setting being a fairly average dance marathon of the time resembles June Havoc's experience in any substantial or meaningful way, at least not beyond what experiences would have been shared by a vast number of others who also participated in these marathons. Having a tangential connection to a real life event or experience that would have been shared by countless others doesn't mean any depictions of said event/experience is somehow specifically "telling your story". That would be like me saying "'Matilda' is plagiarism of my life because I was a smart kid who went to a primary school with a mean headteacher too!".
The simple fact is that dance marathons like the one this story is centred around were a legitimately big craze throughout the US beginning in the 1920s and lasted until the late 1930s. During the heyday of the Great Depression it was seen as relatively easy money for those desperate enough to compete, especially those with some kind of performance training or aspiration to that end, and it wasn't unheard of for these marathons to last for weeks. There are even a few cases of such marathons being forcibly shut down due to the deaths of one or more contestants, mostly from exhaustion, and in a 1928 marathon in Seattle there was a relatively well-publicised case where a woman attempted to kill herself in a state of complete mental, physical and emotional hysteria after having ended up in 5th place. Even events like the sprints and "derbies" have basis in the majority of real life dance marathons of the time. Everything in either the book or the movie regarding the marathon has its basis in real life and a lot of people's experiences, not just June Havoc's experiences.
I mean...I feel like a lot of your complaints ultimately come down to the fact that this was a film heavily based on a real murder case which was never solved, plus the semi-documentary style that the film was engaging in. From what I can remember, a lot of the events presented in the trial and investigation (except for the whole blackmail subplot) aren't actually too far off the mark from what apparently did happen during the real case so if the events seem contrived or idealistic... Well, just occasionally life is exactly that. An "easy target" of a man was falsely accused of murdering a priest, he was identified by several witnesses who saw the killing take place, the police used what are now recognised as underhanded methods (at best) to obtain a signed confession from the man, the prosecutor did believe the man to be innocent after examining the evidence, the prosecutor did provide enough of a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the man, and the man did ultimately walk free. The accused and the prosecutor apparently even remained life-long friends afterwards. The film had "made up its mind and taken sides" from the start because it sort of had to, aiming to be an almost blow-by-blow account of something that actually happened. That's like complaining that films about WW2 "make up their minds" from the start that the Allies win and the Nazis are the bad guys. It kind of goes with the territory of being heavily based on a real event.
It's also probably worth noting that a lot of the background townsfolk, including those who played the main witnesses (excluding the waitress), weren't actors but were, well, ordinary townsfolk. As I said, with the exception of the waitress and one of the witnesses whom Andrews points out during the trial as having a light fedora hat and black coat who was Elia Kazan's father if I'm not mistaken. So if their line readings come off as a little stilted or rehearsed, that's why. And Kazan specifically wanted it that way.
The only thing I can see being gained by each character solely speaking their native language and the film using subtitles as a translation is a possible sense of realism for those who, for whatever reason, apparently find it difficult to remember that films aren't real life, even those based on real events as this is. To be completely honest, I've never quite understood the whole "why are these foreign characters talking English???" issues some people have with films... In this case, as I said, the film was made in an era before subtitles were used with any degree of regularity and certainly not used for what would probably cumulatively amount to at least half the film, and it was clearly made for an primarily English-speaking market given its casting American stars like Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland in German roles. As it is, I think JAN handles the situation almost perfectly with the indictments and pleas being given using the characters' native languages, thus setting up the use of simultaneous translation via headsets, and then Maximilian Schell beginning his opening statement in German before seamlessly switching to English halfway through with no one within the world of the film acknowledging a difference. All of which is dedicated to making it as blatantly obvious as it can be that it's only us, the film's audience, who are now hearing the German characters speaking English (unless acknowledged otherwise). It's not like the characters are wearing headsets throughout the trial because they just look so irresistibly cool or something, it's also a visual clue for the audience to help us understand which characters are speaking a common language at any given time despite us only hearing English.
As well as the above explanation, there's also the fact that Lucy had just embarrassed herself in front of him again with the fake nose stunt. If I were in Bill Holden's place in that scenario, I think that would probably have been enough to have called the whole thing even and let her off the hook by not ratting about the pie. At the end of the day, he'd just wanted to teach her a simple lesson regarding her gawking at movie stars; the pie was clearly a complete accident. There was no permanent damage done and there's ultimately not much sense in getting pissed off about something like that hours after it happened.
As to the story being twisted into "she threw a pie at Bill Holden" and apparently spread right around Hollywood by the time of the Richard Widmark episode, the incident did take place in a busy public setting and it really doesn't take much in terms of spreading stories about something you saw to go from the reality of "this woman accidentally knocked into a waiter who dumped a pie on Bill Holden's head" to the exaggeration of "this crazy lady threw a pie at Bill Holden", so there's no need to think that Holden necessarily would have had any hand in spreading the story himself or that he saw the situation as her throwing the pie at him. Really, the bigger question regarding all the rumours about Lucy in the Widmark episode is how did everyone apparently also end up knowing that she dressed as a bellboy to sneak into Cornel Wilde's room? I don't think it was ever shown in that episode that anyone besides Lucy, Ethel and Bobby the bellboy had known about that.
View all replies >