Movie Review: Man Of The West (1958)

Genre: Psychological Western  

Director: Anthony Mann  

Starring: Gary Cooper, Julie London, Lee J. Cobb  

Running Time: 100 minutes  

Synopsis: Former outlaw Link Jones (Gary Cooper) has built a new life of peaceful domesticity. But after he is caught up in a botched train robbery along with entertainer Billie Ellis (Julie London) and card sharp Beasley (Arthur O'Connell), Link stumbles upon his old gang led by the hard-drinking and aging Dock Tobin (Lee J. Cobb). The gang is now marginalized and incompetent, but Dock harkens back to old glories and wants Link to rejoin for one last bank heist. 

What Works Well: Director Anthony Mann combines the impressive breadth of CinemaScope with an intimate focus on one man forced to confront his legacy. Gary Cooper's considered presence enhances a central theme of the monster within called upon to slay the ghosts of the past, and Lee J. Cobb's borderline maniacal father figure exemplifies the power of elders to shape destinies. The overarching titular narrative captures the man of the west's progress from lawlessness to respectability. And while the unevolved are decidedly humiliated (in an exhaustingly epic fist fight) and discarded, beneath the veneer of civility violence is not far from the surface.

What Does Not Work As Well: In a few talky scenes, the tight focus on a small number of characters starts to resemble a stage play. A climactic gun battle is staged with exquisite excellent but suffers from endless bullets syndrome.

Key Quote:

Link Jones (to Dock): You've outlived your kind and outlived your time, and I'm comin' to get you!

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Movie Review: Lawman (1971)

Genre: Western  

Director: Michael Winner  

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Lee J. Cobb, Robert Ryan, Robert Duvall, Sheree North  

Running Time: 99 minutes  

Synopsis: Land baron Vincent Bronson (Lee J. Cobb) and five of his cattlemen go on a drunken spree in the town of Bannock, inadvertently killing an old man. Months later, Bannock marshal Jered Maddox (Burt Lancaster) arrives in the town of Sabbath, which is essentially owned by Bronson, intent on arresting the six men. Bronson offers to negotiate with help from Sabbath marshal Cotton Ryan (Robert Ryan), but Maddox is adamant that the law must be served, leading to escalating cycles of violence.

What Works Well: This revisionist western upturns traditional taming-the-frontier themes with brazenly unsettling audacity. Here the protagonist Maddox is singularly determined to apply the letter of the law, the supposed villain is open to compromise, and the resultant spiral of violence is a condemnation of rules applied in the absence of contextual judgment. The Gerald Wilson script is eminently quotable, and excels in revealing complex trade-offs by providing well-rounded views of multiple characters. Robert Ryan shines in the caught-in-between role, while Lee J. Cobb and Burt Lancaster represent opposing perspectives with rich textures, leading to a jarringly unconventional climax.

What Does Not Work As Well: Director Michael Winner's sense of visual style incorporates awkward over-deployment of zooms and bullet hole blood spurts.

Key Quote:

Vincent Bronson: It took guns to get the land, guns to keep it, guns to make things grow. The guns that pride called out... and each time we buried the cost.

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Movie Review: Sirocco (1951)

Genre: War Drama

Director: Curtis Bernhardt

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lee J. Cobb, Märta Torén 

Running Time: 98 minutes

Synopsis: In Damascus of 1925, local rebels are fighting for independence from French colonialists. French General LaSalle (Everett Sloane) accepts advice from his head of intelligence Colonel Feroud (Lee J. Cobb) to try and negotiate a truce. Caught in the middle is shady American businessman Harry Smith (Humphrey Bogart), who is secretly selling weapons to the Syrian rebels. Harry's troubles multiply when he sets his eyes on Feroud's lover Violetta (Märta Torén), who is eager to escape the war and find passage to Cairo.

What Works Well: Produced by Bogart's Santana Productions, Sirocco has clear intentions to mimic Casablanca. Some aspects are reasonably successful: despite the studio-bound sets, director Curtis Bernhardt does create an effective war-torn milieu, with society humming along in dark alleys and behind black curtains as the sounds of battle rage outside. LaSalle is caught in a dilemma between using brute force and offering to negotiate, and Lee J. Cobb adds nuance to the role of a military man tired of killing. The secondary cast is animated by the sweaty presence of Zero Mostel and Nick Dennis.

What Does Not Work As Well: The story belongs more to Cobb's Feroud than Bogart's Smith, and the attempts to force the gunrunner into the spotlight are awkward. Violetta's involvement never gains traction, Märta Torén unable to generate neither heat nor chemistry. The local Syrian rebel leaders barely feature, and the script falls into prominent logic holes.

Conclusion: Serviceable foreign intrigue adventure, but quite a few guns short of a full shipment.



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Movie Review: The Three Faces Of Eve (1957)

A drama about multiple personality disorder, The Three Faces of Eve is a straightforward but nevertheless gripping story of mental trauma.

In suburban Georgia, housewife Eve White (Joanne Woodward) is the meek, submissive, and relatively unhappy wife of Ralph (David Wayne) and mother to young Bonnie. Eve experiences headache and blackout episodes, during which her behaviour changes. Psychiatrist Doctor Curtis Luther (Lee J. Cobb) with help from his associate Doctor Francis Day (Edwin Jerome) start treating Eve, and soon meet her second personality, who calls herself Eve Black. She is confident, playful, flirtatious, cannot stand Ralph and refuses to acknowledge Bonnie as her daughter.

Eve is hospitalized, her relationship with Ralph suffers, and Luther attempts to help them both understand her multiple personality disorder. But Ralph struggles to cope with his wife's condition, and Eve's situation takes another twist when a third personality, Jane, suddenly emerges.

Based on a true story and somberly narrated by Alastair Cooke, The Three Faces Of Eve is methodical storytelling enriched by a tremendous Joanne Woodward performance. Written and directed by Nunnally Johnson, the film is almost deferential towards both the emerging practice of psychiatry and Eve as a remarkable and relatively rare patient experiencing triple personalities.

What could have been an almost documentary-like recreation of factual events is elevated by Woodward delivering an unforgettable performance, convincingly transitioning between Eve's three personalities in a display of stunning virtuosity. The docile Eve White and the provocative Eve Black are completely different women in the same body, and Woodward brings them both to authentic life, often transitioning in seconds.

Jane is a stable middle ground, and in many ways the easiest of the three personalities to portray. By the time she emerges Dr. Luther is on his way to devising a treatment plan consisting of encouraging one personality to dominate, and Jane provides the most logical compromise. The late unleashing of repressed childhood memories adds a suitably bold exclamation point to the drama.

Johnson gives Eve Black free reign to contribute the juiciest episodes. She thrives on sexually enticing any and every man she encounters, including, perversely, the Ralph she despises but not enough to overcome her seduction instincts. Eve Black is also a danger to Bonnie, but loves life enough to intervene when Mrs. White's depression reaches a crisis point.

In a compact 90 minutes three different faces are revealed within a single extraordinary woman, and one actress shines with an extraordinary accomplishment.

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Movie Review: Our Man Flint (1966)

A satirical James Bond-style spy spoof, Our Man Flint offers some funny moments but reeks of cheap plastic and barely developed story ideas.

The Galaxy criminal organization, led by three pacifist scientists, has devised a method to control the world's weather to demand global disarmament. In response, the member nations of the Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage (ZOWIE) under chief Cramden (Lee J. Cobb) scramble to identify an agent to stop the mayhem. They come up with Derek Flint (James Coburn), a former ace spy and now an exceptionally wealthy international playboy.

Cramden shares a choppy history with Flint but is finally able to convince him to help. Flint's investigation takes him to Marseilles and Rome. He thwarts assassination attempts by Galaxy agents Gila (Gila Golan) and Gruber (Michael St. Clair), and seduces Gila to try and identify the evildoers' secret hideout. But lying in wait is chief henchman Malcolm Rodney (Edward Mulhare), who advocates for Flint's quick elimination, and who has kidnapped Flint's four lovers to use as bargaining chips.

The idea of bumbling scientists as chief bad guys using weather events as pressure tactics while rejecting the use of guns is promising for a satire. But that's about it for bright sparks on display in this lame attempt by 20th Century Fox to cash in on the international spy craze ignited by the early Bond movies. Our Man Flint is beset by garish sets, dialogue surprisingly free from wit, and bland directing courtesy of Daniel Mann.

The action scenes are poorly staged, the scientists barely get to explain their plot, and never expose on the difference between killing innocent people by floods, volcanoes and earthquakes, as opposed to more traditional weapons of mass destruction. Some bizarre 1960s kitsch moments feature beautiful looking people playing on manicured fields or engaging in free sex at the secret hideout, but how exactly all this is supposed to fit into the plan for world domination is left up to the imagination.

Maybe it's all part of the satire to throw unrelated but hip concepts at the screen and hope some of it sticks, and Flint's four lovers not saying a meaningful word between them appears to be knowing wink at the subjugated role of women in this made-for-the-screen spy genre. Meanwhile, James Coburn is willing to partake in the festivities and brings a glint in the eye and a perpetual smile to assure everyone not to take anything seriously.

Our Man Flint is a satire of a sub-genre already on the way to satirizing itself, and a cheap-looking one at that.

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Movie Review: The Song Of Bernadette (1943)

A religious drama based on reported events, The Song Of Bernadette is an engaging story of belief balanced by a reasonable amount of cynicism.

It's the late 1850s in the small town of Lourdes in France. Bernadette Soubirous (Jennifer Jones) is 14 years old and lives in a dank single-room basement dwelling with her mostly unemployed father Francois (Roman Bohnen), mother Louise (Anne Revere) and siblings. The family is poor and Francois struggles to put food on the table. Frequently sick and admittedly a bit dim, Bernadette struggles to learn her catechism at the Catholic school and is humiliated by her teacher Sister Vauzous (Gladys Cooper).

One day while out collecting firewood the image of a beautiful Lady (an uncredited Linda Darnell) appears to Bernadette in a rock niche near the town's garbage dump. No one else sees the Lady, but Bernadette insists that she was there, and furthermore, that the Lady promised to reappear on many successive days. Bernadette's claims are met with skepticism by her parents as well as Mayor Lacade (Aubrey Mather), Imperial Prosecutor Vital Dutour (Vincent Price), and police chief Jacomet (Charles Dingle). Doctor Dozous (Lee J. Cobb) is brought in to examine her, while local Catholic Abbott Dominique Peyramale (Charles Bickford) adopts a hands-off, wait-and-see attitude.

The local population starts to accompany Bernadette to the site, and news spreads of the visions. When a water stream with apparent healing properties emerges near the location of the Lady's appearances, the crowds multiply and the story attracts national attention.

Directed by Henry King, The Song Of Bernadette is an adaptation of the best-selling book by Franz Werfel. The story of the Virgin Mary appearing repeatedly to a naive girl is beyond debate for devout Catholics, but probably represents nothing more than overactive hallucinations combined with a strong willingness to believe among the uneducated.

Those whose lives are made better worshipping rocks and supposed spectral images visible to only one person, augmented by magically healing water and the sweet words of a fairly dumb 14 year old, will need no convincing that all this is true. But screenwriter George Seaton deserves a lot of credit for maintaining, sometimes forcefully, a sarcastic and opportunistic alternative narrative through the words and actions of Mayor Lacade, Imperial Prosecutor Dutour and police chief Jacomet.

This trio and others refuse to believe anything other than Bernadette is either sick or manipulative, and director King gives them plenty of time and scenes to make their point. Even Sister Vauzous remains among the sceptics for long stretches, while Abbott Peyramale rides the fence and remains troubled by some aspects of Bernadette's story. Only towards the end of the film does King tilt the balance towards reverence.

The running length of 156 minutes is quite hefty, but this is a story spanning many years and rich in characters and events, and King rarely lingers in one place for too long. The sets are limited but intricate. The garbage dump, the cramped Soubirous household, a bustling town environment and the more ostentatious government offices capture the rich mosaic of a small but busy society. Alfred Newman replaced Igor Stravinsky and provides an evocative but sometimes overbearing orchestral score that plays throughout.

Helped by producer David O. Selznick, Jennifer Jones (previously known as Phyllis Isley) relaunched her career and landed the Best Actress Academy Award for her turn as Bernadette. For most of the film Jones delivers a monotonal performance, speaking in an irritatingly fake girlish tone. The final scenes, set some 20 years after the visions, offer her an opportunity to stretch and she becomes more credible. The supporting cast is deep in talent, with Charles Bickford, Vincent Price, Anne Revere, and late on, Gladys Cooper sharing the load and all leaving a positive impression.

The Song Of Bernadette is a graceful film, and handles spiritual territory with sensitivity and a nod towards alternative viewpoints. Bernadette may have been a saint chosen to inspire religious fervour, or a dimwitted girl caught in a web created by her own imagination. Either way, the story of the passion she ignited is worth watching.

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Movie Review: The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (1962)

A melodrama set mostly in Paris under Nazi occupation, The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse enjoys some juicy character dilemmas but otherwise falls foul of a turgid romance that never sparkles.

Madariaga (Lee J. Cobb) is the patriarch of a proud Argentinian clan. One of his daughters is married to Frenchman Marcelo Desnoyers (Charles Boyer), while the other daughter is married to German Karl von Hartrott (Paul Lukas). Julio (Glenn Ford) and Heinrich (Karl Boehm) are the now adult offspring of Marcelo and Karl respectively. With the clouds of war gathering over Europe, Madariaga is horrified to learn that Karl and Heinrich have joined the Nazi Party. Madariaga dies during a raucous family dinner, haunted by images of the biblical four horsemen of the apocalypse: Conquest, War, Pestilence, and Death.

Marcelo and Julio relocate to Paris along with Julio's sister Chi-Chi (Yvette Mimieux). Julio enjoys the playboy life, and wants no involvement in the world of politics and conflict. War does indeed erupt, but not before Julio meets and falls in love with Marguerite (Ingrid Thulin), although she is married to harried newspaper publisher Etienne (Paul Henreid). With the Germans threatening Paris, Etienne is shipped to the front lines, creating space for the romance between Julio and Marguerite to blossom. Paris falls and soon Karl and Heinrich make their presence felt as part of the occupation force, Karl as a local German military administrator and Heinrich as an influential member of the feared SS.

With high level contacts among the German occupiers, Julio finds himself in a position of unwanted privilege. He has to fend off the brutish advances of General von Kleig (George Dolenz) towards Marguerite, but then events turn serious when Etienne is released from a prisoner of war camp, Chi-Chi starts to demonstrate sympathies with the French resistance, and Julio realizes that despite his natural inclination to remain uninvolved, the war will demand he chooses a side.

MGM's 1921 adaptation of the Vicente Blasco Ibáñez novel is fondly remembered as a star-making vehicle for the young and virile Rudolph Valentino. By the late 1950s the studio was scrounging around for properties to help revive its fading fortunes, and settled on this epic remake, resetting the story to World War Two and bringing in director Vincente Minnelli to infuse the project with prestige. It didn't quite work as intended. The 1962 version does enjoy some moments of cinematic grandeur, but it is also relatively slow, bloated, and lacking in charisma.

A large part of the problem resides in the casting of the two central characters. Glenn Ford is most unconvincing as a Latin playboy. He instead comes across as Rick Blaine's boring cousin, an American in Paris passively observing events passing him by. Julio's romance with Marguerite enjoys an initial 10 minutes of glamour, then collapses into tiresome domesticity, bickering, and passive aggressive tension, a very poor foundation on which to build a 150 minute movie. Even when Julio swings into action in the final third, both the missions and the execution are unconvincing.

Ingrid Thulin is just as cold in the role of Marguerite, not the fault of the actress, but again a poor casting choice that shifted the romance to an older age where rationality trumps devotion. For most of the film there is hardly any genuine chemistry between Ford and Thulin, undermining Julio's reasons to hang around Paris and deal with the mess of the occupation.

As the feisty Madariaga, Lee J. Cobb expires spectacularly within the first half hour. Cobb takes his role to the extreme end of theatricality, submitting his resume to join the ranks of the horsemen as the harbinger of dramaturgy.

It's not all a loss, and despite the film's stodginess, there is plenty to admire. The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse looks good, with Minnelli recreating a wartime Paris where opulence persists behind closed doors while tensions rise on the street corners. The special effects to create the galloping horsemen in the clouds are impressive, but undoubtedly overwrought. At least Minnelli shows restraint by using them in small doses. The other cast members are more reserved and often more than adequate, with veterans Henreid, Boyer and Lukas showing that good things happen when actors are properly fitted to roles.

And eventually, the film does build some epic weight in the story of individuals caught up in the whirlpool of history, with Julio facing a triangular moral dilemma: his partial French heritage demands that he act, his beliefs require him to remain on the sidelines, and his German uncle and cousin offer him the prestige of high-level connections at a time when knowing the right people is the difference between life and death.

The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse ride into the bloodiest conflict in world history. After stumbling around in somewhat questionable manner, they emerge still holding the flag, albeit a rather tattered one.

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Movie Review: The Brothers Karamazov (1958)

A loose adaptation of the Dostoevsky classic novel about a Russian family in turmoil, The Brothers Karamazov throbs with a willingness to conquer but never quite locks into a suitable narrative arc.

In the village of Ryevsk in Russia of 1870, aging patriarch Fyodor Karamazov (Lee J. Cobb) is enjoying life to the fullest but losing control of his four sons. The eldest Dmitiri (Yul Brynner) is always in need of money to feed a gambling habit, and always one step away from trouble. But Dmitri is also quick to help others and shares his father's passion for life, attributes that attract the refined Katya (Claire Bloom). Fyodor's other sons are the educated Ivan (Richard Basehart), the monk Alexi (William Shatner), and Smerdyakov (Albert Salmi), who hangs around pretending to be family but may be more of a bastard.

With Fyodor keeping a tight fist around the family finances, the sons start plotting against their own father and against each other. Things get more complicated when Dmitri does not respond to Katya's love and instead passionately pursues the wispy Grushenka (Maria Schell), who also happens to be his father's lover.

The Brothers Karamazov boasts one majestic scene, one of those enchanted moments when the screen is consumed by the perfect balance of emotion, music and milieu. Maria Schell as Grushenka dances in an ever tightening circle as if in a trance, Yul Brynner as Dmitri Karamazov observes her, transfixed, a family of gypsies provide the music, and slowly but surely the warmly lit tavern is transformed into a cradle of passion. It lasts all of 2 minutes, but director Richard Brooks captures an eternal moment, and the scene rises up to define the film.

The rest of the experience, all 145 minutes of it, rarely touches the same heights. Yes, there is plenty of passion, tension, vigour, characters lustily imbibing life and scheming to get ahead at the expense of one and all. The drinking, womanizing and back-stabbing are rampant. But with brooding intensity and against the grim rural Russian backdrop, the narrative works its way to several dramatic dead ends where stubbornness trumps any form of logic, fistfuls of money becomes an obsession, lust and hope collide into a wreck, and not much of anything is achieved or resolved. The brothers end up in unseemly squabbles, their large spirits wasted on petty disputes.

It does not help that the supporting cast is feeble. Yul Brynner and Lee J. Cobb predictably radiate machismo, decadence and powerful personalities. But the likes of Richard Basehart, William Shatner and Albert Salmi are in a much lower league when it comes to the big screen, and they melt away into insignificance. Maria Schell and Claire Bloom do better as the blonde and the brunette in Dmitri's life. But whether the scene calls for it or not Schell goes through the entire film with a mischievous smile on her face, as if to emphasize her dual seduction of father and son.

Dripping with symbolic representations of their country, The Brothers Karamazov are hefty characters in search of befitting drama, and they don't quite find it here.

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Movie Review: On The Waterfront (1954)

A masterpiece delving into union corruption and the power of the individual, On The Waterfront is a potent drama with a peerless Marlon Brando performance and an outstanding supporting cast.

Union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) rules his waterfront district by intimidation, lining his pockets by running rackets and relying on the working men adhering to the "D and D" (deaf and dumb) code of conduct. Terry Malloy (Brando) hovers on the outer edge of Friendly's circle of corruption, and unwittingly finds himself used to lure informant Joey Doyle to his death. Joey's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint) demands that the perpetrators be identified and brought to justice, and she shames Father Barry (Karl Malden) into action: he tries to encourage the men into testifying, but Friendly's goons are quick to beat-up anyone who breaks the code of silence.

Terry makes advances towards Edie, and gradually they become close, although she does not know Terry had a role Joey's death. As more men are violently silenced, Terry is influenced by Edie and Father Barry, and starts to consider testifying against Friendly. But his brother Charley (Rod Steiger) is one of Friendly's closest associates, and turning against the union boss and his henchmen will carry a high personal cost.

On The Waterfront carries the ominous tones of director Elia Kazan's own struggles. In 1952 he testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, naming names and identifying communist sympathizers from years past. In the movie, Terry Malloy is caught between doing what he is being told is the right thing to do, and loyalty to his "group", the organization of Johnny Friendly. Testifying against Friendly means betraying his friends and family, but remaining silent means letting down Edie and Father Barry, and allowing a rotten situation to get worse.

Alternating between an emerging unlikely love and the power of the fist down at the docks, On The Waterfront is full of energy. Friendly and his goons run a tight ship, controlling who gets to work and who does not, who gets the cushy job and who gets to toil, all determined according to favours afforded and gained. The men chafe under a regime imposed by violence and facilitated by their own acquiescence.

The Budd Schulberg script allows plenty of time for the romance between Edie and Terry to develop, and the measured pace contributes to the air of authenticity. Edie initially appears too good and too smart for Terry, and time is needed for her to find the charm and humanity within the self-described "bum". Once they start to care for each other, Edie offers a moral compass and a road to salvation, and Terry starts to understand that he may have something to gain by standing up for what is right. The film's beating heart is found in Terry's transformational journey from dim witted hanger-on to an inspirational leader of men.

Brando is surrounded by the triangle of Cobb (loyalty), Steiger (family) and Malden (conscience), and the four actors create an electric dynamic. Brando is brutally brilliant as a man suddenly being pulled in three different directions at once, the bum-like tendencies of a boxer who long-since sold-out now overburdened by unfamiliar responsibilities and demands.

Terry Malloy, speaking with his brother Charley: You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.

Cobb is all fiery rule-by-fear, while once awakened, Malden is a tentative force for pure good. It is left to Steiger to provide the most textured supporting performance, Charley smart enough to see the writing on the wall, but hoping his brother would fully enter Friendly's fold before he can be convinced to testify. As much as Terry has a dilemma, Charley has a real problem, since he is all-in with Friendly and subject to potentially humiliating punishment should his brother talk.

All four men were nominated for Academy Awards, with Brando receiving his first statue at the fourth attempt. Eva Marie Saint, in her film debut at age 30, also won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. Her turn as Edie is tenacious in the pursuit of justice and enlightened enough to explore a relationship with Terry.

Filled with heart, sweat, agony, blood and triumph, On The Waterfront rocks the docks.

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The Movies Of Lee J. Cobb

All movies starring Lee J. Cobb and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Golden Boy (1939)

The Song Of Bernadette (1943)

Sirocco (1951)

On The Waterfront (1954)

12 Angry Men (1957)

The Three Faces Of Eve (1957)

The Brothers Karamazov (1958)

Man Of The West (1958)

The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (1962)

How The West Was Won (1962)

Our Man Flint (1966)

Coogan's Bluff (1968)

MacKenna's Gold (1969)

Lawman (1971)

The Exorcist (1973)

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Movie Review: 12 Angry Men (1957)

One of the most compelling legal dramas to have graced the screen, 12 Angry Men is a dazzling display of bravado acting and intellectual directing. Taking place almost entirely in a single room, the film is a feast of intelligent discourse and a mesmerizing study of interaction among strangers given the responsibility of life and death.

At the end of a murder trial in New York City, 12 jurors, all men, retire to reach a verdict. The defendant is an 18 year old scrawny youth from the wrong side of town, accused of stabbing his father to death. Most of the evidence seems to point to his guilt, and several witnesses testified to having seen or heard the boy commit the murder. A guilty verdict carries an automatic death sentence.

In the cramped and hot jury room, the foreman Juror 1 (Martin Balsam) tries to organize the jury, and most of the jurors appear eager to quickly confirm a guilty verdict and get on with their lives. But Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) is the sole hold out. He believes the defence lawyer was poor, leaving many questions unanswered, and he demands the jury members fulfil their duty by delving into the various aspects of the case in more detail to examine whether or not there is reasonable doubt.

The delay in reaching a unanimous verdict infuriates several of the men: Juror 7 (Jack Warden) is a sports fan and anxious to attend the evening's baseball game. Juror 3 (Lee J. Cobb) is a short-tempered loud-mouth, on bad terms with his son, and he quickly explodes when anyone disagrees with him. Juror 12 (Robert Webber) is an often distracted marketing executive more interested in talking business than focusing on the discussion at hand. And Juror 10 (Ed Begley) is another overbearing bigot. As the suffocating afternoon turns to a rain-drenched evening, the men talk, argue, and deliberate. Gradually, and painfully, some opinions begin to change.

Making his directorial debut, Sidney Lumet immediately makes an impression. 12 Angry Men has one set, and all of the film's dynamism is derived from Lumet's fluid work. His cameras stalk the jurors, rotate around them, take their point of view, or move up close and in their face, in an impressive display of drawing energy from the heat of conversation.

The crisp black and white photography, courtesy of Boris Kaufman, enhances a film that is all about distinguishing black from white, and exploring the grey areas in-between. Most of the men remove their jackets to reveal white shirts and black ties, standing out against the nondescript grey walls of the jury room.

As a study of diverse personalities, 12 Angry Men is a masterpiece. The men represent a mosaic of the white men who made up American society of the day, from professionals to ordinary Joes, from the middle-aged to the elderly, from bigots to immigrants, and from the relatively rich to the relatively poor. The film becomes an examination of the jury's motivation as much as it is a legal drama, the true colours of each juror sequentially emerging as the group delves into the difficult evidence of the case.

Written by Reginald Rose, who also co-produced with Fonda, 12 Angry Men is a study in the power of quiet and persistent leadership. Juror 8 deploys remarkable strength to calmly stick to his convictions in the face of eleven other men holding a contrary opinion, and then extraordinary stamina to embark on a quest to engage the other men in a detailed facts-based debate.

The jurors who change their opinions early to align with Juror 8 demonstrate courage by admitting they may have initially been too hasty in jumping to a guilty verdict. And in strong displays of fortitude and fairness, several jurors jump to the defence of colleagues, regardless of differences of opinion, when the obnoxious Jurors 3 and 10 engage in bullying and insulting behaviour.

The performances from the stalwart cast are uniformly excellent, with Fonda and Cobb leading the way. Fonda gives Juror 8 self-belief combined with powers of conviction, his persona as the man who knows right from wrong perfectly suited to the role. He takes on the challenge of sparring with eleven other well-meaning but possibly misguided men with patience, vigour and just that hint of an edge when needed.

Cobb plays the perfect nemesis, Juror 3 being everything that Juror 8 is not. Calm only on the surface, Cobb masters Juror 3's oscillation between rational and eruptive, revealing a man tortured by repressed inner demons, and the toughest holdout on the path to group reconciliation.

Of the others, Jack Warden makes a strong statement with a nonchalant attitude. For Juror 7 the world revolves around sports, and Warden is fascinatingly slippery as a man who struggles to pretend that he has principles, but who genuinely could not care less what the verdict is as long as he gets to the ballpark on time.

As the mood in the room evolves, the light, the heat and the weather also change. Channeled in the right direction, 12 Angry Men can be a transformational force.

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Movie Review: Golden Boy (1939)

A passionate drama about conflicting life choices, Golden Boy pits a talent for boxing against a spiritual attachment to music in a battle for one man's soul.

In New York City, crusty boxing manager Tom Moody (Adolphe Menjou) takes a chance on unknown Joe Bonaparte (William Holden). Young, brash, and talented with a violin, Bonaparte proves himself in a series of bouts, and catches the attention of sports writers. Moody is waiting to finalize a divorce before marrying his much younger assistant Lorna Moon (Barbara Stanwyck), but the dashing Bonaparte catches Lorna's eye.

Joe's success in the ring clashes with his love of the violin: boxing damages the hands needed to create magical music, and Joe's dad (Lee J. Cobb) believes that boxing is very much the wrong choice for his son. Lorna is torn between falling in love with Joe, loyalty to Moody, and the once in a lifetime opportunity to make it rich by riding the coattails of a potential champion boxer. Joe's choices are further complicated when big-time mobster Eddie Fuseli (Joseph Calleia) muscles in on Moody, demanding to become Joe's co-owner in return for arranging a quick path to a shot at a glamorous boxing title.

Based on a Clifford Odets play, Golden Boy offers simple but heartfelt lessons in life. The Bonaparte family, complete with Joe's sister Anna and her husband Siggie, argue, love and make-up with genuine fervour. The worlds of boxing and music are presented as mutually exclusive, and Joe's decision is not made any easier by others harbouring self-interest. While the likes of Tom Moody and Eddie Fuseli make no secret that they are out to profit from Joe's boxing exploits, Joe's dad can offer nothing to support his advice except the divine pursuit of a natural talent for music.

Lorna emerges as the most interesting character, a woman fending for herself but suddenly uncertain about what she is looking for from life, from Joe, and from her supposed partner Moody. Lorna finds that she has Joe's ear, as he is as obviously falling in love with her as she is with him, but her ability to control his decisions begins to clash with how much she cares for him, leaving them both emotionally adrift. Lorna's meandering journey to a new self-consciousness is the elegant centrepiece of the film.

Stanwyck portrays Lorna with worldly eyes, a determined mouth, and a smile that hints that she is just smart enough to manipulate, as and when needed, the men in her world. William Holden is a bundle of unconstrained energy as Joe Bonaparte, his first credited role. Not quite convincing neither as a boxer nor as a violinist, Holden's physical presence carries him through, and he is most comfortable simply acting rather than pretending to be a sportsman or musician.

Adolphe Menjou is dependably shifty, finding the creases between shady boxing manager and well-meaning mentor, never losing sight of his own bottom line. Lee J. Cobb is memorable but predictable in a performance made of pure fatherly pathos.

Director Rouben Mamoulian opens up the play, making good use of the cavernous house where Joe, his dad, Anna and Siggie live, and dad's adjacent general store. Mamoulian finds or manufactures interesting backdrops for many scenes, and when the action moves to the ring, the fights are frantic and punishing.

Golden Boy presents a clear choice between short-term acclaim and long-term pleasure. Joe will only be able to move ahead once he shuts out the distractions and internalizes the distinction between having a lot of money and being truly rich.

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