Harper

When I watch movies from the 1940s and 50s, I usually don't notice much that seems anachronistic.  Sure, the technology is outdated, but their language and dress are pretty classic.  If I went out to dinner, dressed and acted like Humphrey Bogart or Carey Grant, I wouldn't get confused looks from strangers.  Films from the 60s, though, sometimes show their age more, thanks to their hep slang and groovy fashions.  Harper is an interesting watch, partly because it is clearly a product of the mid-60s, but also because it is just as obviously inspired by classic film noir.

Lew Harper (Paul Newman) is a private eye that's seen better days; he's been living out of his office, reusing coffee filters, and his car looks beat to hell.  Sure, it's a Porsche, but that doesn't mean it's looking good.  Harper is hired Elaine Sampson (Lauren Bacall) to find her husband, a very wealthy man with a history of being flaky.  Elaine isn't worried about her Mr. Sampson shacking up with another woman --- she is an invalid and turns a blind eye to that --- but she doesn't want her gullible husband getting suckered into giving some hussy a bunch of money.  The last time Sampson disappeared and got generous, he literally gave away a mountain to a crooked church.  Why not call the police?  Well, they'd rather handle things quietly, if possible.  Harper makes the rounds, questioning his ditzy and flirtatious daughter, Miranda (Pamela Tiffin) and his pilot/cabana boy, Allan Taggert (Robert Wagner), but they don't really give him much help.  That's not too surprising; Sampson wasn't out with a woman, he was kidnapped.  There's something fishy about the kidnapping, though.  Somehow Harper has to put the pieces together to explain how an overweight former starlet (Shelley Winters), a drug-addicted jazz singer (Julie Harris), and the crackpot church all have something to do with Sampson's disappearance.

I love movies like Harper.  You have a too cool for school lead character that loves to swagger, even when that confidence gets him nearly killed.  Like all classic noir, this story has a lead actor with a heart of stone, who is clever, tough, and willing to do whatever it takes to learn the truth.  Of course, that means that his actions aren't always legal, and he might not take legal actions to solve the big problems, either.  Basically, if you like tough guys that are charming as hell and solve mysteries, Harper is a good choice.

It never hurts to have Paul Newman playing the charming bastard in the lead role.  Newman was one of the greats, and I like him best as the guy that would fun to hang out with, but not necessarily someone you would let your sister date, if you know what I mean.  The supporting cast in this movie is pretty awesome, even if they all have relatively small parts, compared to Newman.  For starters, having Lauren Bacall in a noir is always a good choice; her appearance here is a clear allusion to The Big Sleep, where her father in that film played a rich invalid that pays a detective to find a missing man.  Bacall still was magnetic, even when reduced to sitting down in all her scenes.  Robert Wagner and Pamela Tiffin weren't particularly impressive, but they played flaky characters well enough.  Shelley Winters was sad as the past-her-prime star and Julie Harris did a good job as the tough jazz singer.  I was particularly happy with the small parts played by character actors Strother Martin and Robert Webber.  The best surprise for me, though, was the chemistry between Newman and Haper's ex-wife, played by Janet Leigh.  I'm not terribly familiar with Leigh, aside from her small part in Psycho, so it was nice to see her in a substantial role.  She played one of the best tired-of-her-man's-bullshit parts I have ever seen on film, and she managed to be tough, cranky, and sensitive all in one go.  And their dialogue...!  Here's a taste:

Leigh: What do you want from me?
Newman: Anything I can get.
Leigh: At least you're honest.
VIOLENT SMOOCHING

Man, that's good stuff!

You can credit the fun dialogue to William Goldman, who has a talent for memorable lines. You want more?  "The bottom is loaded with nice people. Only cream and bastards rise to the top."   Just typing that put a smile on my face. And this film has one of the better ambiguous endings I've seen. Goldman's screenplay is brought to life by director Jack Smight, who does his best to keep the tone and the pace of Harper in keeping with Bogart-esque noirs of yesteryear. I'm not a huge Smight fan, but he handles the dialogue and the action sequences well and keeps the story from being too confusing, which is very important in thrillers like this.

But this is definitely a film that has aged less gracefully than other Newman classics.  Really, any movie that shows characters dancing to rock music is going to look silly in retrospect, but this one has more dancing than any self-respecting noir should have.  I will admit that Pamela Tiffin dancing to surf music while standing on a diving board was pretty funny, but I don't think it was supposed to be that funny.  Most of the lines coming out of Robert Wagner's mouth are dated by his slang, which adds unintentional humor to a movie that isn't trying to make jokes.

Aside from the funny dancing and slang, there's not a whole lot wrong with Harper.  It is definitely an homage to noirs, so it doesn't feel terribly original, but that's not always a big deal.  The one area where this film could have been improved was in the overall feel of the movie.  The characters in this story are pretty sleazy, but the film is dazzling with its handsome cast and bright colors.  Newman manages to look a little scuzzy, but he's the only one who puts any effort into looking the way his character acted: dirty.  Still, the dialogue is often great, there are several memorable scenes, and it's always fun to watch Paul Newman outsmart people.

12 Angry Men

I missed out on a lot of common experiences in high school because my classes tended to have unusual curriculum.  I have never read The Scarlet Letter, Jane Eyre, Beowulf, or Heart of Darkness.  I know, I know, I'm a lucky fella.  I also was not required to see 12 Angry Men when I studied the Constitution or in a speech class (in the "group think" chapter).  Sure, I've heard about the movie from my peers, but I never felt compelled to watch it, even when I noticed that it was in IMDB's top ten rated movies of all time.  Sometimes, I don't know what my problem is.

12 Angry Men is not the follow-up movie adaptation to the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno television show, The Angriest Man.  Instead, it is a courtroom drama that actually doesn't take place in a courtroom at all.  As the movie poster suggests, it takes place in a dynamite factory.  The vast majority of the film (aside from a brief opening scene and a quick epilogue) takes place in the jury room.  The audience has not heard the lawyers speak, but the jury has heard the complete arguments of the prosecutors and the defense, and now it's time to decide whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty.  Of course, you need all twelve jurors to agree on the verdict, or else the jury is hung and the whole shebang is declared a mistrial.  That sounds pretty simple, but this is a capital crime, so a "guilty" verdict will result in the death penalty.  Despite the gravity of the case, the jury initially sits down and assumes that their deliberation will take all of five minutes; the case seems open-and-shut.  The first vote is 11-1, guilty, with only Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) dissenting.  And since the vote has to be unanimous, it is up to the rest of the jurors to convince (by whatever means) Juror 8 to change his vote...or, it is up to him to change everyone else's.

After I first watched this movie, I realized that there were some subtleties that I had missed the first time through; after my second viewing, I can definitely say that director Sidney Lumet did a great job.  Just the camerawork alone is fantastic.  You would think that a film set in one room would be visually dull and probably peppered with close-ups to vary the shots, but not this one.  The final shot of the film, a wide-angle crane shot of the jurors all leaving the courthouse, was what piqued my interest.  That shot felt so refreshing that I had to review the film and figure out why.  Here's what I noticed: the camera angles in the movie gradually shift their angle as the film progresses.  In the beginning, all the camera shots are a looking down slightly, or are at least at eye-level; by the end of the film, every shot is looking up at the actors.  So what?  Well, looking up at the actors (especially when they're arguing and are getting all sweaty) brings the ceiling into the shot, like the room is getting smaller (or the men are slowly swelling, I suppose).  It also felt like the room was getting smaller, too; I'm not sure if that was a camera trick, or maybe a larger table in the room, or maybe the set walls were pushed in a little, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't just my imagination.  These subtle cinematographic techniques add layers to the film, making it work on a subconscious level as well as the obvious look-at-the-actors-level.

The fancy camera tactics wouldn't have helped if the cast was no good, but this film is stacked with noteworthy actors.  As the conscience of film, Henry Fonda is the main character, and he is as good as he usually is; Henry Fonda was one of the great do-gooders in film, with most of his characters (at least, in his most famous movies) being noble and brave.  You wouldn't think that a film that essentially boils down to fighting peer pressure (vote guilty, everybody's doing it) could have a brave character, but that's what Fonda brings to the table.  Lee J. Cobb, as Juror 3, played Fonda's nemesis, of sorts.  He was perfect as the brutish, bullying jerk, the perfect foil for Fonda's calm rationality.  The rest of the players (Martin Balsam, John "the voice of Piglet" Fiedler, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Jack Warden, Joseph Sweeney, Ed Begley, George Voskovec, and Robert Webber) were good, although some were a little one-dimensional.  The standout were Ed Begley's performance as the bitter racist and John Fiedler, in his typical role as the timid guy in the room.

This film was made in 1957 and that age shows itself from time to time.  The fact that an "ethnic" defendant would have twelve middle-aged or older white men for his jury feels a little odd now.  And I realize that racism is still an issue in America, but the scene where everyone turns their back on Begley (while powerful) is a little more dramatic than realistic.  Still, this is a great movie that is still relevant.  The film takes a basic concept --- that of reasonable doubt --- and forms a subtle, intelligent movie around it.  The movie isn't even long, clocking in at just over ninety minutes, and it is packed full of interesting, varied performances.  This film's quality was not a foregone conclusion --- it was made on a shoestring budget and featured a first-time film director --- but it still managed to be nominated for Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay, all for a picture set in one room, based on a legal issue.

Yeah...this is a good one.