mbuchwal

The zany screwball Marx Brothers comedy "Horse Feathers" remains one of the most outrageous satires of college football, gangsters and dizzy dames ever to drive a movie audience wild. Made in 1932 at the low-point of the depression, this fourth Marx Brothers feature raised America's sagging spirits with an enormous box office hit, setting the pattern for a string of immensely popular pictures starring the most hilarious vaudeville zanies ever to hit the big screen.

The set up in "Horse Feathers" is a bit improbable, to say the least. The faculty of Huxley college is made up entirely of pompous windbags, while the harebrained students are so busy chasing the type of girl you can't bring home to mother they have no time to cheat on their exams. Football players are oafs or nitwits, while gangsters rule both on and off campus. A shady swindler, college President Quincy Adams Wagstaff (Groucho Marx as a deadpan crackpot) is determined to get Huxley College a football victory even if he has to hire overage hoodlums out of a speakeasy to play on the team. A riotous comedy of errors ensues that ends on the gridiron, in one of the most surrealistic sporting events ever to hit the big screen. If the story doesn't make a whole lot of sense, it doesn't have to! There's plenty of opportunity for hilarious gags at every mis-step along the way.

The Marx Brothers smashed their way into Hollywood just as talking pictures came in. Their first feature length film, "Cocoanuts," was also the first wacky comedy with sound and featured a lot of wild wordplay in addition to cartoon crazy sight gags and the kind of side-splitting slapstick that was already a staple of the silent movie era. Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo were brothers in real life, as on stage and screen, and before appearing on film they honed their incomparable comic skills in endless live performances at vaudeville theaters all across the nation. This was the key to their artistic success. They perfected their art over and over again on stage before putting it on screen.

In 1974, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded "Horse Feathers" star Groucho Marx the special lifetime achievement Oscar for his performance in over a dozen unforgettable roles in which he ridiculed the pretensions of the rich, the pompous and the high and mighty, while making a hash of logic, common sense and the script of any movie in which he appeared.

Think it's easy to capture this type of mayhem on camera? Well, it ain't! Very much of the credit for the success of "Horse Feathers" belongs to the crew behind the camera, director Norman McLeod and especially cinematographer Ray June, who also immortalized such stars as Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant. His smooth polished style is responsible for many of our most cherished images from Hollywood's golden age.

Personally, I was tickled silly by "Horse Feathers."

The quintessential Gothic horror movie sequel, Universal Studios' 1935 hit, the "Bride of Frankenstein" adds grotesque gallows humor to the macabre and spine-chilling formula that made the original "Frankenstein" movie the biggest box-office hit of 1931, featuring the most talked about monster in horror movie history. Taking up where "Frankenstein" left off, "Bride of Frankenstein" is the terrifying tale of how the murderous monster first escaped doom to find a mate – a bride – made like himself from the parts rifled off the bodies of the recently dead. The Hollywood King of Horror, Boris Karloff, reprises his most famous role in a top-notch performance remarkable as much for its camp irony as for its shocking ghoulishness. This time, Karloff outdid himself! Although its bloodcurdling effects are closely patterned on the first "Frankenstein," "Bride" is much more than a sequel. It is a hilarious send-up of the original, featuring priceless scenes of ham acting by a cast of wonderfully colorful character actors, among the most talented ever to appear in a horror movie. Genius director James Whale has created the most expressionistic and frightening of Gothic films, made up of spellbinding effects which are a distillation of all that is best in horror movie technique: dark shadows and blinding flashes of light, hideous suspense and a gut wrenchingly scary monster.

All of the distinguished cast had very solid backgrounds before being cast in "Bride." Karloff had already appeared in over 80 movies, including Universal Studios' hit "The Mummy" and "The Mask of Fu Manchu," while scene stealer Ernest Thesiger, who appears as the exquisitely decadent Dr. Pretorius in "Bride," also appeared alongside Karloff in another James Whale directed chiller, "The Old Dark House." Classically trained Una O'Connor, Dr. Frankenstein's bug-eyed hysterical maid, began her acting career with Dublin's renowned Abbey Theater company, but was early typecast by Hollywood in oddball character roles, usually as a serving woman in such hit movies as "The Invisible Man." Mainly a character actor, Elsa Lanchester's acting almost always featured a great deal of graceful poise and charm, perhaps because she studied with dance legend Isadora Duncan -- making her a natural for the dual role of Bride and Mary Shelley.

"All About Eve" is still a record holder today with 14 academy award nominations and 6 Oscar wins, including best picture and best director for Hollywood veteran Joseph Mankiewicz, who also won an Oscar for his literate and witty script! A favorite of the critics, "Eve" is considered by many to be screen legend Bette Davis's greatest film, confirming her title as the "First Lady" of Hollywood.

Among Hollywood celebrities of the Golden Age, no actress is better remembered than the beautiful, sophisticated and talented Bette Davis, who was nominated for the Oscar in this backstage drama of the Broadway theater for her performance as the aging prima donna, Margo Channing, target of her two-faced understudy, Eve Harrington, played by Anne Baxter in another academy award nominated performance.

This black comedy of the backstage world of the theater charts the rapid rise to the pinnacle of Broadway success by an unknown young actress, Eve Harrington, who is ruthless in taking advantage of anyone who is willing to help her, including her bitchy patroness, Margo Channing. Actress Anne Baxter puts in a stunning performance as the two-faced Eve, by turns sweetly innocent or wickedly scheming, depending only on which is more likely to advance her career. Baxter and Davis were both nominated for the best actress Oscar, while the all-star supporting cast garnered three more nominations, with George Sanders winning the best supporting actor award for his darkly comic turn as snobbish critic Addison DeWitt.

Having starred numerous times on the Broadway stage, Bette Davis was a natural choice to be paired with "All About Eve" writer and director Joseph Mankiewicz, who just a year earlier had won a pair of Oscars for "Letter to Three Wives," an outstanding drama on the theme of marital infidelity. It wasn't only Mankiewicz's phenomenal success that made him the ideal director for Davis, but also the interest he shared with his star in presenting women as independent and strong-minded – tough as any man.

No discussion of "All About Eve" would be complete without a mention of the Oscar winning costume designs of Edith Head, who is responsible for the supremely tasteful high fashion costumes in "Eve." Edith Head won more Oscars than any other woman in the history of the academy awards. Her gorgeous gowns have adorned Hollywood's best loved leading ladies, including Mae West, Ginger Rogers, Olivia de Haviland, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor and countless others.

Ironically, "All About Eve" was remade in the 1970's, not as a movie, but as a stage play on Broadway and the aging actress chosen to play the role made famous by Bette Davis was instantly recognizable to all fans of the film as Miss Davis's original co-star, Anne Baxter – making it seem as if Eve Harrington had finally succeeded in transforming herself completely into Margo Channing.

In 1935, "Mutiny on the Bounty" won the Oscar for best picture against very strong competition that included the delightful Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers romantic musical comedy, "Top Hat." MGM's big budget blockbuster was bursting at the seams with talent. Charles Laughton, as Captain Bligh, the abusive and tyrannical ship's master, and Clark Gable, as Fletcher Christian, the brave leader of the mutineers, turned in such gripping performances that both were nominated by the motion picture academy for the best actor award, as was Franchot Tone for his first rate performance as the harshly mistreated midshipman, Roger Byam. This is the one and only time in the history of the Oscars that a single film's cast received three nominations for the best actor award.

The plot-line of "Mutiny" is based on a true story. In 1787, the HMS Bounty set sail from England to the island paradise of Tahiti in the south seas on an ill-fated mission to gather breadfruit plants for slave plantations in the West Indies. The voyage out was a long and hazardous one made worse by the many hardships faced by seamen of the British fleet in the eighteenth century: deadly dangerous weather, and especially the cruel discipline and torture that were characteristic of the imperial naval service at that time. By contrast, the five months' stay on the lush tropical island of Tahiti was idyllic, with the ship's crew lazing about in the sun and making love to the beautiful native maidens. It was only on the voyage back to England that the talk of mutiny began, finally erupting into a full-fledged rebellion.

Even today, there is considerable historical debate about "Mutiny on the Bounty" and the best-selling novel upon which it is based. Some critics believe that the punishments inflicted on the Bounty's crew could not have justified a mutiny and that the movie unfairly takes the side of the mutineers. But they forget that the shipboard rebellion, which caught fire at almost the precise moment as the French Revolution, was entirely in keeping with the radical spirit of those politically turbulent times. Because of such tragic events, flogging would eventually be abolished completely in the American navy and later in the British navy as well. Today, all forms of cruel and unusual punishment are outlawed upon the high seas, thanks in part to the sacrifices of the brave men on board the Bounty. The legend lives on in the movie and is a rallying cry to the downtrodden victims of oppression all over the world.

What finally happened to Fletcher Christian and his men? Did they survive their escape or have later misadventures in the South Seas? No one is sure exactly what became of them. What is certain is that many descendants of both Christian and his followers to this day continue to live on Pitcairn Island, the mutineers' final stopping place.

If any one star can be credited with the success of Hollywood in the "Golden Age," it must be Bounty star, Clark Gable. He was the most popular movie actor who ever lived, in role after role playing the sexually irresistible macho foil to tinsel town's sultriest leading ladies. Ironically, because he had to compete with his own co-stars, he didn't win the best actor Oscar for "Bounty," but he already had won the prize the year before for the romantic comedy, "It Happened One Night," starring as a gossip hungry reporter opposite Claudette Colbert as a spoiled rich girl. Most fans will remember him best though for his unforgettable role as the roguish southern gentleman, Rhett Butler in "Gone With the Wind," the movie with the largest audience in history. If Clark Gable nearly always played the romantic idol, co-star Charles Laughton had one of the most colorful careers of any Hollywood star, being cast in the kinds of unusual character roles that many a typecast leading man would fear to play, such as Henry the Eighth, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Dr. Moreau in "Island of Lost Souls." By the way, the actors in "Bounty" weren't the only ones nominated by the academy for awards. Other nominations were for best screenplay, best film editing, best musical score and best director, which went to Frank Lloyd, who had already earned the Oscar in 1933 for "Cavalcade." A terrific job all the way around!

In the moral and cultural wasteland of the 60's, this show was like pure poetry: a distillation of the best of the west. "Branded" is the story of a wandering loner/knight errant who must right wrongs everywhere he goes while on a quest after a seemingly unobtainable goal. Economical, hardboiled, the product of years of testing the action and adventure formula, "Branded" is a summing up of everything that ever worked for motion picture audiences dating back to the first silent film western. Unusually taut performances from the mature Chuck Connors in a role that was tailor made for him. Each episode introduces a new set of characters. No ensemble cast baloney and no hack writing. What I wouldn't give for a show this good today!

Western film-makers have frequently been blamed by liberal-minded critics for creating a large body of work with reactionary content, but as "Gunsmoke" amply proves in many fine episodes, the critics couldn't be more wrong.

"The Prisoner" features Jon Voight as a condemned murderer rescued from hanging by Miss Kitty because she is grateful to him for saving her own life. Even though the young cowboy openly admits to killing a rich man's wife, Miss Kitty believes in his innocence so much she rigs a poker game to steal custody of him from an abusive bounty hunter. Then she hides him just long enough for Marshal Matt Dillon to stop a rival sheriff and his violent boss from going through with the hanging. The poor cowpoke protests his innocence, finally gets a fair trial and is set free.

This episode of "Gunsmoke" may have been seen by more than twenty million devoted fans in one night, which makes it difficult to equal its achievement in propagandizing effectively in favor of liberal doubt. Although western movies and TV serials have often been attacked by left-wing pundits for promoting right-wing values, in fact the show "Gunsmoke" may have done more to persuade its audience to oppose the death penalty than a string of full page ads in The New York Times. The makers of this show said "give a condemned man another chance" so entertainingly and so convincingly that most of its millions of loyal viewers probably agreed.

In another episode of the show, featuring Carroll O'Connor as a poor farmer who steals back thirty dollars he lost to a rich gambler later robbed and murdered by a trio of feckless drifters, both the Marshal and Festus, believing that the simple souled farmer would never commit murder or lie to them, ride down the real culprits to prove he's not guilty.

How much more plainly could a point in favor of defendants' rights be made? Yet when "Gunsmoke" was pulled off broadcast TV along with most other western entertainment, pundits of the left were foremost among those who celebrated the occasion, as if westerns, like Wall Street capitalism and the Ku Klux Klan, were a cause of society's ills rather than one of its cures. Well, the pundits had it wrong, this type of show should never have been taken off the air. Westerns are no more to blame for reactionary thinking than Marshal Dillon is to blame for the actions of an angry lynch mob.

It is rare for any film to present so human a portrait of a villain and still succeed in warning the audience so effectively. See "The Brute Man" and you will beware the murderous psychopath who disarms his victims by preying on feelings of sympathy.

Rondo Hatton, better known for his role as the "Creeper" in the Sherlock Holmes movie, "The Pearl of Death," also plays the Creeper here – this time without Sherlock Holmes – but with such a depth of feeling that audiences more accustomed to hating and fearing monster-murderers may feel pity for the vengeance minded killer instead.

Only in the movie "Freaks" has any actor exploited his unusual appearance to such telling effect. Without makeup, Hatton plays very true to life as the hot tempered college football star Hal Moffett – maimed in a laboratory accident – who decides to take deadly revenge upon the friends he irrationally blames for his disfigurement.

Even though the grotesque drifter's bloody scheme is terrifying, antihero Moffett never seems like a purely evil monster. He is like a misguided adolescent driven mad by his misfortune and his own unyielding character, obsessive in the drive to heal his injured vanity by acts of desperation.

As masterfully lensed under the direction of Jean Yarbrough, Hatton's performance is outstanding, even by comparison to other horror movie legends; Hal Moffett/The Creeper may possibly have been his greatest role. Yet "The Brute Man" was conceived as a modest little shocker, was made on a low budget and is today not very well remembered even by nostalgia-minded critics. Perhaps that is because "The Brute Man" seems contrived to exploit the commercial successes of "The Pearl of Death," "City Lights" and "Phantom of the Opera," from which it derives some of its main story elements (including the sentimental scenes with the blind girl and the theme of disfigurement and revenge). There is, however, no cheating in the use of classic ideas; they are combined so craftily as to create a new legend of Gothic significance and intensity, one which is also true to historical accounts of murder and realistic in a frighteningly everyday way.

Does "Godfather" romanticize crime and criminals? Yes, it does. Take, for instance, the Godfather's name "Corleone" which translates as "Lionhearted," suggesting that the heroes are to be compared to Richard the Lionhearted, legendary chivalrous hero of the Crusades and friend to Robin Hood. There can be no doubt that author Mario Puzo and director Francis Ford Coppola have made romantic idols of the Corleones, as the film gilds them with mystery, honor and gallantry. But of what Holy Crusade are the Corleones the leaders? Seemingly a war for survival against vicious enemies who would destroy their gang. But why should we care what happens to a bunch of evil criminals?

"Godfather" is just as much interesting for what it fails to show the audience as what it does show. The film makers wrongly assume that the audience is sophisticated enough to infer the kind of lurid but educational scene that made such a great success of earlier gangster films, nitty gritty illustrations of the inside workings of organized crime: loan sharking, extortion and vice. "Godfather" for the most part ignores this subject matter, the everyday business of crime, in favor of what should be only the end part of its story: a war between gangs over control of the rackets. The drama is essentially without motivation. The movie is simply not interested in showing us much of the dirty business that is the reason for the war. That is because the heroes would seem much less chivalrous if their criminal enterprises were shown in any depth or with any real understanding. For most of its length, the movie plays as a revenge tragedy in which the gallant protagonists could be members of any great family (whether criminal or not) protecting their cherished honor.

Why did the film makers deliberately sanitize the criminal aspect of the Corleone family? Are they apologists for crime? I think they are. One confidence game employed by the film makers, which is also familiar among the annals of organized crime leaders, is a variation on the trick called "bait and switch." We expect a portrait of a ruthless and immoral criminal, instead we are made to believe in the essential moral rightness of Don Corleone when he condemns as a contemptible enemy the kind of criminal who trades in narcotics. In other words, we are lured into the theater with the promise of a true to life depiction of the actions of a bad guy, and then the film makers slyly pull a fast one and show us a good guy instead! (We are persuaded to ignore the fact that the Godfather is an extortionist and pimp – even worse we are asked to believe that extortion and pimping are not so bad, especially if practiced by an honorable guy like Don Corleone, who, whatever his failings, is much too decent to trade in narcotics.)

This jiggery pokery was so effective that around the time the movie and its sequel came out an ivy league educated friend of mine on his way to a brilliant career on Wall Street bitterly denounced a critic of "Godfather" for making the claim that Don Corleone was not entitled to be regarded as a great hero like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, General Douglas MacArthur or Doctor Albert Schweitzer, who had received similarly adulatory treatment in film. My friend, having seen both Godfathers, was convinced that a Mafia leader might be just as honorable as the heroic portrait the movies presented.

So, I feel some need on this occasion to remind the public of what the Mafia does, even when they allegedly refuse to get involved in narcotics sales. The Mafia is mainly in the business of Vice. It feeds off the weaknesses of a mass of little people who are corruptible, who are vulnerable to the appeal of easy sex, cheap thrills, quick money and quick fixes of their problems. These little people pay for their vices all their lives, much more than they can afford to pay, and end up ruined for the greater glory of the Mafia. Most racket crime is not glorious; it is petty and mean and easily committed by anyone who has less courage or daring than the average person. But it's easy to understand why the film makers left this out of the movie. It would be kind of absurd to call a scuzzy dirtbag by the name "Lionheart."

Made at the height of WWII not long after the events upon which it is based took place, "Hangmen Also Die" is a testament to the patriotic spirit of the Czechoslovakian people under the most dire conditions imaginable. After the Nazis have invaded and conquered the country, a brave resistance fighter assassinates the brutal leader of the German occupation forces, SS leader Reinhard Heydrich, who, like Klaus Barbie, was a ruthless butcher of the innocent. Heydrich subjugated the Czech people by murdering, torturing and enslaving hordes of non-combatant civilians.

Just before the Nazi tyrant is shot, he threatens to end a factory slowdown by the murder of hundreds of Czech workers. It is this threat that precipitates the assassination. The desperate killer of Heydrich, member of an underground Czech resistance group, narrowly escapes capture with the assistance of civilians who suffer the consequences immediately afterwards when many are taken hostage by the Nazis, with the threat of imminent death hanging over their heads if the assassin is not turned over to the Gestapo.

At the center of the tense drama is Nasha Novotny, flawlessly played by Anna Lee, as the daughter of a distinguished university professor and patriot, portrayed by character actor Walter Brennan. Nasha is instrumental in aiding Brian Donlevy (as Dr. Svoboda, the assassin with ice water in his veins) to escape his bloodthirsty Gestapo pursuers. But when Nasha's own father is picked up by the Gestapo, she is forced to question her loyalty to the resistance, begins to regard the man she has saved as a deadly threat to her family and nearly turns traitor to save her father's life. Expatriate German director Fritz Lang and his scenarists show great sympathy in portraying this all too human failing. In a few simple touches they go far beyond stereotype in showing how the recalcitrant patriot overcomes her strong personal misgivings to rejoin the heroic struggle against the Nazis.

"Hangmen" is not a movie for the mechanically minded. Its craft is the art of understatement. Many of the events dramatically most important to the story -- such as the assassination -- are not depicted or happen off-screen. Whole sections of the plot line are there only by inference. This is particularly true at the end of the film, when the entire conspiracy to frame up an enemy collaborator is only hinted at before it is sprung as a surprise upon the audience, as on the unwitting villain. How did the underground resistance fighters arrange to fabricate so deadly a case against a traitor? We can only guess, but may hardly object to the ironic way in which the informant meets his end.

Fritz Lang has a well known reputation as a leader of the noir school of film maker. Yet, in spite of its horrifying premise, the movie is neither bleak nor pessimistic but a straightforward affirmation of the struggle against tyranny. Unlike many of his less gifted followers, Lang is no mere stylist but is just as much concerned with the historic and moral significance of his story as the artful way in which he presents it. To those who might object that the Nazis are portrayed as stereotyped bad men, the answer is that the Nazis were precisely what the film shows them to be: ugly brutish travesties of human beings. And who would know that better than Fritz Lang and his excellent scenarist Bertolt Brecht? Both of them had lived in Germany under the Nazis and escaped to the United States to strike a devastating propaganda blow against the enemy.

"Cocoon" is a fine example of how films have everything to do with their predecessors. Ron Howard, the director, acted as a child in a "Twilight Zone" episode and his film "Cocoon" could almost be a feature length remake of another "Twilight Zone" episode called "Kick the Can," which is very similar in concept, mood and effect, except it has no element of outer space aliens. This is not a criticism though, the story idea is a classic one and well done in its updating. For many viewers much of the appeal came from the appearance among the cast of former matinée idols, an approach which has also worked well in a number of other films made since the end of the "Golden Age."

Gumshoe Philip Marlowe is idolized today by many fans of "The Big Sleep," but when the film first came out how did audiences regard him? And what may have been the intentions of the film's makers in creating an antihero with a personal code of ethics and honor that take him outside morality and the law to serve the interests of his jaded wealthy client?

Unsavory underworld types seem to drop dead just about as quickly as they run into Marlowe. Not surprisingly, this perfectly serves his client, General Sternwood, who has told Marlowe simply to "get rid of" the blackmailer who threatens to expose Sternwood's daughter as a junky and a slut unless he gets paid for some bogus gambling debts. Never mind that Marlowe doesn't personally pull the trigger on Geiger, the phony rare books seller with a sideline in blackmail. In the unavoidable logic of this fatalistic movie the extortionist's fate is sealed the moment that Marlowe walks through his door.

Just as much as he serves his client, Marlowe is the agent of doom, a symbol of the dark principle of poetic justice that informs so many noir movies made in Hollywood during the forties and the fifties. Yet he is not so much admirable as repugnant in the role of fickle finger of fate, like a pariah with a curse upon his head.

Should we idolize him? He never does anything that doesn't perfectly serve the corrupt interests of the rich. If General Sternwood owned a factory and the workers there were on strike, you can bet that a private dick exactly like Philip Marlowe would be on the opposite side of the picket line attacking the strikers with a brickbat. Why? Because a private eye like Marlowe, who comes from the same tradition as the real life union-busting Pinkertons, would never fail to do anything in the interest of a wealthy paying client.

There's nothing wrong with the movie though. In fact, it's fairly realistic and very well made. Like the works of the bourgeois French novelist Honore de Balzac, which were much admired by Karl Marx, the novels of Raymond Chandler and the movies based upon them are most interesting for the realistic portraits they present of the criminal and upper classes, which in "The Big Sleep" seem very much alike. But Marlowe's no hero for getting his wealthy client off cheaply, he's just another cossack serving the interests of a spoiled and decadent czar.

Although "Room at the Top" is set in Britain just after WWII, Americans of today will recognize in Joe Lambton the prototype of a yuppie – an offensively pushy, horny and self-obsessed social climber with no concern for the feelings of others, but a winning charm that pushes him all the way to the top.

An orphaned working class veteran who has studied bookkeeping, Joe leaves his bombed out home for another dismal industrial town where he goes to work at a dead end civil service job, while trying to promote himself into the ranks of the wealthy by romancing the young daughter of the richest man in town. In the mean time, he commences a tawdry affair with a wealthy woman who may be a prostitute.

At almost every turn, Lambton runs afoul of the husband or lover who got there first, but he won't be deterred from his goal of climbing higher up the social ladder, no matter who it hurts and even if it means having to commit adultery or marry for money.

For all of that, he is by turns a sympathetic character, as ably portrayed by Laurence Harvey, in spite of the fact that his lust for the older rich woman, matter of factly played by Simone Signoret, has consequences that should make him seem thoroughly detestable. Seeing the world from his point of view, we can't help but feel that his upper class foils deserve the trouble he visits upon them, even if we feel that he is wrong to corrupt himself and betray his working class origins.

The first rate production is trimmed down to essentials, yet has a balletic quality of movement when it comes to even the smallest gestures that is an unusually effective combination of masterful montage, choreography and camera movement. It is a great example of how technique and subject matter can come together to achieve a flawlessly artful yet modest effect. One of the best of the British angry young man genre.

If like most Americans you favor the cause of the French in their sister revolution against the aristocracy, then you must approach this film with mixed feelings at least. After all, Sir Percy Blakeney, aka The Scarlet Pimpernel, dashing hero of Baroness Orczy's classic adventure tale, is motivated by nothing so much as his loyalty to King George III and his sympathy for kindred royalists across the channel. But neither Sir Percy or the movie really are what they appear to be.

This cleverly made ironic film seems to undermine the cause of aristocrats by the very means that the Pimpernel uses to rescue them. In order to avoid detection, for most of the movie, Sir Percy openly affects the effeminate mannerisms of a dandy much more interested in the cut of a male friend's coat than the cause of French aristocrats, which helps keep his swashbuckling Pimpernel identity a secret.

As brilliantly played by British actor Leslie Howard, Sir Percy, when he is not the Pimpernel, seems like no hero but the epitome of a parasitical member of the idle class, the perfect stereotype of an aristocratic fool. His alter ego as an heroic avenger ought to act as a counterweight to his foppishness, but the movie seems less focused on the action and adventure than the satire on upper class British manners, which is shown in loving detail.

In consequence, Leslie Howard's performance comes across surprisingly as one of the funniest portraits of a pompous ass ever put on screen. Like the men behind the camera, he seems much more interested in attacking aristocrats than saving them!

In "Pretty Woman" Richard Gere plays an executive attempting to acquire a shipyard so that he can tear the company into small pieces and sell it off for scrap. While he is about this dirty business, he hires a street-walking hooker played by Julia Roberts for companionship. All of this is believable until the purely-for-hire relationship with the whore turns into a warm intimate relationship that seems to change the businessman's character so much for the better that he reverses his decision to decimate the company he is preying upon and even proposes marriage to the hooker.

The makers of this film would like us to forget everything we have ever learned about prostitution – that it takes place in an environment of corruption and is itself a cause of corruption, misery and disease – in favor of the absurd notion that sex for hire is a convenient, appealing and pleasurable way for couples to meet and establish a love relationship.

The producers were very clever in hiring deadpan actor Richard Gere to present their false point of view to innocent viewers, because everything else about the movie smirks at the jades in the audience, not too subtly concealing its lewd in-jokes and boorish innuendo beneath a paper thin veneer of polish and elegance. Worst of all, it openly and chivalrously takes the part of prostitutes against those who may disapprove of them.

"Pretty Woman" is the type of manipulative movie that does everything it can to sell the audience on its values, without making an effort to distinguish between itself and real life. For suggestible viewers, it presents a danger that they may imitate what they see on screen, and then find out too late that real life is not anywhere near so pleasant or easy when it comes to dealing with low life criminals or the vulgar and licentious rich.

I once heard a very successful and well regarded professor of screen writing remark that "it's much better to be rich than to be poor." Not if it means flaunting a love of vice in this disgusting manner.

When this show was attacked for being politically incorrect, I had a visceral reaction of anger, as I used to love it when I was a kid. The actors were so warm to the audience, watching the show was almost like having a personal relationship with them. As a true friend, I have to resent the harsh accusation that "Amos 'n Andy" created dangerous racial stereotypes.

The characters from the show are no more racial stereotypes than any of the other popular characters of low comedy on TV, such as Lou Costello, Baciagalupe, Ralph Cramden, Stan Laurel, Private Doberman, Uncle Tonoose, Gomer Pyle, and a host of others. Maybe the problem is that "politically correct" critics object to low comedy of any kind. Or perhaps they are irrationally blaming the makers of "Amos 'n Andy" for the fact that black actors have never gotten enough serious roles from Hollywood.

Hostile music critics have voiced similar complaints that much of blues and folk music is politically incorrect, that it demeans a race of people by creating "primitive stereotypes." In both cases, I find the criticisms offensive because vaudeville style comedy and blues singing are arguably among the greatest contributions America has made to world culture.

The critics of "Amos n' Andy" would do better to take a shot at recently made crime movies set in the ghettos of today, which contain some of the most evil and offensive racial stereotypes ever put on screen. "Amos n' Andy" never intended to offend!

"Quicksand" is a masterly and entirely believable exploration of a young workingman's descent into crime and desperation. After he falls for a beautiful vamp, Dan Brady takes a seemingly harmless liberty with his boss which backfires dangerously. Frightened at first, he makes his problem much worse when he gets back his courage by piling wrong on top of wrong until his bad luck won't break. Not too many people would take the kind of dangerous risks that nearly get Dan Brady killed, but who hasn't been tempted to lie his way out of serious trouble or get rough if he thought he could get away with it? This movie is perfect in both style and substance, and a fine example of acting from the mature but still youthful looking Mickey Rooney at the height of his ability, seasoned by a long and successful career as a child actor.

"Santa Fe Trail" is like the doubloon nailed to the mainmast in the novel "Moby Dick": how you interpret it depends on your point of view. Some viewers will see it as a tribute to the chivalrous values of the pre-civil war military establishment, which was dominated by southern aristocrats like General Robert E. Lee, while others may see it mainly as the tragic saga of the anti-slavery martyrs of Harper's Ferry, whose self-sacrifice brought on the war to free the slaves. Cavalry officer Jeb Stuart seems either gallant and nobly courageous, or like a pompous martinet, while abolitionist John Brown is a violence loving madman, or one of the most dedicated and selfless heroes of all time. This exciting, action-packed movie refuses to take sides but permits the viewer to make his own decisions about the important themes presented.

What about its use of history, though, which has vexed so many critics? Like any great mythopoeic work, "Santa Fe Trail" should be judged not as historical record but as a legend or myth that tells universal truths. Historicism, which in movie criticism is the theory that all works should be judged by the standard of recorded history, has not enjoyed much favor among the most respected experts on the subject of art. Were this not so, the "Iliad," "Macbeth" and "The Adventures of Robin Hood" would long ago have been rejected as false history, because not one of them is faithful to many of the known facts deemed so important by historicist critics.

Judged on its own terms and from the perspective of facts that have proved true not just in one place and time but in many places and in many periods of history, then "Santa Fe Trail" is a classic in the best sense, and thrilling entertainment too. Like all war movies that are any good, it is a powerful anti-war movie.

Why do all the critics love to attack Tony Curtis for his accent in this movie? (Most frequently citing the line "Yonda lies da castle of my fodda.") Since Curtis's movie acting is invariably entertaining, doesn't he deserve the benefit of a doubt when it comes to the arcane question of what accent is appropriate to a fictional medieval character? The critics have always complained that his accent sounds too American or New York for a medieval knight. But how can the critics be so sure that they are right and the actor is wrong? I mean, what did a genuine English knight of the middle ages really sound like? Have they researched this question?

There were many races of people in England of the middle ages: Saxons, Angles, Normans, Celts, Scandinavians, Picts, Scots, Frenchmen, Jews, even some Moors. Back then, of course, they didn't speak modern English as actors do in almost every American-made movie, so the only issue is whether Curtis's pronunciation of vowels and consonants sounds wrong or right for a medieval knight.

In the Bronx in the twentieth century (Tony Curtis's time and place) there was a mixture of races similar to that of Europe in the middle ages. The pronunciation of the local dialect spoken most likely would have been similar to that of many European languages, including English of several historical periods. Most importantly, if Tony Curtis spoke Yiddish, then he spoke a dialect very similar to medieval languages like Old German or Old English.

It's pretty obvious that the critics had it completely wrong. If there had ever been a real knight of Falworth and we somehow had the opportunity to ask him to pronounce the "offending" line (which was actually the invention of a carping critic and not even in the movie), how might it have sounded? Tony Curtis had it right!

When critics say that some films are pornographic because of the way they depict violence, they are referring to the type of violence that appears in "Reservoir Dogs." The film maker's artistic judgment seems to be clouded by a bloodthirsty hatred of police officers. I am thinking particularly of a scene in which a captive police officer is mutilated by his criminal captors. The feeling conveyed to me was one of sadistic joy in the victim's suffering, a sense that he deserved to be mutilated simply because he was a cop. I am sure that some misguided admirers of this film applauded the scene precisely for that reason. Unfortunately, a lot of people hate the police, and for them such a film functions as escapist "entertainment," but "Reservoir Dogs" seems to lack any redeeming value of another kind, like a snuff movie.

The only other time I've seen such poor artistic and ethical judgment in a film was in "Caligula," by the producer Bob Guccione, where in one scene a Roman aristocrat forces a soldier to drink a gallon of wine and then cuts his belly open for the fun of seeing the liquid spill out of it. Some gullible members of the audience actually cheered when they saw that. Like Guccione, Tarantino, director of "Reservoir Dogs" may be a big fan of pornography and possibly he doesn't make the distinction between sex and violence. Certainly everything of his I've seen looks like a porno film stylistically, but he focuses mainly on bloodshed and torture instead of lust and love. Unless you're in the mood for a tasteless exercise in violence, you would do much better to rent John Huston's "Asphalt Jungle," one of the best and most intelligently made caper gone wrong movies ever made.

When it comes to the swashbuckling tale, there isn't a better way to put it on screen. By the time that Erroll Flynn played the role of Robin Hood, Hollywood had developed its concept of chivalry and old time story telling up to a high point which has never been surpassed. Possibly the reason is that the ideal way of presenting classic tales of universal appeal, of which "Adventures of Robin Hood" is a great example, may always be much the same.

Think of those children's classics that have remained popular ever since the 19th century. Like the Grimm Brothers, the creators of "Adventures of Robin Hood" and other great Hollywood movies of the golden age have created a standard in story telling that seems impossible to equal, which is quite a challenge to contemporary artists. How many actors today have the swordsmanship of Basil Rathbone or Erroll Flynn, or the ability those two great actors had to toss off classic dramatic lines so naturally it is as if they had arrived in Hollywood straight out of the pages of an old story book.

Commentators who complain that classic movies seem dated or artificial and need a lot of updating if remade should see this movie and compare it to films on similar themes made in the 80s and 90s. In spite of the passing years, no one has devised a better approach even for a sophisticated audience.

Herzog, the director, has advocated illiteracy as a virtue for film makers. In line with this, in "Kaspar Hauser," he ignores the mainstream romantic literary tradition of the historical subject matter in favor of an idiosyncratic approach that reduces the protagonist, storied antihero of spiritual intellectual qualities, to a clod of earth and a spiritless automaton. As a contrast, think of Truffaut's "Wild Child," with its very romantic portrayal of a child raised by wolves who is more sympathetic than his cultured human foils precisely because he is natural and uncorrupted by civilization. Herzog either never read or deliberately ignored the popularly available historical novel, "Casper Hauser," by the German 20th century romantic, Jakob Wassermann, a writer like Herman Hesse distinguished by the natural mysticism in his works. In Wassermann's novel, Casper Hauser, in spite of being completely deprived since early childhood of all human and even sensory contact, is like the picture of man in Hamlet's soliloquy, capable of the greatest intellectual achievement, a proof of humankind's innate natural greatness and goodness. Why did Herzog choose a contrary approach, which seems so appropriate to the director's particular gifts but so inappropriate to the subject matter? I think it is a case of perversity – of the artist exalting himself over his subject matter. He chose to empty his romantic subject of its natural spiritual qualities, so that he could recreate Kaspar Hauser in his own anti-romantic image.

Feature film makers have many lessons to learn from this classic western serial. Although each episode was made on a small budget when compared to the Hollywood "A" features of today, all of the production values of great classic movies of the golden age -- painterly composition and design, emotionally effective acting, lyrical music, suspenseful storytelling, beautiful timing, strong dramatic dialogue, elegantly choreographed action, powerful themes, colorful period costumes, folksy comic relief -- all of these values were at a consistently high level from show to show, with never an awkward effect or a misfit scene. Each of the featured characters was drawn in a unique and stylish way, suggesting the storybook characterization that distinguishes the best of the Hollywood golden age. Every one of the episodes stands well as a feature length movie in its own right and would look as good on the big screen as on TV. There's plenty of feeling, no padding or softness, and no mindless experimentation with technique or vulgarity such as has ruined so many westerns made since 1970.

It's difficult to understand why an approach which succeeded for so long was abandoned in the 1970's by both television and feature film makers. Many producers turned instead in the direction indicated by spaghetti westerns. Compared to classic westerns like "Bonanza," spaghetti westerns were much less lyrical and took more of a gutter eye view of the old west, stripping it of its romantic appeal and substituting what to a misguided new generation seemed a dirtier and therefore more authentic realism. In retrospect, Hollywood gave up way too much for the little that it got in return. The success of a vast body of works similar in appeal to "Bonanza" (including many of the other action adventure TV serials made from the '40s to the '60s) is proof that there is a widespread taste that is radically different from the one which has predominated in Hollywood since the '70s. Let's hope that one day we'll see the return of Bonanza's classic values to the screen.

In a Charles Addams New Yorker cartoon, the producer of a melodrama stands at the back of the theater smiling in a sick way to see the rest of the audience all in tears. That producer would be perfectly cast as Charlie Chaplin.

Reams of stuff have been written by critics about how the comic genius Chaplin was a sentimentalist who was capable of conveying sympathy and pathos at the same time that he mocked the silliness and pretensions of modern society. This is so often written that I wonder if anyone in the audience has ever gotten the idea that Chaplin was a ruthless satirist, especially when it came to an underclass made up of vagrants and criminals who were the butt of most of his jokes.

A great artist and craftsman, Chaplin was extremely industrious, was never a tramp himself, almost never unemployed (dating back all the way to childhood); he was knighted and was quite the proper gentleman. Although he might have been amused if anyone had confused him with the feckless bums he often portrayed, in reality he probably had only the intention of making the audience ridicule such characters.

In his ragged suit and derby and walking like he has a broomstick lodged up his rear, Chaplin's Little Tramp represents the familiar character of the once wealthy young rake now fallen on hard times, the poor little no longer rich boy who has to survive on the generosity of his wealthy patrons or scratch out a living among the dregs of society (pugs, convicted criminals).

Chaplin probably thought the ultimate joke is on the audience when it sheds tears over the romantic misfortunes of a type of person on whom pity is wasted.

This is a strange mesmerizing film that cruelly preys upon the audience's willingness to identify with the psychotic main character, allegedly in order to teach a moral lesson. But what lesson?

Many of the audience may not have been aware that the movie had a religious message, thinking instead that it was yet another warning against the violence brought back from Viet Nam by frustrated soldiers such as the one portrayed by Robert DeNiro. But this does not seem to be all that the film makers intended.

Scorsese, the director, today is a major academic critic and professor of the art. His work may be regarded as the embodiment of his political philosophy and critical theories. In an interview, he announced to the world that he was a "Catholic film maker," and referred to the final bloodletting scenes in "Taxi Driver" as a form of ritual sacrifice. Precisely what did he mean?

It is not the kind of Christian message that Hollywood movies have traditionally given, but one which may be informed by the director's peculiar approach to film making. Scorsese is a foremost proponent of the Hollywood noir style. He mocks liberal faith in the blessings of democracy and the forces of law and order (as against the teachings and methods of religion, I presume).

In "Taxi Driver," Scorsese puts the six-gun armed "Travis" through a grotesque, seemingly random series of pointless adventures that end in a very ironic and unromantic way. This is a studied use of noir effect that mocks the Hollywood man of action and action genre films. Its pessimistic, bleak message seems to be that life is filled with ugliness and misery, which cannot be cured by action. But it says this in a bizarre, unrealistic way that has more to do with feelings about art than feelings about life.

"Taxi Driver" was much questioned even when it was under production and there was plenty of critical scorn after it came out. A director acquaintance of mine who attended NYU film school (where Scorsese taught) responded to "Taxi Driver" this way at the time, "man, that stuff is more dangerous than you think. Someone out there (the hinterlands) is gonna see that and do something really deadly." His prediction came true and the country was nearly plunged into chaos at a time when we could ill afford any disturbances in the social order. Shouldn't the movie have taught a lesson against specifically that type of violence?

Apparently, the religious message was a bit obscure, because someone in the audience who desperately needed guidance, certainly didn't get the point.

"MASH" came at a time of decline for commercial TV and marked a major transition from one era to another. In contrast to earlier military service comedies with a populist vaudevillian appeal such as "McHale's Navy" and "Hogan's Heroes," "MASH" was pretentiously contrived as the thinking man's satire upon war, a dour and meditative attack upon bloodshed and privation, especially as experienced by snotty medical school educated pundits. In spite of the lively laugh track, many of the episodes end on a sour, depressing note. "MASH" added a tone of ironic moral indignation to a comic genre best loved for broad humor and slapstick. This may have seemed appropriate to the time, the gloomy end of the Viet Nam War, but the show had little effect on political protest.

Its greatest appeal may have been among a rising generation of actor. In the 70's, the ranks of would-be artists swelled to enormous proportions while the number of available jobs and audience interest were actually on the decline. To theatrically trained actors who wanted roles on TV (because of higher pay scales), "MASH" with its large ensemble cast, many throwaway bit parts and high toned snob appeal seemed to offer more opportunities than traditionally conceived shows, and it seemed friendlier to the academic dramatic play based approach than its vaudeville and sitcom based competition. Producers since that time have decided to cater to this taste among actors, as by now amateur and semi-professional actors in their own right make up a fairly sizable proportion of the audience of many shows.

What got lost along the way? To fans who loved the more colorful acting style, characterization and conventional story telling values of earlier comedies, a lot of entertainment value was lost. Frankly, the acting on a show like "McHale's Navy" was incomparably better than on "MASH" or "Hill Street." The actors were not a little bit, but much more talented. Today, many viewers may still be troubled by the irritating thought that a lot of commercial TV programming seems engineered to appeal to the kind of person who performs the show, but not to a general audience.