Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #50: MacArthur (1977)

One of the largest figures of 20^th Century America is General Douglas MacArthur. The son of a Medal of Honor winner from the Civil War, he had quite the military career, achieving the spotlight in three major wars and even in peacetime. He was also a highly controversial character. Imbued with a massive ego, he had nothing less than presidential aspirations and was sure to promote himself, sometimes at the expense of others. At the same time, he was highly regarded by many Asians for his tenure in the Philippines and his governance of post-war Japan, as he was free of the negative racial views that many whites held at the time. Of course, nothing in his career is as divisive as the end of it, his command in Korea when he clashed with President Harry Truman over how to wage an actual hot war during the larger Cold War.

Shockingly, there has only been one proper biographical film on MacArthur, a relatively low budget affair from 1977. One of the challenges of making a movie on MacArthur is that there is much ripe material. Even before World War II he stirred controversy when he used force to quell the Bonus Army of Veterans (the government had refused promised payments to the veterans in the midst of the Great Depression). But there are three parts of MacArthur’s life that would each make a great movie on their own. First is his generalship in World War II, bookended by his humiliating exit from the Philippines and his later triumphal return. Second is his virtual control of Japan right after the war, where he made sweeping western changes to Japan and managed to win respect from the defeated people. Third is his command in Korea, where he reversed disaster, but then provoked a Chinese counterattack and then butted heads with Truman over how to respond.

So which of these great stories did the 1977 film choose? Well, it chose all three. Not only did it do this, but the movie was a mere two hours long. For comparison Patton, which covered just three years of World War II, was three hours. Furthermore, most of the film was shot on backlot sets, not on location. The result is that MacArthur feels like a TV film. The star of the film, Gregory Peck, expressed disappointment with the script and lack of location shooting, feeling that both undercut the scope and complexity of MacArthur’s career. Fortunately Peck himself puts in a fine performance, revealing the figure’s ambition without overplaying it.

Gregory Peck gets into character with
MacArthur's distinctive pipe

Of course, with so much crammed into two hours, the film fails to deliver on its opening text, which states that contemporary and historical opinions on MacArthur widely diverged, some people seeing him as a great American hero, and others as a harmful egotist. Instead of presenting an ambiguous figure you can read into ala George C. Scott’s Patton, MacArthur only has room to show him as a hero with the occasional whiff of failed higher ambition. When MacArthur butts heads over strategy, we don’t get the sense that he might be very wrong except for perhaps his desire to use nukes in Korea. Every now and then we’ll get a little scene with side characters making snide remarks about MacArthur’s ego and the way he surrounds himself with yes men, but we don’t get to see these flaws in action (except perhaps the way he makes sure his return to the Philippines is filmed in inspiring fashion, but Jerry Goldsmith’s music at this moment is approvingly heroic. In real life MacArthur also had the moment staged and filmed several times to get the best shot!).

Furthering the TV movie feel, many of the supporting actors had extensive work in television. MacArthur’s wife Jean is played by Marj Dusay, a regular on soap operas. Ed Flanders, who serves as an antagonistic President Truman in the last act (as the real Truman did in real life) was known for his many Emmy nominations. Dan O’Herlihy, who portrays Franklin Roosevelt, also did quite a bit of TV work, but did have a good movie career as well. His Roosevelt is a jovial figure, often making cracks about MacArthur while still taking the war seriously. It’s hard to latch onto any of MacArthur’s many staff officers. There is one with a mustache (frustratingly I can’t remember the actor or the officer he portrays) who seems to have the job of making sure MacArthur and his plans receive proper promotion.

The film begins with MacArthur making a speech at West Point. As the camera zooms across the listening students, it transitions to the tunnels of Corregidor in the Philippines. This begins the World War II section, which takes roughly half of the movie. By this point the Americans had already fumbled in their response to Japan’s multi-pronged and swift offensives at the end of 1941. Military historians themselves have criticized MacArthur’s response at the start of the 1941-1942 Philippines Campaign. MacArthur wanted to stay and fight it out as the situation grew increasingly desperate, but much to his chagrin was forced to evacuate while most of his army, Americans and Filipinos alike, were captured by the Japanese.

Unlike Patton, MacArthur actually shows parts of the titular
character's family life. This just adds more elements to juggle.

For a while the movie focuses on MacArthur’s desire to get back to the Philippines and rescue the inhabitants. There’s even a fairly lengthy scene where he and Admiral Chester Nimitz are both arguing their cases with Roosevelt. The Navy wants to take Formosa (Taiwan) as it would be a better strategic point from which to hit Japan and quicken the end of the war. MacArthur says the Philippines would work just as well. The movie fails to delve into the idea that MacArthur was putting his personal desires ahead of actual strategy, and may have been trying to feed his ego by fulfilling his promise to return.

Regardless, his passionate arguments win and he makes his grand return. Soon he arrives at a POW camp, where several characters from the start are liberated after years of grueling captivity at the hands of the Japanese. It was here that I realized that the movie had hit a high note, completing MacArthur’s arc, yet it was only half over. As with Patton, the action scenes are small bits thrown in here and there to show us that men are indeed fighting and dying. They’re not bad, but obviously have a lower budget feel to them.

The Japanese surrender delegation on the USS Missouri. Naval aviation officer Mitsuo Fuchida argued that Nimitz, not MacArthur deserved to have the primary American seat at this moment as the Navy was more essential to Japan's defeat.

The film starts to move too quickly with the next section, MacArthur’s rule of Japan. Many consider this to be the actual high point of MacArthur’s career. His command in Korea was rife with controversy and led to his dismissal, and in World War II it was arguably the Navy and the Marines, not the Army, that arguably pulled off the most critical operations (not to say he and the Army didn't have their big moments). But MacArthur showed remarkable political acumen in Japan, perhaps justifying his desire to become president. He was able to be soft where he needed to be, letting the Emperor stay in place to avoid needless incitement, but at the same time could be hard as he forced through changes such as giving women more equality and opening up more land to the lower classes (the latter point draws much attention in the movie, as his subordinates marvel that a devout Republican anti-Communist is practicing land redistribution).

Then it’s on to Korea when Soviet-backed communists in the North Korea launch an attack on the South. The Korean War is sometimes called the Forgotten War in America, and indeed it has received far less attention than World War II or Vietnam. This is reflected in its Hollywood filmography. There are few American films about and half are B-movies made during the war. MacArthur doesn’t have enough time to really focus on it, and the short battle scenes especially feel cheap (the Chinese intervention is a bunch of Communist troops barging into American tents and killing a bunch of guys, hardly the feel of a grand assault). The grand landing at Inchon, where MacArthur flanked and then routed the North Korean Army, is just a light show in the distance while characters on a ship explain what's happening. The script tries to delve into MacArthur and Truman’s arguments about Cold War Policy. As in real life, MacArthur believes that the Americans need to hit back hard, even widen the war or utilize nukes if it has to, or else the Communists will be emboldened by American weakness. Truman believes that the war must be limited, or else the world will suffer an even worse world war. Truman is the president so ultimately he wins, much to MacArthur's extreme disgust.

President Harry Truman (Ed Flanders) visits an airbase with a sour expression.

MacArthur is the type of movie you might show to your kid to quickly introduce them to some history, as it is a fairly accurate picture and not very long. But again, it’s doing too much in too little time. I can’t imagine anyone clamoring to rewatch it unless they’re a massive Douglas MacArthur fan.

Rating: 6/10

I did discover that there was a television film made just the year before called Collision Course: Truman vs. MacArthur. I haven't seen it, but it sounds like it would be a much more in-depth look at the general's Korean War Service. Also, if you want some good Korean War movies, South Korea actually has made a few (they can get really melodramatic, but I do like Taegukgi: Brotherhood of War and The Front Line).

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #49: Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

In the early 2000s Clint Eastwood chose to direct a duology about the Battle of Iwo Jima, one from the American perspective and the other from the Japanese. The Battle of Iwo Jima, fought in February and March of 1945, was one of the last major battles of the Pacific War (with Okinawa later in the year being on a much larger scale). Thanks to General Tadamichi Kurabayashi’s insistence on fighting a drawn-out defensive battle without the suicidal banzai antics, the Japanese were able to put up a lengthy defense and for the only time in the war inflict more casualties on the marines than they themselves received (though they themselves were almost completely killed off). Eastwood’s two movies on the battles were literally released two months apart at the end of 2006. The second, the Japanese-centric Letters from Iwo Jima, is a highly regarded film that humanized the Japanese soldiers (often portrayed as untranslated antagonists from reasons ranging from racism in older movie to the lack of survivors’ sources) and particularly gave western audiences a rare perspective.

Flags of Our Fathers, on the other hand, has gotten a mixed response. We’ll get into the why of it momentarily, but first I want to get to the real reason Iwo Jima has stood so tall in the list of American battles. It was here that the famous photo of the marines planting a large American flag was taken. This image became so iconic that there is a monument in Washington DC based on it. Eastwood’s movie is based on the book by James Bradley, the son of one of the men who helped raise the flag. It turns out that this simple, empowering image of American victory has a very complex and not too shiny history behind it, and that’s what the book and the movie explores.

As shown in the movie, the Marines fought a grueling battle to get to the top of Mount Suribachi, the most commanding height on the island. There was a dramatic moment where a group of six men raised a flag. However, Colonel Chandler Johnson believed the flag was too small, so another larger one was raised. This is the one that entered popular consciousness. Also, while six men raised each flag, they were not all the same. Confounding matters, none of their faces were visible. Thanks to the repeated flag raising and typical issues with memory, it became unclear who was actually in the latter photo.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #48: The Bird Red One (1980)

Samuel Fuller was a pulp writer, journalist, and film creator. In the last category he both directed and wrote screenplays. His films were usually low budget affairs. This was necessary when he felt the need to work outside the Hollywood system and dodge some of the restrictions of the Hays Code (for example, he had an interracial romance between a Japanese-American detective and white blonde in The Crimson Kimono). However, there was one dream project he needed more money for, and that was a war movie based on his own experiences as a 1^st Division infantryman in World War II. The movie almost got into production several times, starting in the 50s, but it was not until 1980 that Fuller got the time and funding to finally bring his vision to life.

Fuller was keen to depict World War II without the typical Hollywood sheen. He avoided the typical route of having a unifying character or plot arc. Instead he simply followed a squad of men throughout America’s involvement in Europe, particularly in the Army’s 1^st Division. The 1^st Division’s red insignia is the reason for the film’s title The Big Red One. Negative critics have not been too keen on this aspect, feeling that the movie rambles from scene to scene. However, this was intentional. A veteran himself, Fuller knew that war was a grind for the soldiers, who moved from one battle and incident to the next until the whole thing was over. Many of the more unusual incidents in the movie actually occurred, with Fuller himself having been involved in an incident where GIs helped a French woman deliver a baby inside a tank.

Underscoring Fuller’s attempt at realism was the casting of Lee Marvin as the nameless Sergeant. Like Fuller, Marvin was an actual World War II vet. He had served with the Marines in the Pacific and was involved in many amphibious assaults, getting wounded at the Battle of Saipan. Marvin himself deeply appreciated The Big Red One, bonding with Fuller over shared aspects of their backgrounds. Marvin was in plenty of war films, but often found them ludicrous and far from what he had experienced, so a more authentic film was a big breath of fresh air for him. Marvin could finally avoid macho stereotypes of the heroic American soldier, instead using certain marine officers’ quiet, authoritative demeanor inform his role as the fatherly sergeant of the other lead characters.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #47: Saving Private Ryan (1998)

 
Saving Private Ryan is the last Spielberg movie to have a major cultural impact. Spielberg had tackled the World War II era several times already, but they were pulpy (Indiana Jones movies), comedic (1941), or dramas showing people overcome horrific conditions (Empire of the Sun and Schindler’s List). Saving Private Ryan was a full-fledged war film focused on the soldiers. The movie revived American pride in its soldiers, particularly of the Greatest Generation, and spawned several war films and shows. In the video game world it helped create a whole subgenre of historical WW2 shooters, with Spielberg himself helping to develop the Medal of Honor series. Several of these games were keen to feature the Omaha Beach landing, with obviously inspired by the start of Saving Private Ryan.

But has the movie held up? General viewers love it, but many history buffs think it has troublesome aspects. Well, let’s get into it. One of the aspects that made this movie so important was how it handled the battle scenes. The one that everybody knows is the Omaha Beach landing at the beginning. The historical context was that the Western Allies, with the US and Great Britain being the largest members, finally created a second western front in Europe when on June 6, 1944 they executed landings on five beaches along the Normandy Coast. Using deception and the cover of bad weather, they were able to face relatively light German resistance. However, this did not mean it was a cake walk.

Of the five beach landings, Omaha Beach has received the most attention. It was a long, horrid slog, with the American soldiers suffering the worst casualties of any Allied group that day. What struck me when rewatching the movie was how long the opening battle scene was. In reality it took hours for the Americans to finally escape the deadly beach and breach the German bunkers and pillboxes, but of course the movie has other things to get through. That being said, Spielberg really conveyed how difficult it was for the Americans to penetrate the defenses, using little tricks and tactics just to advance a few feet.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #46: Patton (1970)

Of the major American generals in World War II, few stand taller than George S. Patton. He was already a well-known and popular figure, standing out for his colorful personality, strange religious beliefs, and his very aggressive tactics. Of course, it helps that he became the subject of one of the best war/biographic films of all time. Patton was a movie that took almost two decades to get into production. Producer Frank McCarthy wanted a biopic made in the early 1950s, but Patton’s widow Beatrice wouldn’t allow it. Even after she died, it took years to finally get into production. This is perhaps for the best, because the fact that the movie was made at the tail end of the 60s allowed for more ambiguity and thematic exploration than was common in the 50s.

Patton’s screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola would ultimately be derived from two major books on World War II. One was journalist Ladislas Farago’s Patton: Ordeal and Triumph. Of more interest is A Soldier’s Story by General Omar Bradley. Bradley was a very modest and practical man, focused more on the welfare of his soldiers and developing effective strategies than getting good press. In the movie he’s the second most important character. Played by Karl Malden, his more everyman persona puts him in stark contrast with the eccentric and loud Patton. Because he’s closer to Patton in rank (subordinate earlier on, but advancing to a superior position when Patton is sidelined), he’s able to call him out while other characters are too cowed or awed. Bradley himself was still alive and kicking in the 60s, so he served as a consultant, though to what extent he influenced the film is unclear. He’s certainly friendlier with Patton than he was in real life, his criticism coming off more as a concerned friend than someone who wishes he wasn’t with the other general.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #45: Guadalcanal Diary (1943)

Most DVDs and blue-rays avoid using this image

The Battle of Guadalcanal was the first Allied offensive in the Pacific War. Guadalcanal was one of the larger of the Solomon Islands, the island chain northeast of Australia. Naturally, the Americans and their allies would first have to take these islands to begin the laborious process of beating the Japanese back towards their home islands. Though often referred to as a battle, it was more like a campaign with many land and naval battles. Unlike many of the later island battles, the Japanese still had a chance of pulling out a victory. Particularly at sea, the Imperial Japanese Navy scored its final victories over the American fleet before beginning a long losing streak. The battles on land were decidedly more in America’s favor, if still heavily contested, and are notable for being the first of many hellish slogs for the US Marine Corps.

I chose Guadalcanal Diary since I had never seen it before, but I must have mixed it up with some other war movie because I was surprised to see it was a black-and-white film released literally the same year of the latter part of the battle in 1943. The movie itself is also a quickly produced adaptation of an equally quickly produced book by journalist Richard Tregaskis. The movie’s opening credits even start on an image of the book, which opens up to reveal the cast and crew on its pages. There's also voiceover narration lifted from the book. Tregaskis accompanied the Marines during the campaign and diligently wrote down anything of note. He then compiled it into Guadalcanal Diary. Thanks to its factual presentation of events, free of dramatic license, the book was a smash hit, becoming Random House’s first major seller (I often see old copies of it working at an online bookseller).

The movie itself is unique on my watchlist in that it was released smack dab in the middle of the war. This means two things. First, there is no ability to seriously reflect on the wider implications of the battle. In fact the movie is completely from the point of view of the lower ranks, so don’t expect much in the way of big picture strategy or major military leaders. Secondly, this is a pure propaganda piece, and it’s because of this that it feels a bit hollow as a dramatic story.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #44: Midway (1976)

The Battle of Midway was the great turning point of the Pacific War, just half a year after the Attack on Pearl Harbor that got America into the overall global war. The cause was the Doolittle Raid (discussed in my last review) which is featured in the opening credits of this review’s subject. The ability of the Americans to launch a raid on Japanese soil, no matter how pitifully small, actually gave Admiral Yamamoto approval from high command to draw the Americans into a decisive naval battle. Yamamoto had chafed at the failure to find and destroy the US aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor and had then been forced to use the Imperial Japanese Navy to support the Army’s conquests across Southeast Asia. A major Japanese victory could set back the American Navy months, buying Japan time to fortify its gains. On June 4, the Japanese and American fleets would clash near Midway Island in what turned out to be an important, perhaps decisive American victory. The loss of four Japanese carriers gave the Americans the momentum they needed to start driving their enemy from their conquests.

Understandably, the Battle of Midway has gotten three major filmed treatments, all historically accurate in terms of what happened. It was the only battle to receive full-fledged onscreen attention in the War and Remembrance mini-series (based on former navy man Herman Wouk’s World War II novels). In 2019 Roland Emmerich released his own movie that tried to be palatable to today’s attention-deficit general audiences, but still failed at the box office (I think it’s a fine film, but could use some extra oomph). This review goes back to the 1976 film, which was a box office hit, but hasn’t aged that well as a piece of movie-making.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #43: Pearl Harbor

We finally get to World War II, and we start with one of the more lambasted historical epics. Before we get into the movie itself, here’s a brief historical overview of Pearl Harbor. The United States, despite President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s desire to get involved, wanted to stay out of the large wars that had broken out in Europe and China during the late 1930s. By 1941, however, the nation was already starting to get entangled. For example, the US was appalled by the horrific atrocities Japan was committing in China, so it decided to cut off oil exports. Needing oil to continue its war in China, the Japanese decided to strike at the American and European colonial powers in a rapid, surprise onslaught. The date of the attack was December 7, 1941 (December 8 if you were in Asia).

Pearl Harbor is considered a great example of a bad movie, though also quite watchable for the most part. Much of the blame for it has been placed on the director Michael Bay, who’s known for many really stupid but financially successful films. However, while Bay does share some blame, it should be noted that Buena Vista Pictures (this is a Disney movie!) had a much bigger say in how Pearl Harbor turned out. Bay had originally wanted an R-rated update on Tora, Tora, Tora (1970), the highly regarded near-documentary on the famous Pearl Harbor attack, taking advantage of CGI and other modern technical innovations.

The studio had other ideas. James Cameron’s historical disaster epic Titanic had just made box-office and Oscar history. Since Pearl Harbor was also a great historical disaster (and one that involved ships, no less), Michael Bay was told to make something similar, a three-hour romance set amid the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #42: The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

 

Most films set during the Great Depression tend to focus on the criminals that were active at the time or just use the economic downturn as a background event for a fictional story (think King Kong). However, there is one major work, adapted from a book, that looks at the actual economic effects on the working class. John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath was a product of research he did for a series of articles on migrant workers in California during the Great Depression. He was struck by the plight of the migrants, their poverty, desperation, and struggle against limited jobs and exploitation. These migrants were perhaps the hardest hit people of the Depression, as just after the economic downturn the Dust Bowl, a series of dust storms, destroyed thousands of farms and livelihoods. Steinbeck decided to write the tale of the Joads, a tenant farmer family that, after being forced off their land by the company they work for, all pack into one overloaded car and head to California, where there is the promise of employment and thus food and dignity. Instead they find frustration and suffering.

The book was a big success and remains a fixture of top American novels today. 20^th Century Fox immediately decided to adapt it to the big screen with none other than John Ford at the helm. The resulting movie was released less than a year after the novel’s publication. Thus Grapes of Wrath the first case on my watchlist where the movie was released amidst the same historical event it was covering, as thousands of migrant farmers were still struggling in southern California (albeit with the worst of the Dust Bowl’s effects having passed). As with the novel, the film is highly regarded and is no stranger to greatest films lists.

The first half of the movie is very accurate to the novel. Thomas Joad (Henry Fonda), is a paroled prisoner who heads to his family’s farm in Oklahoma. He finds the farm abandoned and inhabited by one of the neighbors, Muley Graves. Using narration and flashback footage, we learn that the farmers, now unable to pay the landowners, are being evicted. In some cases the homes they grew up and lived in have been bulldozed. Tom finally finds his family and they head west to California.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #41: Public Enemies

 

There were so many famed outlaws during the early 30s that I chose to do another one. My choice is John Dillinger, and the movie is Michael Mann’s Public Enemies. It originated as a book by journalist Bryan Burrough’s Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI. It encompassed all the great criminals and Burroughs hoped to see it turned into a dramatic miniseries. After a few twists and turns, however, it became a theatrical film with a singular focus on John Dillinger.

John Dillinger grew into a troublesome youth in Mooresville, Indiana and committed a robbery. He was sentenced to a surprisingly harsh sentence of ten to twenty years in prison. Instead of turning him straight, his incarceration hardened him and kept him around experienced criminals who taught him all sorts of things. When he came out, he developed into the infamous bank robber. Like Bonnie and Clyde, he received exaggerated press and some romanticizing, but even professional historians and journalists note that he had his good qualities. This made him a good subject for Michael Mann, who specializes in showing the good and bad sides of cops and criminals alike.

Most of what’s in Public Enemies is true, but jumbled around chronologically for narrative purposes. For example, the Sioux Falls Robbery combines elements of three of Dillinger’s crimes, with Dillinger’s wounding and the incident of a teen jumping onto the back of one of the robbers before being thrown off through a window. In another example, the Little Bohemia hideout and shooting actually occurred after, not before, the arrest of Dillinger’s girlfriend Billy Frechette (Marion Cotillard, more on her later). Furthermore, Baby Face Nelson, while present, made his escape and would actually die four months later than Dillinger on November 27, 1934. While the chronology is mixed, Mann did go to a lot of trouble to shoot on real sites and even had some locations altered to look more like they did back in the 30's.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #40: Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

 

The cities saw the rise of organized crime in the early 20^th Century. Meanwhile, for a few years at the end of the 20s and into the early 30s, the small towns and rural areas of the American Midwest and South saw a collection of the classic outlaw, updated for modern times. Instead of gangs of robbers riding horses, the likes of Machine Gun Kelly, John Dillinger, and the Ma Barker Gang drove from town to town, hitting banks or in some cases pulling off kidnappings for ransom. The stars of this particular movie are Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, more simply known as Bonnie and Clyde.

Aside from their long string of crimes, the duo was widely known for the simple fact that they were a devoted romantic couple (Wikipedia doesn’t even give them separate pages). Also, like many of the highway robbers of the time, they displayed a “ride-or-die” attitude, engaging in illegal and violent activities with seemingly no actual exit plan. Eventually a posse of Texas and Louisiana lawmen ambushed them on the Louisiana State Highway 154 on May 23, 1934, riddling them with about 130 bullets. Over 30 years later, the famed villains were turned into antiheroes in Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde.

Bonnie and Clyde was one of the first New Hollywood films. By the late 60s, the stringent Hays Code was on its way out. At the same time popular culture was starting to grow more cynical and anti-authoritarian. As a result, Bonnie and Clyde (Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty) as well as their fellow gang members got a heroic lift. They can be chummy with random strangers (including hostages), openly sympathize with farmers struggling with the effects of the Great Depression, and are just all around likeable people when not robbing banks. Actually, one of the stranger aspects of the movie is that while romanticizing the leads it still presents a couple of their ugly moments, such as when Clyde blasts a civilian in the face for hanging onto their car in an attempt to slow them down. For the most part, though, their violence is directed at law enforcement, reflecting the counterculture of the time.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #38 and #39: Al Capone (1959) and The Untouchables (1987)

Of the many criminals who have become big names in American history, perhaps none has stood out more than Al Capone. Alphonse Capone was born and raised in New York City, where he soon got into that gang scene and then became part of what would later become the Mafia. During this time another hoodlum, angry at a remark Capone made to his sister, slashed his face and gave him the nickname “Scarface”. Capone moved to Chicago, where he rose to become the head of the mob. Unlike other mob bosses, he loved public attention and was practically winking at the Law as he managed alcohol bootlegging, gambling racketeering, protection rackets, and other illegal enterprises. Eventually he got nailed on tax evasion and went to prison, but not before helping establish the Chicago Outfit that would dominate the underworld for decades.

Originally the movie industry disallowed real outlaw figures on film, moreso later in the 30s with the Hays Code, but the story of Capone’s rise and fall inspire many crime pictures. Most obvious was Scarface, which used his nickname for an ambitious but violent Italian-American ganger named Tony Camonte (Paul Muni). This movie even has him in Chicago leading an Italian-heavy south side gang against the rival north siders. Late in the 50s, restrictions were loosened and finally Capone made it to the big screen as himself. I’ve decided to review two movies, one where he’s the main character and the other where he’s the villainous antagonist.

Al Capone (1959)

Of all the higher profile actors in Hollywood in the 1950s, Rod Steiger was the best choice. It’s hard to find someone who looks like Capone, but Steiger does have a rounder head like him. The makers of Capone’s first big screen outing certainly thought he was the guy, because they had to rewrite the script several times to gain his acceptance. Reportedly, earlier drafts softened up the gangster. It’s not clear why, but perhaps it was going to focus on his more sympathetic qualities. Steiger wanted people to understand how bad Capone really was and how he hurt people. With little more than 100 minutes to cover Capone’s entire criminal career, however, it was probably wise not to spend time on his soup kitchens and other charitable works, which might have been cynical ploys to deflect negative public perception anyway.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #37: Eight Men Out (1988)

While watching an enraged Al Capone talk about baseball while bashing in the head of a subordinate in the Untouchables, I realized I had no movie about baseball, the great American sport, on my 250^th Anniversary watchlist. Perhaps I should have gone for the more triumphal Pride of the Yankees, which focuses on New York Yankees star Lou Gehrig alongside the greatest of all time, Babe Ruth, but with all the crime movies I’ve been watching I found myself drawn to Eight Men Out, the story of how said octet colluded with gamblers and mobsters to throw the 1919 World Series.

Based on baseball journalist Eliot Asinof’s book of the same name, Eight Men Out tells the story of how the star-studded Chicago White Sox decided to purposefully lose the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, and how the particular players involved were forever banned from the big leagues. One may wonder why a sports team would throw away an opportunity for fame and respect like that. First of all, virtually the same team had already won the Series in 1917, so they already had that feather in their cap. Secondly, and more importantly, baseball players back then were often not paid that well, so getting a big cut from a bet to lose was way more attractive. These days, when people argue that athletes are seriously overpaid, it’s hard to see such a thing happening. The White Sox in particular suffered from the cost-cutting measures of owner Charles Comiskey (Clifton James), who would pull stunts to get out of paying players bonuses. One such incident, featured in the movie albeit after a different game, was when instead of extra pay he awarded champagne. Said champagne was also flat.

I am far from a sports historian, so I had to take a crash course (this link helped with the inaccuracies). I won’t list all the little inaccuracies, but it should be noted that Eight Men Out exists in a strange place where it’s both very faithful yet inaccurate. This is because Asinof’s book was written at a time when sports journalism was less rigorous and based more on hearsay and not completely verified anecdotes. Still, it’s a compelling sad story.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #36: Legends of the Fall (1994)

 

Legends of the Fall is a family drama that takes place across two decades, and is something of a western as the bulk of scenes take place in Montana. Directed by Edward Zwick, it’s based on a novella from Jim Harrison. Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins), leaves the Army out of disgust at how it’s violated its promises to the American Indians and starts a ranch. Joining him are his Indian friend One Stab (Gordon Tootoosis), farmhand Decker with his Cree wife and daughter, and William’s wife Isabel. Isabel does not care for life in Montana, especially when the weather gets bad, and spends most of the movie living elsewhere, but not before she gives William three sons.

The oldest and most ambitious is Alfred (Aidan Quinn), the youngest Samuel (Henry Thomas), and the middle Tristan (Brad Pitt). Tristan takes a lot after his father’s Indian friend One Stab, becoming the most adventurous of the characters, but also the most temperamental. In 1914 Samuel brings home his fiancée Susannah Fincannon (Julia Ormond), and all seems happy. But over the next ten or so years tragedy starts to hit the family, with Susannah finding herself pursued by each one of the Ludlow brothers at one point or another. I won’t describe all the twists and turns of the drama, but let’s just say the movie ends on a bittersweet note and a couple of the characters get overdramatic at points. It does have a nice musical score by James Horner and the acting is solid.

I chiefly chose this movie for my watchlist because the chronological scope of the story allows it to touch on several moments in American history. It deals with some of the fallout of the Old West era, with William Ludlow employing several Indians and a former criminal on his ranch. They’re not living the way they used to, but they’re not completely defeated, either. That being said, this is a rather minor element of the story, save for One Stab’s impact on Tristan’s upbringing. However, the movie does have plenty of western elements, including a final stand-off at the end.

The Ludlow brothers Left to Right: Alfred (Aidan Quinn), Samuel (Henry Thomas), and Tristian (Brad Pitt)

After the more idyllic opening act, Samuel decides to join the Great War over his father’s objections. Not wanting their brother to go alone, his two brothers come along. They join the 10^th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Actually, many Americans, thanks to a growing Anglo-American spirit, went to Canada to fight before their country finally declared war in 1917. The battle depicted is 2^nd Ypres, fought around the Belgian town of the same name. This battle was notable for the Germans’ first major use of gas as a weapon, but this is not depicted in the movie. Though the date given is wrong (February 1915 instead of April 1915), the portrayal of a trench assault is considered accurate.

Here be spoilers. The war leaves Samuel dead and Tristan shaken both by the death and his own violent response to it. He returns and starts to fall in love with Susannah, but his PTSD overcomes him and he decides to wander the world, effectively abandoning her. With her fiancée dead and the attractive Tristan gone, Susannah marries Alfred, but grows unhappy as Alfred starts to climb the social ladder and get involved with some very unscrupulous men (a mix of politicians and gangsters). William suffers a stroke and the ranch starts to decline, but then Tristan comes back and he and his father decide to smuggle alcohol during prohibition.

Susannah (Julie Ormond) gets all mushy with the long-haired Tristan

Prohibition was one of the greatest backfires of American history. Seeing alcohol as the source of many of society’s ills, the Temperance Movement spent nearly a decade trying to get it banned. Incredibly, this came to pass with the 18^th Amendment in 1920. Instead of curing society, it actually made it more lawless as people turned to crime to get their drinks. After all, people sensed that there was nothing inherently evil about wanting to consume a little alcohol, so it was easier for them to break the law in this case.

Usually Prohibition action takes place in the cities, but less populated areas like Montana were involved as well. Actually, Montana got a head start, with Prohibition starting in the state at the end of 1918. It also was the first to repeal it in 1926, a good 6 to 7 years before the 18^th Amendment in total was overridden. Unfortunately for the Ludlows in the movie, their family bootlegging business raises the ire of the local gangsters and tensions escalate into a small war. In real life the mobs had operatives working in rural states such as Montana thanks to the Canadian border. As a result, Legends of the Fall features a unique showdown western and crime movie archetypes.

The family sticks together. Anthony Hopkins is on the right.

I won’t talk too much more about Legends of the Fall, as it’s most a human drama story with a strong historical backdrop. I didn’t even get into the other romantic subplot with Isabel Two (Karina Lombard). This movie is a good way to see how a single family struggles and evolves as major events unfold. Brad Pitt fan girls will have a good time with this movie if you’re one of those.

Rating: 7/10

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #35: Sergeant York (1941)

 

There’s a rich wealth of movies about World War I, but not many high-profiles ones that are actually American-centric. The majority of US citizens had no desire to get entangled in a large war between imperial European powers. Opinion slowly shifted over the course of the Great War, partly because of effective British propaganda (Anglo-American sentiment was growing strong thanks to shared language) and also because of German U-boat attacks on American shipping (they targeted ships carrying war material). The United States declared war in 1917, but it wasn’t until 1918 that it had an army ready to fight in Europe. The army suffered over 116,000 deaths, which seems light compared to the American Civil War and World War II, but was actually appalling when you consider how little time the Yanks actually spent on the front lines.

America’s reluctance to enter a global conflict and then it’s decision to join later, made the first war ripe material for interventionist propaganda come World War II. Sergeant York, based on the life of Medal of Honor winner Alvin York, plays into this, released in the middle of 1941 when America had not yet been attacked at Pearl Harbor. Thus this is actually a bit of interventionist propaganda, but regardless it’s a pretty good movie.

Actually, Sergeant York is not primarily a war movie thought the titular character’s military performance is the culmination of his character’s growth. Alvin York’s story resonated deeply with Americans because his background was linked to the earlier frontier figures of United States history. He grew up in the Appalachian hills of East Tennessee with little formal education and was an incredible shot with a rifle. Thus Americans had a mountain man, a tough yet humble hero, making his name in what was at the time a shocking revelation of modern war.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #34: Rough Riders (1997)

 

Most of the movies I’ve watched have taken place within the confines of today’s United States. With Rough Riders, America starts to take a more active role on the global stage. Back in the 1890s, a not entirely accurate press whipped up support for Cuban independence from Spain. After the destruction of the military USS Maine  (long proven to have been an accident and not a Spanish plot) off Havana, Cuba, the US declared war and ended up with several overseas possessions. The idea of creating an overseas empire was extremely controversial at the time, with detractors seeing it as an attempt to emulate the aggression of European powers and the defenders believing it would serve America’s economic interests or, as Theodore Roosevelt believed, keep America’s heroic frontier spirit alive.

The Spanish-American War was an extremely lopsided victory for the United States. Naturally, the only part of the war that could warrant a heroic war film were the land battles in Cuba, where Teddy Roosevelt and his volunteer Rough Riders would distinguish themselves at San Juan Hill. Such a film materialized as a TNT miniseries thanks to Roosevelt fans Tom Berenger and John Milius. Berenger was the initiator, having gotten the idea while playing James Longstreet in Gettysburg. He wasn’t going to direct, however, and chose John Milius for the job.

Milius had already filmed Roosevelt in his 1975 epic The Wind and the Lion, where Brian Keith (who plays President James McKinley for a couple scenes in Rough Riders) turned in an incredible performance as the 26^th president (I almost added this movie to my list to get more Roosevelt, but alas this is his solo appearance). Milius, a rare firm conservative in Hollywood, perhaps saw himself in Roosevelt, as both used mental and physical dedication to overcome a sickly childhood.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #33: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007)

 

This is another revision of an earlier review I made. This time, however, my opinion of the movie was greatly changed on my rewatch. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a television movie from HBO, is based on Dee Brown’s famous history of the fall of the American Indians in the latter half of the 19th Century. Brown’s book is too widely focused to make a single movie, so HBO limited itself to the story of the Sioux, from their last great victory at Little Bighorn to the fallout of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, charting their decline from a proud warrior people on the western plains to dependents on a reservation. Overall it’s a pretty accurate film, but accuracy does not always translate into a great movie.

The movie tries for a balanced account of events, though both of the primary protagonists are Sioux Indians. The first is Charles Eastman (Adam Beach). Eastman is the biggest inaccuracy of the movie. As in real life he has a Sioux father who converted to Christianity and changed his name to Jacob Eastman. For a while Charles, as Ohiyesa, lived with his mother’s people, but they were not part of the group under Sitting Bull, so Eastman’s presence at Little Bighorn is completely fictional. He was put in a mission school before having an American education program. Though the movie doesn't have him go to one of the controversial boarding schools, it still shows how Indian children were made to abandon their cultural heritage, down to adopting western names. The movie gets inaccurate with Eastman again, however, in giving him a close relationship with Henry Dawes which didn't exist, and also making him figure more in the other Sioux's lives earlier in the timeline.

What is true is that he was the first American Indian to master western medicine and became a doctor on the Great Sioux Reservation. At least in the movie his character is torn between two worlds. He can’t help but sympathize with his own people but also has a friendship with Senator Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn) and a romantic relationship with poet and future wife Elaine Goodale (Anna Paquin, who played Rogue in the X-Men films). By the end of the movie he has grown disgusted with health conditions on the reservation as well as the misguided aspects of the Dawes Act, which forced the Sioux to become farmers and also sell off more of their already shrunken lands. Eastman was not present for most of the events in the movie and certainly did not have as many personal interactions with other major characters, but he is used to show the tensions the Sioux face between preserving some of their culture and adopting the whites’ ways.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #32: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Never meet your heroes…especially if they’re on the wrong side of the law.

That’s one of the messages of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a cult classic western directed by Andrew Dominik. Of all the western outlaws, Jesse James is the most famous. Whereas most famed western robbers only lasted a few years, Jesse James’ career of armed robbery ran from 1866 to 1882, and he was never properly defeated by the law itself, as the title of this movie indicates. Jesse James originated as a Confederate guerilla during the Civil War, gaining some notoriety alongside his older brother Frank. They disapproved of the post-war changes after the Union victory and practically continued the war by robbing Union-friendly targets. They joined up with other outlaws to form the James-Younger gang, and were known for their daring train, bank, and stagecoach robberies. One factor in their success was that they operated in Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, and other territory with ex-Confederates. The press and many citizens began to lionize them as continued resistance against Northern tyranny. Outside of politics, there were also claims that they shared their money with the poor. This was not true.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (based on a novel by Ron Hansen) is actually something of a historiographical study. The actual main protagonist Robert Ford, grew up worshipping Jesse James and sees him as the romantic Robin-Hood like outlaw of cheap novels and sensationalized newspaper articles. This view of Jesse James led to a whole slew of movies I could have chosen from, most of them horribly inaccurate (as a kid I saw a Roy Rogers one where he helped fight the stock western villain of the railroad tycoon. Though set in Missouri, it looks like they’re way further west thanks to the filming in California hills). Andrew Dominik’s movie is much closer to history, and shows what happens when the legend falls far from the myth.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #31: Tombstone (1993)

 

One of YouTube channel Honest Trailers’ jokes about the movie Tombstone is that it answers the questions “what if you only made a movie out of the good parts.” Only modestly successful at the box office, this new telling of Wyatt Earp and his adventures around Tombstone became a staple of Cable television and is now regarded as one of the most awesome (and manly) movies ever made. This was a real treat on my watchlist, as it somehow is generally accurate while still retaining the feel of an entertaining blockbuster. It’s got an unbelievably full and incredible cast, and it’s a testament to both the actors and the screenplay that nearly all of them leave their mark.

What’s interesting about Tombstone was that it was a sincere update of the classic Western outline. Our protagonist or protagonists show up in a town riddled by chaos. Though reluctant, they ultimately have to use violence to clean up the place. Indeed, this might be the last high-profile Western to not be a deconstructive film. If you ask me, the idea of the deconstructionist Western has been well overplayed by now. Film reporters and critics are always gushing about films for challenging the classic American myth of the West, but these days it’s hardly a brave and bold stance within Hollywood. But that’s not what this review is about, so I’ll get back on topic.

Before going further, I should note that there are two major sources of the inaccuracies in Tombstone. One is that the timeline is simplified and condensed. The time of the Earps’ arrival in Tombstone to the Vendetta Ride was between two and three years. The movie makes it feel much shorter. Also, the characters were up to a lot more, often changing jobs and in the case of love interest Josephine actually leaving the town for a while before coming back. One switcheroo in time is that Doc Holliday seems to die shortly after the Vendetta Ride and then Wyatt links back up with his romantic interest. Actually, Holliday lingered on until 1887, about five years after the movie ends.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #30: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)

 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is one of the few movies on my list which I watched for the first time. Directed by Sam Peckinpah in the New Hollywood era of the 70s, I was very interested to see what it would be like. Peckinpah directed the famous Wild Bunch, a big deconstruction of the western. However his follow-up, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, has not fared so well in memory. It did rather poorly on its initial release and was panned critically to boot. The main cause was MGM’s president James Aubrey, who first interfered with time and budget constraints and then, more infamously, forced cuts that undermined the story and themes of the movie.

The theatrical cut removed almost 20 minutes of the movie. Since then Warner Brothers and the Criterion Channel have attempted to release the definitive cut. Apparently I should have watched Criterion’s 50^th anniversary version, but I opted for the Final Preview Cut which is the longest at 124 minutes. Strangely it was a mix of high blu-ray quality and grainy film. I won’t get too much more into the movie’s troubled production, but if you’re into reading about behind-the-scenes chaos this movie is a goldmine.

On to the history, Billy the Kid is one of the more romanticized outlaws of American history. This can be attributed to the very young age when he started his outlaw career and some of the sympathetic circumstances that propelled him to notoriety. As William Bonney he had committed various crimes in his teenage years and had been one of the more dangerous shooters of the Lincoln County War in New Mexico. Even though he was hardly the only one to kill in the war, Bonney was still labeled an outlaw. He gave key testimony in a murder trial in exchange for amnesty from Governor Lew Wallace (Jason Robards plays him for one scene), but did not get what he asked for. From there he became a more hardened outlaw, leading to the events depicted in Peckinpah’s film.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #29: Son of the Morning Star (1991)

 

I’ve actually already written a review of this one, so this is a revised version with a little more to it. Son of the Morning Star is a two-part TV adaptation of Evan S. Connell's non-fiction book of the same name. The title is one of the Cheyenne names for Colonel George Custer, who led a daytime assault on their camp on the Washita River. I was originally drawn to this film after watching the heavily inaccurate Errol Flynn as Custer flick They Died with Their Boots On. Unfortunately the mini-series (which did not perform to expectations) has still not received a cleaned up DVD or streaming release, so I had to watch a VHS rip on Youtube (yes, it's completely free, albeit with some ad breaks). While the picture quality is fuzzy, I have to say that I was very pleased with this "movie" and feel that it deserves more attention for being the most accurate coverage of Custer and Little Bighorn. I’ve even rewatched it twice.

George Armstrong Custer literally joined the American Civil War out of West Point. His audacious bravery propelled his career, and he ended the war as both a brevet general of volunteers and one of General Phil Sheridan’s favorites. With the army shrinking, he was shunted down to the rank of colonel (a common problem for many who earned extra start leading volunteers in the Civil War) and was sent out West to deal several Indian wars. Custer’s vanity and recklessness often got him into hot water with his superiors, but it was his last stand and death at the Little Bighorn that ensured he would be remembered for all of American history.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #28: Broken Arrow (1950)

 

Broken Arrow tells of the real-life friendship between Apache chief Cochise and prospector Tom Jeffords. Famously the two were actually able to end, at least for a few years, much of the warring between Americans and Apaches. To understand the context of the Apache Wars in the 1860s and 1870s, we’d have to start in 1861. A group of Apache raiders kidnapped a 12-year old boy. Lieutenant George Bascom of the US Army invited Cochise to meet him, making the common mistake of assuming that all Indians of one people answered to one leader. Cochise had no part in the kidnapping and even offered to help get the kid back, but Bascom planned to imprison him. Cochise escaped and the Apache Wars returned with a fierce intensity.

The movie generally follows the events of history, but with quite a few changes and additions. One is the look of Tom Jeffords, who like many Americans of his time sported a good amount of facial hair, but here shows up played by a clean-shaven Jimmy Stewart. Older and having been affected by his service in World War II, Stewart could no longer play the folksy and often idealistic hero, and his career looked uncertain. He found new life, however, as a western actor (I highly recommend his Anthony Mann westerns where he’s a more cynical protagonist).

But enough about an actor’s history. Stewart’s Jeffords surprises the Apache by rescuing one of their wounded youths and being reasonable. As his relationship with Cochise starts to develop, he’s able to negotiate an end to Apache attacks on the overland mail. This is based on a claim that the real Jeffords made, but historians have disputed this. Jeffords definitely, however, helped bring Apaches and US officials together for peace talks. In 1872 he accompanied one-armed General Oliver O. Howard to Cochise’s place. Howard was a firm Christian not given to lying or aggression, so Grant thought that, paired with Jeffords, he’s be a great for a peace-seeking mission. Basil Ruysdael plays Howard in this movie. He does a good job, but Howard is way too old here. The movie further leaves out the famous moment when the religious officer shouted his thanks to God and frightened the Apache (they thought he was summoning magic).