Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #7: John Paul Jones (1959)

 

John Paul Jones was the first of a string of big budget productions from Samuel Bronston. Bronston really wanted colorful spectacle on the big screen, but this came back to bite him when he produced two major bombs in the 60s. Surprisingly, his career wasn’t killed in the crib by John Paul Jones, which made one quarter of its budget back. It's not too hard to see why this movie wasn't a major hit with audiences.

John Paul Jones was the first major naval hero of the United States, scoring victories, taking daring ventures such as an actual raid on home British soil at Whitehaven, and, most famously, shutting down a surrender demand by shouting, “I have not yet begun to fight!” This energetic figure is poorly served by his biopic. The first problem is that it’s one of those “greatest hits” films in well under two hours. It’s hard to create a gripping character arc or build up suspense when you’re bouncing around between times and locations. The movie itself begins aboard a modern American war vessel, where an officer with a “golly gee” voice starts a narration of Jones’ life. From there we see him as a child in Scotland, a regular merchant captain, a Virginia planter, and finally a naval officer sparring with British ships, making amphibious raids, and rubbing elbows with major political figures.

The other problem is the performance of Robert Stack. Stack looks too bored to be such a thrilling character. Then again, he doesn’t have much character beats to work with. The film does threaten us with a love triangle between him, Patrick Henry, and governor’s daughter Dorothea Danders (for some reason they altered her historical name Dandridge), but it’s quietly put away as the governor is dead set against him courting his daughter anyways.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #6: The Crossing (2000)

 

When I was growing up, A&E, the Arts & Entertainment Channel, used to produce TV movies, many on historical events and figures.  These films were of course low budget, but many turned out quite good (Shackleton, starring Kenneth Branagh, is one I’d recommend). The Crossing, adapted from a Howard Fast novel, is about the famous crossing of the Delaware River, when General George Washington launched a surprise Christmas attack on a Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey.

In 1776 Washington presided over a series of defeats in New York. By the time his army escaped into winter quarters, enlistments were almost up and morale was horrendous. Washington was desperate to do something to raise morale and also show that the fledgling American nation could win battles. He led an audacious night march in freezing weather, which included the crossing of the Delaware River. He strategically hit the Hessians (German soldiers hired by the British) just after they had partied for Christmas. The result was a clear, one-sided victory wherein the Americans suffered only a few wounded (though a couple died from the cold on the march) and the enemy about a hundred wounded and killed, with hundreds more taken prisoner.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #5: 1776 (1972)

 

1776 is, pending any changes I make later in the year, the only musical on my list. It’s a big screen adaptation of the Broadway play of the same name, with dialogue and lyrics written by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards. Peter H. Hunt directed the cinematic transfer, which surprisingly was timed jus a few years short of America's 200th birthday. The adaptation is very faithful to the play, and even uses many of the same actors. In fact, you won’t find familiar movie or television actors here, though many of the leads are big names in Broadway history. I first saw this movie way back in 2002 as part of my home school classes. I remember finding parts entertaining, but eventually being frustrated and bored by the end of it (it’s a long movie). My rewatch over 20 years later was much better, though the pace does start to drag in the last half hour, as well as one bafflingly long sequence focused on Thomas Jefferson and his wife.

The plot is that the Continental Congress can’t agree on whether or not to break with Britain and start a new nation. For a musical with plenty of comedy, there is an incredible amount of research involved. Much of the dialogue and even the song lyrics are lifted straight from the letters, speeches, and quotes of the Founding Fathers. It also accurately shows the compromises needed to bring differing interests together in a common cause, particularly when it comes to the issue of slavery.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #4: The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

 

The Last of the Mohicans is the best known of James Fennimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. Cooper was the first American novelist to achieve international popularity, and for an author writing in the early 19^th Century was notably fait and complex in portraying American Indian characters, though sometimes slipping into noble savage tropes. Last of the Mohicans has been widely adapted onto screen, but Michael Mann’s 1992 offering is the most popular and enduring, thanks to its great cast, good music by Trevor Jones, and well-shot scenery.

The setting is the French and Indian War, which was a colonial theater of the global Seven Years War. The British and French fought each other with a mix of regular troops, militia, and Indian allies. Last of the Mohicans in particular focuses on events around the Siege of Fort William Henry. Colonel Edmund Monro put up a dogged defense against the Franco-Native force under General Louis-Joseph Montcalm. Reinforcements failed to arrive, so Munro surrendered under generous terms from Montcalm. However, the French’s Indian allies then set upon the disarmed soldiers and the civilians (women and children included), massacring them in one of the most controversial moments of the war.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #3: The Crucible (1996)

 

The Crucible is an adaptation of American playwright Arthur Miller’s work of the same name. The plot focuses on the hysteria and questionable trials surrounding the witch scare in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Arthur Miller used the historical event as an allegory for McCarthyism in the 1950s, with falsely accused witches representing the falsely accused Communists (as it turns out, intercepted Soviet correspondence and the opening of more material in Russian archives has proved that most of these people were indeed Communists or in league with them, but that’s not the focus on this review).

Arthur Miller actually wrote the adapted screenplay, making some changes here and there (whether of his own accord or the director's I don't know). Of course, the movie allows the actual recreation of the old Puritan town of Salem, though this is still very much an actor-driven dialogue affair. The movie starts Reverend Samuel Parris (Bruce Davison) coming upon his niece Abigail Williams (Wynona Ryder) and the other town girls performing an African ritual with the help of slave woman Tituba. Desperate not to be convicted of witchcraft, Abigail (with a lot of help from the other girls) desperately put all the blame on Tituba, then start accusing other citizens, mostly older women, of having interactions with the Devil.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #2: The Plymouth Adventure (1952)

 

I first watched a film about the first successful English colony at Jamestown, so I thought it only natural to find a movie about the Puritan Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth (in what is now Massachusetts). The Plymouth Adventure is not really about the colony itself (the early history of that settlement is covered briefly in the last ten minutes), but the voyage aboard the Mayflower. The first act concerns the Pilgrims trying to leave for America, with the majority of the rest of the film focusing on tensions between the rough-hewn sailors and the more polished Pilgrims, tensions which weren’t really much of a thing in real life.

The film gets points for featuring a cast virtually made up of real historical figures, though some are just faces put to names of the Mayflower’s list of crew and passengers. It’s more of an ensemble piece, but Spencer Tracy as Captain Christopher Jones does tend to command the screen. In real life Jones was easy to get along with and was a devoted family man, but to create drama the movie turns him into a womanizing and often drunk grouch who can’t stand the religious Puritans.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #1: The New World (2005)

 

Since this year marks the 250^th birthday of the United States of America, I’ve decided to mix my love of movies and history. Roughly once a week, I’ll watch an American history film, arranging them in rough chronological order (these movies span any period from a few days to a few decades).

First is up is Terence Malick’s  The New World (2005), which covers the early years of the colony at Jamestown. Malik is a deeply philosophical filmmaker, and he is less interested than the history per se than in its personalities. Thus the movie revolves around a trio of characters. There is John Smith (the competent explorer played by Colin Farrell), the quiet planter John Rolfe (Christian Bale), and most importantly Powhatan princess Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher).

As with many previous iterations, most famously Disney’s controversial animated effort, Malick ages up Pocahontas a little so she can have a romance with John Smith. In real life they had an intergenerational child-adult friendship. Most of the inaccuracies in the movie stem from this decision, as it heavily reframes Pocahontas’ character. For example, when she becomes a member of Jamestown she’s listlessly going through life because she believes John Smith is dead. In real life she was actually very interested in her new home and earnestly wanted to become an Englishwoman and a Christian.