Movie Review: The Young Philadelphians (1959)

An epic family drama, The Young Philadelphians is a sprawling story of romance and ambition. Undoubtedly sudsy, it is also undeniably engrossing.

On her wedding night, Kate Judson (Diane Brewster) is abandoned by her new husband William (Adam West) of the highly respected Lawrence family. She seeks comfort with her other lover, construction company owner Mike Flanagan (Brian Keith), and conceives a son. Kate ensures her newborn carries the Lawrence name to improve his societal standing. 

Tony Lawrence (Paul Newman) grows up under the watchful eyes of Kate and Mike. As a young man studying law he befriends playboy Chet Gwynn (Robert Vaughn), who is in line to inherit a large trust fund but is having difficulties with his stodgy guardians. Tony's first love is Joan Dickinson (Barbara Rush), but her father Gilbert (John Williams), a respected lawyer, delays their impetuous marriage plans by promising to mentor Tony after he graduates. A distraught Joan marries Carter Henry (Anthony Eisley) instead.

Tony adopts a more ruthless streak and secures a position with John Marshall Wharton (Otto Kruger), who runs the most prestigious law firm in Philadelphia. He navigates the passionate advances of Wharton's younger wife Carol (Alexis Smith). After serving in the Korean War and helping a severely wounded Chet, Tony makes a name for himself as a tax lawyer. Still to come is a difficult reunion with Joan, and a court case involving Chet that threatens everything Tony has achieved.

An adaptation of the Richard P. Powell book, The Young Philadelphians is two hours and twenty minutes of captivating storytelling. Producer James Gunn also the wrote the screenplay, and embraces the chapter-like structure with brisk pacing, trusting the audience to keep up with the many ups and downs experienced by Tony Lawrence. Director Vincent Sherman is more functional than flamboyant, but does infuse the narrative with a sense of elegant quality. 

The episodes are held together by several overarching themes. Mom Kate and secret dad Mike nurture their son from a distance, trying to influence and help Tony without revealing his true lineage. The passion between Tony and Joan sparks early, and after she marries someone else they have various encounters over the years, two individuals who understand each other best to the point of inflicting both pain and joy.

But the narrative's most persistent thread is Tony's perfect imperfection, his pursuit of prestige and career glory sometimes causing him to trample on others, but also creating opportunities to help and exert expanded influence. Tony learns early a certain ruthlessness is required to climb the ladder, then has to modulate in accordance with his moral code.

The final chapter is a court case gathering up all the accumulated complexities of Tony's life. Gunn and Sherman demonstrate courage to present the complicated trial in sufficient detail to heighten the drama, although the ability of a tax lawyer to shine in a high profile criminal case begins to stretch credibility.

Paul Newman is a mixture of easy intensity and marginal over-emoting, but carries the load lightly. Robert Vaughn earned a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination for a pivotal role full of churning anguish. Alexis Smith, in a small role, leaves an indelible mark as a younger wife looking for adventure, and Barbara Rush adds a sparkle as Joan, although she is less prominent after the opening third.

The Young Philadelphians enjoy lives and loves full of twists and turns, most of them delivered with aplomb.



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Movie Review: The Rack (1956)

A military courtroom drama, The Rack has good intentions to explore mental torture, but is snagged by an unimaginative narrative.

Decorated Captain Ed Hall Jr. (Paul Newman) was held prisoner by the enemy for many months during the Korean War, while his brother Pete was killed in combat. Now Ed returns to the United States and spends time recovering at a military hospital, but has difficulty reconnecting with his father Ed Sr. (Walter Pidgeon) and sister-in-law (Pete's widow) Aggie (Anne Francis). At the hospital, Captain John Miller (Lee Marvin), another recuperating soldier who was also held captive by the enemy, hangs a "traitor" sign around Ed's neck.

Once Ed makes it home, he is charged with collaborating with the enemy. Major Sam Moulton (Wendell Corey) is the reluctant lead court-martial prosecutor, and Lieutenant Colonel Frank Wasnick (Edmond O'Brien) is assigned as the defence lawyer. What happened to Ed in the prison camp will be revealed at the trial.

Written by Stewart Stern and based on a Rod Serling story, The Rack's origins are as an hour-long television drama, and it shows. Director Arnold Laven is unable to evolve the narrative much past small screen confines, and requires a contrived structure of unnecessarily holding back information to extend the running length to 100 minutes.

The objectives of exposing new forms of psychological warfare and the impact on soldiers subjected to non-physical torture are admirable, and the better parts of The Rack work as a lightweight precursor to 1962's The Manchurian Candidate. Paul Vogel's black and white cinematography is suitably stark for the institutional hospital and courtroom settings, and an intense but still sympathetic Paul Newman, in his third role, adequately conveys the damage caused by guilt and intense mistreatment.

But after a prolonged build-up towards explaining exactly what happened in the Korean prison camp, The Rack falls well short. Laven is all about tell, don't show, and the revelations from the witness chair related to Ed Hall's mental state, his relationship with his father, broader societal and military responsibilities and whether or not Ed reached an emotional breaking point all land with a confused thud. A father-son moment of attempted reconciliation is more awkward than rewarding.

The supporting cast is strong, Walter Pidgeon, Wendell Corey, Edmond O'Brien and Lee Marvin lending robust if static support. Anne Francis is also stoic, but Aggie's role and function between Ed Sr. and Ed Jr. never quite latches.

The Rack attempts to interrogate with passion, but is often overruled.



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Movie Review: The Prize (1963)

A drama, comedy, romance and spy thriller rolled into one, The Prize is beyond far-fetched but nevertheless mindlessly entertaining.

The Nobel Prize winners are announced, and the shock is American author Andrew Craig (Paul Newman) winning for literature. He has not published in five years, his first few books never sold well, and his life now consists of drinking, womanizing, and writing pulp detective novels under a pseudonym. Upon arriving in Stockholm for the grand ceremony, Inger Lisa Andersson (Elke Sommer) of the Swedish Foreign Office is assigned as his handler to keep him out of trouble.

The winners also include American physicist Dr. Max Stratman (Edward G. Robinson), who fled Germany after the war and in Stockholm reunites with his niece Emily (Diane Baker). The medicine prize is shared by American Dr. Garrett (Kevin McCarthy) and Italian Dr. Farelli (Sergio Fantoni), although Garrett believes Farelli stole his work. The chemistry winners are the French husband and wife team of Claude and Denise Marceau (Gerard Oury and Micheline Presle). The passion has dissolved out of their marriage, and Claude's mistress Monique (Jacqueline Beer) accompanies them in Stockholm.

Max Stratman is summarily kidnapped by evil East German agents and replaced by his twin brother Walter (also Robinson), with Emily complicit in the plot. The observant Craig is the only person to suspect something is amiss and starts investigating. His life is soon in danger, but Inger Lisa and others dismiss his concerns as stemming from the imagination of an alcoholic. Nevertheless he persists in trying to save Stratman, and unintentionally also helps the other Nobel winners resolve their issues.

An adaptation of the Irving Wallace book, The Prize oscillates between the heights of an intellectual gathering of the world's smartest people to the lows of bumbling agents unable to eliminate the threat of an alcoholic author playing at amateur detective. Along the way Ernest Lehman's script features no shortage of plot holes as director Mark Robson chases, with patchy success, the Hitchcockian vibe of North By Northwest (also written by Lehman).

At 134 minutes, the film is padded and longer than it needs to be. Some of the scenes are just too obviously derivative and unnecessarily prolonged. Running for his life, Andrew Craig stumbles into a nudists' meeting and makes a fool of himself to get arrested, an homage bordering on rip-off of Cary Grant at the auction. A foot chase through the streets of Stockholm and a nighttime visit to a hospital both provide a limited return on investment. And on a couple of occasions the jumps in continuity are jarring.

But with suspension of disbelief set to high, fun can be found. Elke Sommer sparkles whether pouty or seductive, and the slow-cooked romance between Craig and Inger Lisa sizzles. Character introductions are one area where Robson does invest time to good effect, and the travails of the other award winners emerge as worthwhile sub-quests, cleverly tied together by Craig's inadvertent investigation. The dialogue crackles with wit, and the international cast finds the right groove between humour and spy action, with Leo G. Carroll hovering on the edges to underline the Hitchcock connection.

The Prize does not win plausibility points, but earns plaudits for perky playfulness.



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Movie Review: Road To Perdition (2002)

A gritty gangster drama, Road To Perdition is a visually stunning story of redemption, revenge and fatherhood.

In rural Illinois of 1931, Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) works as a mob enforcer for local Al Capone affiliate John Rooney (Paul Newman). He keeps the details of his work private and is aloof towards his family, including wife Annie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and two sons Michael Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin) and Peter. Rooney treats Michael likes a son, much to the resentment of his unstable real son Connor (Daniel Craig).

When the curious Michael Jr. witnesses the killing of one of Rooney's rivals, Connor decides to wipe out the entire Sullivan family. Michael flees to Chicago with Jr. and connects with Capone's second-in-command Frank Nitti (Stanley Tucci), offering his services in exchange for being allowed to hunt down Conner. But Rooney stands by his real son, placing Connor in hiding and reluctantly unleashing hired killer and crime photographer Harlen Maguire (Jude Law) to finish off the Sullivans.

A richly textured exploration of mobster life focusing on the sins of the father, Road To Perdition is a lyrical ode to generational change among career criminals. The graphic novel by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner is translated to the screen by director Sam Mendes and cinematographer Conrad L. Hall, and the film's rich style adds a captivating dimension, at once emphasizing emotional resonance and evoking a bygone era.

The film adopts the perspective of Michael Jr. remembering a seminal six weeks on the run with his father, the only time he got to know his dad. Previously Michael was a cold and distant figure involved in shadowy and undefined business for Mr. Rooney. When Jr. surreptitiously snoops into the business of adults, suddenly the reality of his father's murderous assignments comes into relief and the two are forced together just to survive. A lifetime of bonding is compressed into one road trip, and Jr. finally penetrates his father's veneer and by extension learns about himself.

Multiple father-son dynamics nurture the film's layered background. Rooney treats Michael as a son, and Mendes uses one scene at the piano to expressively colour-in the strength of their connection. But this is at the expense of Connor, slightly psychotic but fully aware that Michael has displaced him and occupies pride of place in Rooney's emotional bank.

However, Connor holds the trump card of bloodline and status as natural successor to his father's empire, and is quick to seize the opportunity to eliminate the Sullivan threat, forcing Rooney into the ultimate unwanted dilemma of having to choose between his biological and chosen sons.

The sprawling drama unfolds in a compact format at under two hours, and screenwriter David Self respects the visual essence of the source material by economizing on dialogue. The action scenes are plentiful, sharp and exquisitely staged. Thomas Newman's music complements Hall's cinematography to create masterpiece arrangements, the framing, compositions and lighting often breathtaking. Water is a frequent theme, whether through rain, melting ice or in bathtubs, reflecting the inherent fluidity of mobster life.

In one of his most unique performances Tom Hanks finds a much more dangerous screen presence while maintaining his core humanity. Hanks thrives in defining Michael's separated duality as a killer and family man, and convincingly fills the yawning gap of fatherhood with compassionate yet steely determination to protect his son. Paul Newman, Daniel Craig, Stanley Tucci and Jude Law form a dazzling supporting cast.

A pathway to retribution, atonement, and awakening, Road To Perdition offers a sublime journey.

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Movie Review: The Life And Times Of Judge Roy Bean (1972)

A semi-biographical western, The Life And Times Of Judge Roy Bean takes a relatively lighthearted look at a legendary character.

Gambler and outlaw Roy Bean (Paul Newman) arrives in lawless Texas territory west of the Pecos River. Roughed up at an isolated whorehouse, he is helped by Mexican girl Maria Elena (Victoria Principal) and single handedly disposes of his aggressors. Reverend LaSalle (Anthony Perkins) is passing through the area and helps bury the bodies. Finding a thick textbook of Texas law, Bean installs himself as the local judge. He converts a group of outlaws including Tector Crites (Ned Beatty) into his team of Marshalls, and runs the local saloon as his own courthouse.

Bean is obsessed with celebrated east-coast singer Lillie Langtry (Ava Gardner), adorning his walls with her images and following her news through the New York Times. Gradually a community grows around the rough law-and-order halo provided by Bean. Over the years Bean and Maria Elena adopt a bear, and he grapples with crazed outlaw Bad Bob (Stacy Keach) and conniving lawyer Frank Gass (Roddy McDowall).

Very loosely based on the antics of the real character (who also featured in such films as The Westerner from 1940), The Life And Times Of Judge Roy Bean is amiable but never quite gets its tone right. Director John Huston steers star Paul Newman towards fluffy Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid territory, complete with a silly romantic musical interlude featuring a frolic with Maria Elena and a pet bear as the prop instead of the bicycle.

The problem is that the John Milius script wants to be somewhere else entirely. According to this screenplay, the only thing notable about Roy Bean is his crusty and caustic character, a self-appointed lawman quick to shoot outlaws in the back and hang others without a second thought. The smooth, suave and charming Newman struggles badly with crusty and caustic, saying the words but unable to overcome his instinctive charm.

Despite the fundamental piece of miscasting, Huston manages to construct a decently enjoyable western. The film is episodic, which in this case helps. Bean's obsession with Langtry and his low-key relationship with Maria Elena are the only constants. Other events and characters come and go in a series of vignettes, some drawn from history and others clearly inflated by legend or totally made up. Huston never dwells for too long in any one place, and the two hours pass swiftly.

The opening sequence is a highlight, with Bean barely surviving a lynching and coming back with a vengeance to clean out the vermin. Later Huston injects sharp humour with a depressed drunk who is allowed to shoot-up the place until he takes aim at the wrong target and suffers the consequences.

The film also carries the requisite look. The setting is remote, dusty and even as a community grows around Bean's courthouse, Huston maintains a desolate frontier aesthetic. Judge Roy Bean may have created his own version of civilization, but it was always rough between the edges.

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Movie Review: Hud (1963)

A slow burning deep south drama, Hud is an intense four-person character study featuring superb performances and complex human dynamics.

In rural Texas, the aging Homer Bannon (Melvyn Douglas) runs the family cattle ranch. Homer's herd appears to be afflicted with a potentially serious ailment, and government types move in to investigate whether foot and mouth disease has infected the ranch. Homer is a principled man, growing increasingly horrified at the behaviour of his son Hud (Paul Newman), a hard drinking selfish womanizer openly seducing the married ladies of the nearby town and showing no real respect or regard for concepts of hard work and responsibility.

Hud: Well, I've always thought the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner. Sometimes I lean one way and sometimes I lean the other.

Lonnie Bannon (Brandon deWilde) is Homer's grandson and Hud's nephew, a young man at the crossroads, beginning to idolize his Uncle but also respecting Homer's ethos. Lonnie's father Norman died under mysterious circumstances, with Homer attaching at least some blame on Hud. Alma (Patricia Neal) is Homer's housekeeper, a world weary divorced woman with a smouldering sexuality and not shy about flirting with both Hud and Lonnie. The possibility of Homer's entire herd of cattle being wiped out adds to the tension between Homer and Hud, and the turmoil will sweep up both Lonnie and Alma.

Homer, to Lonnie: Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire. You're just going to have to make up your own mind one day about what's right and wrong.

Directed by Martin Ritt and gorgeously filmed in black and white by James Wong Howe, Hud contrasts wide open Texas skies with intricately linked emotions. A slice of life drama focusing on a fractured family at a generational cross roads, the film is pregnant with possibilities, situational tension and flawed characters. The story goes looking for the limit of often unspoken hostility that one family can withstand, and never relents in ratcheting up the weight of expectations pulling in different direction.

Hud: Happens to everybody. Horses, dogs, men. Nobody gets out of life alive.

The themes include Lonnie's coming of age in the shadow of the mystery of his father's death; the business of running a stricken ranch in a Texas where oil is pushing out cattle as the preferred money-making commodity; and layers of unresolved hostility between a father adhering to old fashioned principles and a son much more interested in self gratification and little else. And a sexual undercurrent keeps the tension high as Lonnie transitions from boy to man, Hud flaunts his animal magnetism all over town and Alma wonders who may be available to fill her needs.

Alma: I was married to Ed for six years. Only thing he was ever good for was to scratch my back where I couldn't reach it.
Hud: You still got that itch?
Alma: Off and on.
Hud: Well let me know when it gets to bothering you.

The film wastes no time drawing in the four characters, and Ritt expertly arranges his principles in a self-dependent puzzle, where Homer needs Hud's help on the ranch, Lonnie needs to decide whether or not Hud is a good role model, Hud needs to plan out his future as the sun sets on Homer's reign, and Alma needs to juggle the needs of three powerful men to maintain her economic well being. Ritt maintains control of the pacing and dramatics, never veering into excess and ensuring that the ties that bind get better defined even as they are exposed to higher stresses.

Hud: The only question I ever ask any woman is "What time is your husband coming home?"

The four performances are nothing less than perfect. Paul Newman has rarely been better, finding in Hud the ideal role for his most typical persona of the supremely selfish but also sexually irresistible man. In support Patricia Neal won the Best Actress Academy Award for the relatively small but pivotal role of Alma, uncovering lust and self preservation hiding just beneath the tousled housekeeper exterior. Melvyn Douglas and Brandon DeWilde bookend Hud with the previous and future stock of Bannons. Douglas is uncompromising in exposing Homer's deeply principled stand on life while DeWilde allows Lonnie to effectively walk the fault line between grandfather and uncle.

Homer: You don't care about people Hud. You don't give a damn about 'em. Oh, you got all that charm goin' for ya. And it makes the youngsters want to be like ya. That's the shame of it because you don't value anything. You don't respect nothing. You keep no check on your appetites at all. You live just for yourself. And that makes you not fit to live with.

Uncompromising and always finding the more challenging road, Hud is an elegant showpiece for intriguing, true-to-life characters.

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Movie Review: Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)

The western reimagined to suit late 1960s counterculture sensibilities, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid is a buddy movie celebrating outlaws. The film rides a flood of charisma emanating from stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford in fine form.

It's the late 1890s in Wyoming, and times are slowly changing: bicycles are threatening to replace horses. Butch Cassidy (Newman) leads his Hole in the Wall gang as they pull off a series of bank and train robberies, with his partner The Sundance Kid (Redford) providing most of the accurate shooting skills. Cassidy, who never actually seems to use his gun, summarily puts down an internal leadership challenge, while Sundance enjoys the company of girlfriend Etta Place (Katharine Ross).

The gang proceeds to pull off two more heists, hitting the same train on consecutive journeys. Their audacity catches up with them, and a relentless posse is assembled by the rail company, forcing Butch and Sundance to flee for days. Cornered on a rocky mountainside, they finally shake off their pursuers with a great dive. With too much heat on them, the outlaws along with Etta relocate to Bolivia. They start a new life, but despite language and cultural barriers, they are soon back to their old ways of robbing banks and payrolls for the fun of it.

The strong anti-establishment winds of the late 1960s allowed outsiders to be re-acclaimed as heroes, and Bonnie And Clyde proved that cinematic excellence can be achieved by allowing villains to become likeable cinematic protagonists. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid ignores half a decade's worth of Spaghetti Westerns by revisiting the genre and creating a fun-filled place where the bad guys are good and the good guys are boring. Butch and Sundance get the witty dialogue, mostly outsmart rather than outgun their opponents, and carry on affairs with sexy school teachers and lovable whores, all with an irreverent, irresistible attitude.

The William Goldman screenplay represents actual events from the lives of Butch and Sundance, but ultimately, there is not much in terms of plot. Beyond a few routine train and bank hold-ups and one long chase, director George Roy Hill recognizes his stars are the main attraction. With Newman as Butch providing the smart alecky brains and Redford as Sundance supplying the brooding gunplay, the movie is all about two buddies having a grand old time out west. The film's appeal extends as far as the interplay between the two men can take it, and Newman and Redford deploy their magnetism to stretch the limited material much further than it would otherwise deserve.

Despite the star power and witty dialogue exchanges, the film's faults do occasionally come to the surface. The posse chase scene goes on forever and consumes a remarkably long portion of the running time, a case of a concept introduced, consumed and then squeezed out of all joy. Even the "who are those guys?" line gets tired well before the chase ends. The bicycle riding montage, set to the out-of-place Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head, kills more screen time and is only cute for those who worship Newman riffing on a silly persona.

But Hill maintains stylistic interest by playing with some sepia-toned scenes, and then rebalances the film with a strong final third. The outlaws work their way back to fine form in Bolivia, overcoming the language barrier to reenter the business of taking other people's money. The final, bullet-drenched climax with the Bolivian army effectively combines buddy sensibilities with a classic western showdown.

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid may be scrubbed and lighthearted to excess, but it does commemorate the unlikely partnership of two men who left a bullet-marked legacy on two continents.

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Movie Review: Paris Blues (1961)

A potent human drama set amidst the Parisian jazz scene, Paris Blues explores themes of ambition, personal comfort, and unexpected love interfering with programmed journeys.

Ram Bowen (Paul Newman) and Eddie Cook (Sidney Poitier) are American jazz musicians plying their trade at a Paris nightclub. A middling trombone performer, Ram has ambitions to be taken seriously as a music writer, while sax player Eddie finds Europe more accommodating towards Blacks than his native United States. The Parisian jazz scene is abuzz with the arrival of the legendary Wild Man Moore (Louis Armstrong) and his band for a series of performances.

Americans Lillian (Joanne Woodward) and Connie (Diahann Carroll) are good friends and arrive in Paris for a dream vacation. They meet Ram and Eddie at the train station, where Ram is trying to show Wild Man a sample of his music writing. Initially Ram is more interested in Connie but eventually embarks on a torrid romance with Lillian, while Eddie and Connie fall for each other. Both relationships evolve quickly, and difficult decisions about long term commitments will be needed before vacation time is over.

A deceptively simple story directed by Martin Ritt, Paris Blues creates a sense of melancholia and traces sparks of uncertain hope attempting to penetrate the emotional gloom. The film luxuriates in a black and white aesthetic, with most of the scenes at night and many of the club sequences enlivened by jazz music puncturing through the thick haze of cigarette smoke. Ritt allows mood to speak louder than words, his characters comfortable in the shadows created by living life after hours.

Ram and Eddie are rounded into men driven by self-defined objectives. Ram will not easily give up on his dream to succeed as a music writer, and one ray of hope in his life is a forthcoming assessment of his work by a recognized jazz expert. Eddie has decided Europe is well ahead of the United States in its accommodation of Blacks, certain the struggle for civil rights in his homeland is both messy and for others to carry.

Lillian and Connie will both try to challenge and change their men, and Paris Blues, despite a compact 98 minutes of running time, refreshingly evolves beyond a trite romance and into a complex drama delving into thorny human and societal issues. Lillian offers Ram an opportunity to settle down if he gives up his personal quest and instead wins the girl of his dreams. Connie confronts Eddie's attitude, relabelling his European exile as a defeatist stance, a talented man turning his back on the seminal struggle of his people.

The film does not pretend to resolve every issue it raises, and indeed the individual decision points define the narrative struggle to land a bittersweet ending filled with the vagaries of complex lives. The terrific jazz music creates the perfect score highlighted by Wild Man's invasion of Ram's nightclub for a free-for-all jazz session, the joyous, thrilling music a welcome reprieve from pivotal personal passions.

Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier are both good without needing to stretch, while Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll have to evolve a bit quicker than normal to cram their characters' development and interactions into a short vacation.

The title is Paris Blues, the music is jazz, and the film is filled with soul.

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Movie Review: The Long, Hot Summer (1958)

A frothy southern drama, The Long, Hot Summer is a traditional tale of the disruptive outsider creating mayhem in the prevailing dynamics of a sleepy small town. With a hot summer exposing raw zeal, the film serves up rampaging personal agendas.

Ben Quick (Paul Newman) is young, handsome, and carrying a reputation as a troublemaker. Barns seem to go up in flames whenever he is involved in a dispute. After being kicked out of his previous town under a cloud of suspicion but no evidence of wrong doing, Quick arrives in Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi, a hamlet dominated by the Varner family. Will Varner (Orson Welles) is the gruff patriarch, a domineering man who owns all the businesses in town.

But Will's health is not what it used to be, and he is eager to impose his will on his family while he still can. His son Jody (Anthony Franciosa) is supposed to be taking over the family empire, but Will doesn't believe that Jody is up to the task. Jody's favourite pastime is sex with his lusciously flirty wife Eula (Lee Remick), but she is still not pregnant, a fact that does not please Will, who is desperate for descendants. Jody's sister Clara (Joanne Woodward) is not yet married, and time is ticking. She has a tentative suitor in the shape of neighbour Alan Stewart (Richard Anderson), but Alan is a weak man living under the thumb of his widowed mother.

Ben's arrival acts as a stir stick within the Varner family. Will sizes up Ben and quickly designates him as more worthy than Jody of inheriting the Varner businesses. He also considers Ben as a potentially good and virile husband for Clara. Naturally, Jody is not at all pleased at being usurped, while Clara is caught between lusting after Ben and being repulsed by his naked aggressiveness.

Directed by Martin Ritt, The Long, Hot Summer is an adaptation and merging of three works by William Faulkner. The final product is very much in the mold of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, with a large man ruling the roost and having to deal with under-performing offspring.

The Long, Hot Summer is almost impossible not to like. The characters are very much the focus of the film, and there are enough issues in the lives of Will, Jody, Clara and Eula to keep the tension crackling and the emotions boiling. The introduction of Ben Quick into the mix just raises the temperature of an already hot summer by a few degrees, and he is the tipping point as suddenly all plans are disrupted. Jody's future viability is in doubt, Clara's endless wait for Alan is placed under the constraints of a hunky alternative, and Will drives hard towards outcomes that first and foremost serve his legacy.

Ritt keeps it all under control, and the film unfolds with surprising efficiency. The collisions between long-held expectations and new realities are handled with a deft touch. The scenes are relatively compact, the drama moves along at a brisk pace despite the high heat and buckets of sweat. Ritt creates a well-defined small town milieu where the rules are pretty clear until outside forces shake the fine balance, and the future suddenly veers into unknown directions riding on scandal and humiliation.

The cast deserves plenty of credit, as Ritt puts to good use former students of the Actors' Studio and they deliver with verve. Newman is unrestrained and allows Quick to unleash his blunt ambitions to earn a piece of Will's business and chip away at Clara's restraint. Welles matches Newman, and Will's conniving mix of worldly experience and coercive manipulation finds the perfect partner in Ben's youthful combativeness.

Woodward and Franciosa bring plenty of energy into their roles, and both convince as Will's offspring, sharing characteristics with their father but not the whole package. Clara is as determined as Will, but much more circumspect, while Jody tries to be a cut-throat wheeler and dealer but lacks his father's ruthless steeliness. Lee Remick's role as Eula is underwritten, and she can't do much with the young sexpot wife who is starting to awaken to her husband's lack of substance. Angela Lansbury has a relatively small turn as an inn keeper still hoping to melt Will's heart into a late second marriage.

While it builds up plenty of sweltering heat, The Long, Hot Summer does settle for an ending that tilts towards too tidy. The fires do rage, but the resolutions and reconciliations are less than consistent with the previously expressed burning desires. Regardless, the Varner family is forever changed by Ben Quick. Not necessarily better or worse, just less burdened by pretense.

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Movie Review: The Verdict (1982)

A character study hampered by a shaky story, The Verdict serves as a showcase for the brilliant talent of Paul Newman, but otherwise frustrates as a courtroom drama.

In Boston, Frank Galvin (Newman) is a washed-up lawyer. A once brilliant career has now been reduced to chasing ambulances and gatecrashing funerals in a desperate search for clients. Frank is spending his days at the bar, drinking heavily and heading towards self-destruction. His mentor and one remaining friend Mickey Morrissey (Jack Warden) reminds Frank that he does have one more case coming to court, a medical malpractice suit that has languished for 18 months. During childbirth a botched anesthetic procedure left a woman on life support and in a vegetative state. Her family is eager to settle, as is the hospital, and a generous offer is made. But Frank visits the incapacitated victim, and something inside him stirs. Against all advice, he decides to take the case to court.

The high-priced and high-powered defence team is led by the slick Ed Concannon (James Mason). Frank and Mickey scrape together their case in a matter of days, while Frank starts a relationship with Laura (Charlotte Rampling), a lonely woman he meets at the bar. With Judge Hoyle (Milo O'Shea) presiding over a jury trial, Frank builds a flimsy argument around a dubious expert witness in the form of Dr. Thompson (Joe Seneca), and doggedly pursues as additional witnesses nurses Maureen Rooney (Julie Bovasso) and Kaitlin Costello (Lindsay Crouse), who may provide key evidence to turn the argument in his favour.

More about character than story, The Verdict is a measured study of redemption and one man's struggle to reclaim himself. Frank Galvin was once a respected partner in a law firm, but circumstances knocked him wildly off course. The film creates a tentative hero out of a lawyer who insists on standing for something, more out of a desperate need to save himself than any imperative to serve his client.

Paul Newman provides the one reason to watch and enjoy The Verdict. After a string of relatively mediocre performances dating back to the early 1970s, Newman simmers again as Frank Galvin. He brings to life a character aging early and creeping towards total moral bankruptcy and utter dependence on the bottle. And yet Newman finds the morsel of caring that Frank still carries, enough to reawaken his passion for a once proud career when he comes face to face with a great injustice. Just as much as Frank finds his case, Newman finds his film, and relaunches his dominant screen presence.

The David Mamet script navigates Frank's rejuvenation with reasonable surety, and allows his self-doubt to remain close to the surface, poking his fragile confidence at regular intervals. But the rest of the story fails to surround the central character with a worthwhile narrative. The court room drama is tepid, Frank's final speech is not nearly as compelling as it pretends to be, and the trial's outcome aims at simplicity rather than intricacy. Laura is never convincing as a love interest, her role in Frank's re-engagement easily predictable. James Mason and Jack Warden are as sturdy as can be expected, but neither Ed Concannon nor Mickey Morrissey have any kind of a progressive arc.

Director Sidney Lumet keeps Newman at the centre of almost every scene and finds good locations for Frank's office and his bar hangout. The film is indoor bound, and there are few flourishes to raise the drama above the average.

The Verdict carries impressive star quality, but is guilty of providing inadequate support.

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Movie Review: Twilight (1998)

A neo-noir with a sturdy cast of veterans, Twilight is only partially successful. The stars shine bright, but the plot and execution are unable to weave the necessary spell.

Harry Ross (Paul Newman) is an ex-cop, an ex-private investigator, and an ex-drunk. He helps his friend Jack Ames (Gene Hackman), a former Hollywood star now suffering from cancer, by retrieving Jack's runaway daughter Mel (Reese Witherspoon) from Mexico where she is on the loose with lover Jeff (Liev Schreiber). The unfortunate chapter results in Harry being accidentally shot perilously close to his private parts. Jack and his wife Catherine (Susan Sarandon), another once-glamorous movie star, allow Harry to live on their property in return for miscellaneous favours.

For his next task, Jack asks Harry to deliver an envelope to a woman called Gloria Lamar (Margo Martindale). The transaction smacks of a blackmail plot, and Harry's suspicions are confirmed when he stumbles upon a fatally bloodied but still shooting private detective Lester Ivar (M. Emmet Walsh) at Gloria's apartment. Police Lieutenant Verna Hollander (Stockard Channing) starts breathing down Harry's neck, but he gets help from former cop Raymond Hope (James Garner), another of Jack's fix-it men. Harry's sleuthing uncovers a 20 year old Hollywood mystery involving the disappearance of Cartherine's first husband, and the more he delves into the the past, the more people die in the present.

Directed by Robert Benton from a script he co-wrote with Richard Russo, Twilight assembles some of Hollywood's finest aging talent. A movie with Newman, Sarandon, Hackman and Garner is bound to be eminently watchable, and all four deploy their weight to create and sustain a platform of quality that pushes Twilight towards respectability. Newman is never less than compelling, acknowledging his age as he creaks his way through modern dangers to uncover the ghosts of the past. Hackman, Sarandon and Garner do the best that they can with the rather thin material afforded to their characters.

While the attempt to recreate the grim tones and dark aura of noir films from decades ago is laudable, the story lacks the strength to properly engage. There are fundamental missing elements that leave the experience adding up to less than the sum of its parts. The central missteps include a rather unconvincing and bland blackmail plot, and the poorly developed characters of Jack and Catherine Ames. They are supposed to be at the core of the mystery, their passion and influence from 20 years ago triggering evil that still surrounds their lives. But as written, Jack and Catherine are more amiable than conniving, with Sarandon particularly victimized by a script that utterly fails to bring out any genuine sparkle of maliciousness or deadly seductive talents.

The stylistic shadings are superficial at best, and mostly consist of plenty of smoking and drinking, but little else to evoke the noir aesthetic. Other weaknesses include the lack of any authoritarian threat from Verna, her closeness to Harry undermining the menace that detectives are supposed to represent to the likes of Harry and Jack. The riffraff characters get in the way without contributing much, Gloria, Jeff and ridiculous wannabe sidekick Reuben (Giancarlo Esposito) come and go without much impact.

More work should have been given to Reese Witherspoon as Mel, a potential underage sexpot who could have driven the plot towards The Big Sleep territory. Also underused is M. Emmet Walsh as Lester Ivar. His one scene is the absolute highlight, and Lester is exactly the dishevelled and dangerous type of character who lives and dies to enliven noir films. Here he just gets to die, helping Twilight to register as a good idea that doesn't quite work out.

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Movie Review: The Color Of Money (1986)

A worthy sequel to The Hustler (1961), The Color Of Money catches up with pool shark Eddie Felson in middle age, as he is about to be shaken away from the comforts of retirement. With effortless potency, Paul Newman reprises the role that he made famous, and finds a man ready to trade contentment for another shot at glory.

25 years after being forced to retire from shooting pool for money, Eddie Felson (Newman) is living a comfortable life, running a small bar, trading in alcohol, enjoying his girlfriend Janelle (Helen Shaver), and bankrolling mediocre hustler Julian (John Turturro). One evening Eddie spots young pool hot shot Vincent Lauria (Tom Cruise), and immediately recognizes a natural but guileless talent.

Eddie eventually convinces Vince and his girlfriend / manager Carmen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) to join him on a road trip to a tournament in Atlantic City. Along the way, they stop at derelict pool halls where Eddie tries to train Vince to become a hustler. But Vince hates to lose, even when losing means setting up a bigger payday. Meantime, Eddie starts to get the itch to pick up a cue and play again. Well before the trio reach Atlantic City, Eddie reaches a moment of truth, where he has to decide either to continue investing in Vince or to reactivate his own life.

To continue the story of one of the more compelling characters in movie history, director Martin Scorsese glamorizes shooting pool while celebrating the road trip grime that makes the world of hustling in small town halls irresistible to the Eddie Felsons of the world. The Color Of Money cruises as smoothly as Eddie's Cadillac, slicing through side streets filled with scrappy dives and the men who occupy them, waiting for the next mark to walk through the door.

The Color Of Money has a few too many stylish close-up shots of balls rolling on pool tables, Scorsese apparently hooked on the admittedly elegant sights and sounds of the game. From the satisfying thwack of the break to trick shots and near misses, the film immerses itself into the 9-ball culture, and unusually spends a lot of time on actual games scenes. This unnecessarily prolongs the film to two hours, and interrupts the more interesting character development aspects.

And it is the character of Eddie Felson, a full generation after the events of The Hustler, that is the centre of the film. The Color Of Money is the reawakening of Felson's soul from the purgatory of self-imposed pool exile, a journey sparked by his discovering of the next bright young thing in Vince, and more importantly, rediscovering the intoxicating allure of life on the road. Eddie belongs in the dank pool halls where he can smell the money and spot the players within seconds of entry, and his tutorship of Vince becomes a vehicle for reigniting his one passion in life.

Newman finally won his Best Actor Academy Award for a classy performance filled with middle age regret and renewed determination. Newman starts with a fulfilled Eddie not looking for any transformations, and ends with him finding renewed vigour, a lust for competition propelled by the need to make up for many years of lost time.

Tom Cruise holds his own opposite Newman, infusing Vincent with the slightly irritating exuberance of youth, naturally accompanied by smug cluelessness. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio exudes a cool detachment that may be attributed to an underwritten role, as the ambitious businesswoman who happens to be caught between her boyfriend and his mentor. In an early film appearance, Forest Whitaker has a small but critical role as a low key hustler.

For Eddie Felson, The Color of Money proves to be the green elixir that nourishes life.

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Movie Review: The Towering Inferno (1974)

An epic disaster movie, The Towering Inferno is a spectacular, all-star cook-out. With magnificent special effects and a never-ending number of fiery death traps, the film cranks up the temperature and keeps it at a fever pitch.

In San Francisco, a gala event is being prepared to open the newest, tallest tower in the world, a building with 138 floors of office and residential space. The building's architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) and his fiancée Susan Franklin (Faye Dunaway) attend at the request of the owner, development tycoon James Duncan (William Holden). The dignitaries gathering for the party at the top floor include Senator Gary Parker (Robert Vaughn) and Mayor Robert Ramsay (Jack Collins). The chief electrical contractor Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) is also attending, and he is married to Duncan's daughter Patty (Susan Blakely).

Also in the building on opening night are Duncan's public relations chief Dan Bigelow (Robert Wagner), and his lover and secretary Lorrie (Susan Flannery); security chief Harry Jernigan (O. J. Simpson); aging scam artist Harlee Claiborne (Fred Astaire) and his latest mark Lisolette Mueller (Jennifer Jones).

Thanks to Simmons' cost-cutting, low quality electrical wiring was installed throughout the building. With all the lights turned on to celebrate opening night, a fire starts on the 81st floor. The fire department responds in full force, under the direction of Chief Michael O’Hallorhan (Steve McQueen). But despite hundreds of firefighters deployed to battle the blaze, the fire spreads quickly through the walls and ceilings, destroying escape routes and trapping Duncan and his guests on the top floor. O'Hallorhan and Roberts have to find ways to battle the inferno and rescue as many people as possible.

One of producer Irwin Allen's best disaster extravaganzas, The Towering Inferno is 165 minutes of top quality mindless entertainment. Cramming a dizzying number of movie stars into a building and setting it ablaze is a sure-fire (sorry) way to draw a crowd. And thanks to an endless array of special effects, explosions and stunts, the film delivers. The fire starts early and spreads quickly, there is not much time wasted in talk or prolonged drama. The characters are introduced briskly and in broad strokes, and then left to either burn to a crisp, struggle heroically, or survive.

In a rare example of cooperation, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. decided to collaborate rather than compete on what had been two separate building-on-fire movies. The result is a script that combined elements from two books, The Tower and The Glass Inferno. Director John Guillermin keeps the focus on the out-of-control fire, then goes looking  for cliff-hangers where characters are trapped by the lapping flames. Bigelow and Lorrie are surrounded by the fire in the executive floor after a love-making session; Roberts, Lisolette and a couple of kids are stuck in a collapsed emergency exit staircase; and a whole bunch of folks are trapped in an outside elevator, suspended by a sole cable.

And when it's time to thin out the cast and have some characters perish, Guillermin does not blink. The stuntmen do an excellent job as some characters turn into flaming marshmallows, while quite a few fall spectacularly to their death, either spit out of the building by fiery explosions or victims of malfunctioning rescue pulleys and wobbly external elevators.

The talent in front of the camera represented some of the biggest stars of the era. The first and only teaming between McQueen and Newman included the former insisting on the same salary and the same number of lines for the two of them. With McQueen only entering the movie about 45 minutes in, and never being an actor who enjoyed delivering plenty of lines to begin with, this awkward arrangement resulted in more lines than needed for McQueen's O'Hallorhan and some stiff stretches when Newman's Roberts seems strangely untalkative. Although both get to be heroic in the old-fashioned risk-everything-to-save-a-life way, neither seem ever fully comfortable in a movie where acting takes a distant back seat behind the pyrotechnics, with nothing resembling rapport ever developing between them.

Meanwhile, in the crowded party room at the top of the tower where the dignitaries are dressed to the nines, tempers start to rise and panic sets in as the seriousness of the situation starts to become apparent and one evacuation route after another is cut off by the fire. William Holden as the host James Duncan tries to maintain a stoic and calm presence as his dream project goes up in smoke. Roger Simmons, the villain of the piece played with perfect I'm A Slimy But Rich Contractor smarm by Richard Chamberlain, eventually reveals his true colours. But apart from Jennifer Jones as Lisolette, the ladies are given not much to do, with Faye Dunaway sleep-walking through the film in a trance despite a fetching dress, while fashion model Susan Blakely as Patty fixes her husband Simmons with the occasional glare, then wonders where her career will go from here (the answer: television!).

But ultimately, The Towering Inferno has one objective only, and that is to create an overwhelmingly hot and gripping adventure in a tall burning building. And in that, it is a smoking success.

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Movie Review: Harper (1966)

An attempted homage to 1940s detective movies, Harper falls quite flat. Despite the presence of Paul Newman and Lauren Bacall, the convoluted story and the derivative characters never come close to their intended target, while stylistically the film is simply bland.

Private detective Lew Harper (Newman), struggling to reunite with his wife Susan (Janet Leigh), is summoned to the house of wealthy socialite Elaine Sampson (Bacall). She hires him to find her missing husband Ralph, although Elaine seems unperturbed that Ralph is missing and would be quite pleased if he were to turn up dead so she could outlive him. The characters swirling around Elaine include free-spirited daughter Miranda (Pamela Tiffin), her boyfriend and the Sampsons' private pilot Allan Taggert (Robert Wagner), and the family lawyer and Harper's friend Albert Graves (Arthur Hill).

Harper follows a trail leading to an assortment of distasteful characters: Ralph Sampson's possible lover, overweight former starlet Fay Estabrook (Shelley Winters); her husband Dwight Troy (Robert Webber); drug-addicted lounge singer Betty Fraley (Julie Harris); and phony cult leader Claude (Strother Martin). Harper uncovers multiple tangled plots involving kidnapping, blackmail, illicit affairs, unrequited love, the smuggling of illegal immigrants, and bad guys turning on each other. With $500,000 in ransom money at stake and Ralph Sampson still missing, Harper is frequently at gun-point or being beaten-up as the body count begins to mount.

Trying to borrow heavily from the plot of The Big Sleep, even Bacall's resonant presence cannot liven up the William Goldman screenplay (an adaptation of the Ross MacDonald book A Moving Target, with Lew Archer changed to Harper). A significant shortfall is the lack of any charm, charisma or genuine evil among the large assortment of unsavoury plotters scheming to profit from Ralph Sampson's disappearance. They all come across as low level riff-raff, more likely to intimidate each other than to harm their intended victims, lowering the movie down to an uninteresting level of scuzziness.

Director Jack Smight fails to add any panache to the battle of the low lifes, the film's look and style pedestrian at best.

With Bacall's role marginally above the level of a cameo, it is left to Newman to grapple with the inferior material. While he enjoys a few solid wisecracks, for the most part Newman appears ill-suited to the role of a private investigator bumbling around the lives of the rich and poking at the scum gathered in the corners. Newman almost comically overacts his more puzzled moments, and when it's time to stop chewing and kick ass, he simply does not bring enough intensity. The overriding theme of the movie is of Newman being heavily pushed around by others, not a good premise to hang any film on.

Pamela Tiffin almost saves the day with a dazzling portrayal of Miranda as the spoiled 1960s rich girl, certain that she could not care less about her father but almost oblivious to the carnage that her mere presence is causing among the crooks around her. While Janet Leigh is underused in an interesting role, Robert Wagner, Arthur Hill, Robert Webber, Shelley Winters, Julie Harris and Strother Martin are an example of quantity over quality resulting in so much wasted talent, limited and poorly defined roles sinking Harper ever faster with each additional unconvincing snarl.

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Movie Review: Sweet Bird Of Youth (1962)

One of Tennessee Williams' less absorbing plays is adapted into a relatively staid film that never quite takes off. The story of a desperate gigolo meeting his past and plotting his future, Sweet Bird Of Youth is filled with distasteful characters who deserve each other and little else.

Handsome Chance Wayne (Paul Newman) returns to his home town of St. Cloud, Florida with aging movie star Alexandra Del Lago (Geraldine Page) in tow. St. Cloud is run by the grizzled and corrupt Tom Finley (Ed Begley), and his almost saintly daughter Heavenly (Shirley Knight) used to be Chance's girlfriend. Chance and Alexandra scandalize the town by taking a room together at the local hotel, but everyone is immediately advising Chance to quickly hustle out of town: his dark past with Heavenly means that Finley does not want him around.

Alexandra believes her career to be over and is dealing with drug and alcohol addictions. She does not quite know what she is doing with Chance or how she ended up in St. Cloud. Chance has never succeeded at anything in life, and he generates income by prostituting himself to wealthy women. He nevertheless still has aspirations to use Alexandra to finally get his big break in Hollywood and win back Heavenly's heart, although she is now engaged to a doctor. Meanwhile, Finley is embroiled in a political battle and has to fend off allegations of corruption, and he just wants to see Chance gone, either voluntarily or by force if necessary.

None of the main characters in Sweet Bird Of Youth have enough redeeming features to evoke anything resembling sympathy. Chance is at the centre of events and on his way to discovering that the sweet benefits of youth are fleeting, but proves himself to be a miserable, self-centred soul, and this after the Richard Brooks script toned down his less attractive features from the original play. Alexandra confirms the worst suspicions about Hollywood has-been divas, as she spirals into the squalor of multiple addictions and yet still believes herself entitled to royal treatment. And Tom Finley gathers up all the corruption and menace of southern politicians ruling through a combination of sleaze and intimidation.

No compelling arcs are provided to prod development of the main characters. Chance needs to uncover the reason why he is suddenly deep in Finley's bad book, a charged revelation but not enough to open new avenues to explore. Through the fog of substance abuse Alexandra receives news about the box office results of her latest movie, an outcome that only amplifies her theatricality. And Finley is the local law of the land starting on the evil side and slithering further into the darkness. Paul Newman, Geraldine Page and Ed Begley are effective in bringing these unsavoury people to life, but are then left stranded. 

Heavenly, with that none too subtle name, is meant to be the one source of light and pure goodness in Sweet Bird Of Youth. Although Shirley Knight does her best, the role is paper thin and the character unconvincing. For all her goodness Heavenly is inexplicably willing to overlook and forgive a large accumulation of momentously sordid faults.

Richard Brooks also directed Newman in the adaptation of Williams' more flammable Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and at least does succeed in breaking Sweet Bird Of Youth out of its stage confines. The film makes good use of several locations, although a large amount of time is spent in the hotel room.

Conniving and morally bankrupt characters plotting against each other are always enticing to a degree. They are, however, always more compelling when they seek or at least accidentally stumble onto a path out of their moral morass. Sweet Bird Of Youth just flaps past that opportunity.

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