1969: Midnight Cowboy.

"I'm walkin' here!" Rico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) and Joe Buck (Jon Voight).

Release Date: May 25, 1969. Running Time: 113 minutes. Screenplay: Waldo Salt. Based on the novel by: James Leo Herlihy. Producer: Jerome Hellman. Director: John Schlesinger.


THE PLOT:

Texas dishwasher Joe Buck (Jon Voight) has a plan. He's going to move to New York City and enjoy an easy life as a hustler. "There's a lot of rich women there begging for it, paying for it too!" So he quits his job, throws on an exaggerated cowboy getup, and hops on a bus to chase his dream.

He encounters just one small problem: Reality.

Once in New York, this would-be hustler finds himself out-hustled by everyone he meets. The couple of clients he manages to get don't pay, and his remaining money ends up being claimed by Rico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a small time con artist who plays the hapless Texan like a fiddle.

Joe eventually finds Ratso again - but by then, the money is gone. A mixture of guilt and loneliness prompts Ratso to offer him a place to stay, and the two become unlikely friends. Ratso tries to act as "management" to Joe - but it quickly becomes clear that neither man is a good fit for this life, leaving the two grappling against poverty and increasing desperation.

Joe's delusions of being a hustler keep running into the brick wall of reality.

JON VOIGHT AS JOE BUCK:

For all his talk of being a hustler, Joe has one big problem: He's a basically decent person. Once he's confronted by crocodile tears from a bored housewife (Sylvia Miles) or the begging of a pathetic college boy (Bob Balaban), he just can't make himself enforce payment for his services. Later, when he and Ratso are freezing through the cold New York winter, he berates the con man for stealing a coat.

This was the role that made Jon Voight's career. He's present in almost every scene, and all but one scene is shown from Joe's viewpoint. Voight is excellent, balancing just enough of a confident strut in his early scenes to make it believable that he would think his plan might be successful, while also maintaining a basic vulnerability and even innocence in the hellscape that is this movie's New York City.

Ratso, at his father's graveside.

DUSTIN HOFFMAN AS RICO "RATSO" RIZZO:

Dustin Hoffman is superb in one of his most famous roles. His entry into the film, at just shy of the half hour mark, injects energy and humor at the exact point that the film's initial momentum is lagging. Hoffman was always a gifted comedic presence, and he uses that strength to good advantage. Ratso talks fast, with practically every word seeming like a salesman's patter.

When he's showing off to Joe in the lead-up to conning him, he nearly gets hit by a cab, prompting the iconic "I'm walking here!" scene. His anger flares hot, but he lets it go immediately as he observes that something like that is actually a good way to get insurance money. This gets a call back later, when he takes Joe up to his apartment inside a condemned building. He tells Joe to be careful not to slip and hurt himself, because there'd be no insurance money in that.

The humor helps to make him stand out and encourages the audience to latch onto him, but Ratso is more of a tragic figure than a comic one. Hoffman's face is rarely still, but his eyes are sad and soulful. Ratso's goal is to move to Miami, where he thinks he'll have an easy life - a parallel with Joe, who expected an easy life in New York. As with Joe, there's a sneaking suspicion that if he made the move, he'd just continue living the same existence, albeit in a warmer climate that would likely be better for his (unnamed, but evident) tuberculosis.

Joe finally makes a connection with Shirley (Brenda Vaccaro).

OTHER CHARACTERS:

Cass: Sylvia Miles makes a big impression as Joe's first New York "client," a well-off Manhattan woman who lives in a penthouse - in short, definitely someone who can afford his services. Once the deed is done, she feigns indignance when he asks for money, breaking down into extremely fake tears until he pays her to assuage his own guilt. The interaction sets the tone for his entire New York adventure, making it clear right away that he's not a hustler, but a mark.

Shirley: Joe's only "success", Shirley (Brenda Vaccaro), is the opposite of Cass. She's appealing and pleasant, and she doesn't hesitate to pay. Even when Joe fails to perform, she doesn't get upset. She does needle him with a few teasing implications about his sexuality, which prompts him into proving her wrong - exactly as designed. She ends the encounter by lining up another client for him, making her - not Ratso - into his only effective manager.

Others: Outside of Joe and Ratso, almost all characters appear briefly. Most manage to make decent impressions, however. A very young Bob Balaban is suitably pathetic as a college boy who enlists Joe's services but lies about having money, then whimpers until Joe lets him go. Barnard Hughes is an out of town businessman who wants to pay Joe for sex, but who is too ashamed of his own impulses. Jennifer Salt (daughter of screenwriter Waldo Salt) is a young woman from Joe's past, seen in flashbacks, whose refrain that Joe's "the only one" gets a chilling payoff in the final flashback. None of these actors and characters appear for more than a few minutes, but each contributes to the bleak mosaic of people trying and failing to break through their own isolation.

Joe and Ratso forge an unlikely friendship.

THOUGHTS:

Midnight Cowboy is the only "X" Rated movie to have ever won the Best Picture Oscar. I'll go into more detail about that in a supplemental post. Suffice it to say that, even by 1969 standards, it was a dubious rating. Despite its premise, this movie is no more than moderate in its sexual content and is fairly mild in terms of explicitness, and it's unsurprising that the rating was changed to an "R" when it was reissued in 1971.

This is a very well-made movie, one that makes outstanding use of locations. The real New York settings showcase the city's beauty when Joe first arrives, only to gradually shift to emphasizing coldness, isolation, and decay. Acting is excellent across the board. Other than Joe and Ratso, no one gets more than a couple of scenes, but every character makes a distinct impression.

Still, for me, it's very much of a movie of two halves. Joe is on his own for most of the first half, and he's a lot less engaging without Ratso acting as a foil. The structure also gets a bit repetitive: Joe makes a potential connection, in each case hoping to get ahead, only to end up worse off than before. This happens three times (two clients, with Ratso in between); and while I don't think there's anything here you could cut, I still have to admit to finding it wearying.

The second half shifts focus to the friendship between Joe and Ratso. The movie was starting to lose me, but that shift in focus quickly reeled me back in. Dustin Hoffman is particularly good at mixing in just enough humor to make you want to watch without undercutting the emotion. When he first offers Joe a place to stay, Joe is understandably wary. I love the way Hoffman snaps, "I'm inviting you!" The con artist's seemingly authentic indignance is amusing, but there's also a perfectly judged trace of desperation in it.

The scenes I most connect with are consistently those featuring both characters. Ratso breaks into a shoeshine box to clean up Joe's boots for the next potential client, chattering about his father, who shined shoes for a living and died from health issues from the fumes. Before he even finishes speaking about how he will never follow in his father's footsteps, a policeman sits down beside Joe, waiting for his turn. Then more policemen sit, and Ratso's face falls.

There's a lovely nonverbal bit, in which the two dance to an orange juice jingle from Joe's radio to keep warm - a moment that bridges the grim and the humorous until the sequence delivers its bleak punchline. Another moment, the only scene from Ratso's persepective instead of Joe's has the con man watching as Joe goes into a women's hotel to drum up business. Ratso begins fantasizing about Florida - a fantasy that turns as Joe's lack of subtlety results in failure.

I won't spoil the ending, though it's not hard to see coming. I will say that I find the entire last ten minutes to be outstanding. Joe Buck has a realization that the audience made by the twenty minute mark; Ratso sort-of achieves his own dream, and their respective final lines are perfectly chosen.

Oh, and Harry Nilsson's rendition of Fred Neil's Everybody's Talkin' is splendid, a good song on its own that also matches and reflects the movie to which it's attached.

Joe is appalled as New Yorkers calmly walk past a dead body on the sidewalk.

OVERALL:

I'm torn on assigning a rating for Midnight Cowboy. Though performances, direction, and script are all high quality, I had difficulty connecting with it during its first half. I mostly love the second half, however, with the friendship/ersatz-family relationship between Joe and Ratso lending warmth and humor that offsets the bleakness.

This "tale of two halves" leaves me wavering between a "7" and an "8." In the end, I'm going with the higher score, because I think the strength of the ending outweighs my issues with the first half.


Rating: 8/10.

Best Picture - 1968: Oliver
Best Picture - 1970: Patton (not yet reviewed)

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

Singing Through a Time of Change: The Musical, the Best Picture Oscar, and the 1960s.

The Sound of Music: The biggest of five musicals that won Best Picture between 1958 and 1968.

From 1958 to 1968, five musicals won the Academy Award for Best Picture: Gigi, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and Oliver! This ended up being the last big surge in popularity for the genre, however. By the end of the 1960s, musicals - alongside other previously popular films such as westerns and Biblical epics - were flagging in popularity. But why were musicals so honored during their final decade as a major movie genre?

As I've noted in my reviews, and despite me thoroughly enjoying a few of them, the musical really isn't my genre. Still, when just shy of half of Best Picture winners during a (roughly) decade long period belong to one specific type of movie, and when that type of movie then almost immediately falls out of favor thereafter, I think it bears at least a passing examination.


ESCAPISM IN A TIME OF CHANGE:

"It’s refreshing and not too complicated. A love story, with children and music. That word ‘joyous’ has an awful lot to do with it."
-Julie Andrews on the success of The Sound of Music. 

Musicals had been a popular genre since the introduction of talkies. The first synced dialogue in a full feature film came in The Jazz Singer, which was a musical. Even so, from 1927 - 1957, the only musicals to win Best Picture were The Broadway Melody, The Great Ziegfeld, and An American in Paris. This wasn't because of any lack of quality musicals. Examples of musicals that, in my opinion, were better than any of the ones that actually won the Oscar during this period included: the 1937 and 1954 versions of A Star Is Born, The Wizard of Oz, Otto Preminger's Carmen Jones, and Gene Kelly's Singin' in the Rain. None of these won the award. Despite now being regarded as one of the greats in the genre, Singin' in the Rain wasn't even nominated!

So why, starting in 1958, did musicals suddenly start routinely winning the big award? I think one reason is that it was a turbulent era. Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 launched in October 1957, prompting enormous anxiety in the West and effectively kicking off the Space Race. The Civil Rights movement grew, with increasingly large-scale demonstrations against segregation and violent incidents that included the bombing of the 15th Street Baptist Church in 1963 and the Freedom Summer murders of 1964. Political assassinations occurred throughout the 1960s, including the murders of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. US involvement in Vietnam expanded, culminating in the unrest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Entertainment provides a refuge from reality, and musicals are a largely escapist genre. Four of the five Best Picture winning musicals were period pieces, far removed from the chaos of moviegoers' contemporary world. Only West Side Story, with its conflict between Irish/Polish and Puerto Rican street gangs, was set in the present or dealt directly with current issues. The other four titles were more geared toward simple entertainment. Even The Sound of Music is mostly quite light until the shift in tone in the final Act.

It was a period that drove people to seek escape... and it helped that these were well made movies that found great popular success, making it that much easier for the Academy to bestow those honors.

Rita Moreno in West Side Story - the only one of the
winning musicals dealing directly with contemporary issues.

A REALIGNMENT OF VIEWER TASTES:

"I could feel musicals were dying, because there wasn't a renewal of stories and styles and they kept repeating the same plot."
-Leslie Caron, quoted in Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s.

The success of musicals in the early/mid 1960s seemed to promise a long life for the genre. Instead, it was a last gasp, a big final production number before the genre danced mostly off the stage. By the end of the 1960s, and despite the popularity of 1968's Oliver!, the musical was in sharp decline.

There are several reasons for this. The success of musicals - particularly The Sound of Music - led to the market becoming saturated. The back half of the decade saw more and more musicals being greenlit in an attempt to replicate that windfall. But The Sound of Music is an extremely well-made film with an excellent script and strong performances. Productions such as Hello Dolly!, Star!, and Paint Your Wagon (I'm actually rather fond of that last... but I'd love to know who thought a musical starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood was a good idea!?!) lacked the qualities needed to connect with either critics or audiences. And because it was an expensive genre, when these movies failed, it cost studios dearly.

Even beyond the issues of oversaturation and declining quality, I think there was a realignment in viewer tastes. Three classic genres had been cinematic mainstays for most of the life of the motion picture industry: the Biblical epic, the musical, and the western. All three genres seemed to be flourishing at the start of the 1960s. In a time of change, though, these films started to look not just old-fashioned but downright creaky. By 1970, all three were on the wane.

The Biblical epic all but died on the bigscreen, with most productions moving to television. Westerns and musicals hobbled through for a while, in large part by shifting to try to reflect the new age. Much has been written about the "anti-westerns" of the late 1960s and 1970s, and that same time period saw what I would dub the "anti-musical." Bob Fosse's Cabaret and All That Jazz were more cynical than classic musicals, with production numbers that embraced the darkness rather than providing relief from it. Even then, such films were not always successful. Martin Scorsese's New York, New York, for example, was a well-made, well-acted movie... that failed spectacularly both with contemporary critics and audiences.

There would continue to be scattered hits. 1978's Grease was a traditional musical that tapped into nostalgia for a bygone age, leaning into the same corniness that audiences had begun rejecting a decade prior. But I doubt Grease would have struck a chord had there been ten similar films that same year. And just as Dances with Wolves did not lead to a new western boom, neither Les Miserables nor La La Land led to a big-scale revival of the musical. And Cats - from the same director as Les Miserables - proved a stark reminder that when such films flop, they tend to flop hard.

Gigi's very story - a lighthearted romance between an adult man and a teen girl -
proves that viewer sensibilities can and do change.

POST-SCRIPT:

"Movies can be seen as a mirror for society."
-Godwin Francis, Medium

I think the musical "boom" for Best Picture Winners in the late 1950s and '60s was, in its way, a reflection of that time, or at least a reaction to it. In an age of massive social change, viewers and Academy voters alike took refuge in the comfort of a familiar genre. It didn't hurt that the quality was often high: The Sound of Music absolutely deserved its Oscar, and I wouldn't particularly argue with the awards for West Side Story or My Fair Lady (I would argue against those for Gigi and Oliver).

But the same social changes that made musicals an attractive escape during the first half of the decade made the same films seem like artifacts of a bygone age by the decade's end. Just as I don't think it's a coincidence that this time of change was one that resulted in so many wins for an inherently escapist genre, I also don't think it's a coincidence that the musical went out of style at roughly the same time that the western and the Biblical epic did.

The cultural shift resulted in audiences also shifting, turning away from previously unassailable genres. The next decade's major titles - and major awards - would be dominated by very different fare...


Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

1968: Oliver!

Workhouse orphan Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) does the unimaginable: He asks for more gruel.

Release Date: Sept. 26, 1968. Running Time: 153 minutes. Screenplay: Vernon Harris. Based on the 1960 musical by: Lionel Bart, based on the novel, Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens. Producer: John Woolf. Director: Carol Reed.


THE PLOT:

Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) is a young orphan living in a 19th century workhouse. While working for an undertaker (Leonard Rossiter), he manages to escape. He makes his way to London, hoping to make his fortune. There, he meets "The Artful Dodger" (Jack Wild), a skilled pickpocket his own age who takes him to his benefactor, the wily old Fagin (Ron Moody). Fagin heads a gang of young pickpockets, working in tandem with the brutish Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed).

While out with Oliver, Dodger attempts to pick the pocket of Mr. Brownlow (Jospeh O'Conor), a respectable gentleman. Dodger's attempt goes awry, and Oliver ends up taking the blame. A witness steps forward to clear him, and Brownlow takes him in out of a sense of guilt. But Fagin and Sikes worry that he might yet talk and expose their operation. Sikes becomes fixated on the possibility and becomes determined to bring Oliver back to a life of petty criminal activity - or, failing that, to silence the boy permanently!

Criminals Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) and Fagin (Ron Moody) worry that Oliver knows too much.

CHARACTERS:

Oliver Twist: He shows flashes of personality in the first half hour. He plays along with undertaker Sowerberry's plan to drum up business by using him as a mourner for children's funerals. Later, when the despicable Noah Claypole (Kenneth Cranham) insults his mother, he erupts and attacks the man. Alas, these two moments and his actual escape are about it for him doing anything. As soon as he reaches London, his story becomes a series of events that happen to him. This combines with an unremarkable child performance by Mark Lester to make Oliver himself into the weakest single part of the movie, Oliver!

Fagin: Ron Moody recreates his acclaimed stage performance as Fagin, and he is almost certainly the best thing in the film. He's been significantly toned down from the novel. Dickens's Fagin was unquestionably a villain, a deliberate catalyst for violence even though he didn't directly commit it; Oliver!'s Fagin is a largely harmless rogue. He's appalled by Bill Sikes's brutality, and "No violence, Bill!" practically becomes a catchphrase. As Sikes becomes more threatening, Fagin considers reforming and living an honest life - though it doesn't take long for him to talk himself out of it, in one of the movie's more entertaining musical numbers.

Bill Sikes: With Fagin made harmless and another villainous character removed entirely, all the malice falls to Bill Sikes. This actually works, thanks in no small part to the glowering presence of Oliver Reed. His Sikes is what you'd get if malice was somehow cast into human form. He doesn't so much fall back on intimidation tactics as lean into them as a default. He clearly frightens Fagin and the children, and he keeps his lover, Nancy, doing his bidding with threats of violence. From threats, it's a very short escalation to actual violence, with the end of the movie seeing him literally fleeing from a torch carrying mob that seems more appropriate for him than it ever did for Dr. Frankenstein's unfortunate monster.

Nancy: Shani Wallis's Nancy is the light to Sikes's darkness. She's absolutely in love with him and repeatedly makes clear that she won't betray him. She has no illusions about what kind of man he is, though. She accepts his threats and abuse when they're directed at her. But when Sikes turns on Oliver, she's less willing to go along. She argues against taking the boy away from his comfortable new life with Brownlow, and as Sikes's ill-will toward him grows, she does the unthinkable and acts against him.

Artful Dodger: I already noted how bland I find Mark Lester in the title role. That stands out all the more by comparison with Jack Wild's Dodger. Despite being even younger than Lester, Wild gives a fine child performance. His Dodger is quick-witted and silver-tongued as he talks Oliver into following him back to Fagin's hideout. When Oliver becomes the target of pursuit, Dodger tries to misdirect the police, steering them away from the boy. He's often paired with Fagin, memorably at the end of the film, and there's a sense that Dodger is probably very much like Fagin was himself as a boy... which has a sobering effect on the comedy, as Dodger is probably headed toward much the same life as his mentor.

Oliver meets the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild). One of these
child performances is significantly better than the other.

A GAPING HOLE WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER SHOULD BE:

This was my first time watching Oliver!, and I doubt it's a movie I'll revisit. I enjoyed it well enough, and I'll heap plenty of praise on aspects of it below. But I had one big problem, and that was with Oliver himself.

As I indicated in the "Characters" section, Oliver only actually does anything in the first half hour. His escape from Sowberry and the workhouse is his high point as a character. After that, he becomes ridiculously passive. Dodger takes him to Fagin. Dodger steals the wallet that he is blamed for. Mr. Brownlow takes him in to show him a better life. Fagin and Sikes plot to take him back. Nancy tries to rescue him. Oliver barely even reacts to most of this, to the point where it wouldn't make much difference if he was replaced with a sack of potatoes that was passed from one character to the next.

In fairness, Oliver was also quite passive in Charles Dickens' source novel, Oliver Twist. But the musical takes an existing problem and makes it worse. By eliminating some supporting characters who were directly linked to Oliver, and by toning down Fagin's villainy so that he no longer poses a direct threat, the title character is left with no meaningful interaction with anyone. This reduces him to a plot device, which greatly limits my engagement.

Musical number, Consider Yourself, turns into a tour of working-class London.

CHARISMATIC PERFORMANCES AND A FANTASTIC PRODUCTION:

Despite the weakness of Oliver himself, I mostly enjoyed the movie thanks to its many other merits. Ron Moody's charismatically sleazy Fagin just about fills the gaping hole where a main character should be. The movie sparks to life every time he takes centerstage - and in the middle of the film, that happens a lot, almost always with entertaining results. Too bad, then, that he mostly recedes to the background for the final Act, with Sikes and Nancy taking most of the focus as the tone turns darker.

The production itself is fantastic. Director Carol Reed spent weeks on the big production numbers, and the effort pays off. Consider Yourself, when Oliver meets Dodger, is a musical tour of working-class London. Dodger escorts him to Fagin's hideout through merchants, newspaper sellers, and various others. Each person they pass joins the song, with the performance growing to encompass the entire street.

Its mirror image comes after the Intermission, as Oliver looks out onto the upper-class street of Brownlow's estate to see a flower girl, a strawberry vendor, and milk maids selling their wares to the rich. Again, the number, Who Will Buy?, grows to fill the area, one which belongs to a completely different world than Fagin - and yet is also uncomfortably close geographically, as shown at the end by the camera closing on Bill Sikes, watching for his prey.

The script moves some of the stage version's songs around to good effect. In the stage musical, the boisterous Oom-Pah-Pah is Nancy's first song, introducing the tavern where she plies her trade. The film changes her introductory song to It's a Fine Life, which puts more focus on her character and her acceptance of a less-than-ideal existence. Oom-Pah-Pah is moved to her final song, with her deliberately rousing the people in the tavern to create a distraction for Oliver's escape. This adds a level of tension, folding the song into a part of the story.

Still, it's hard to fully get past the best moments being ones in which Oliver himself is on the periphery. The film dies whenever the focus returns to him. Little wonder, then, that the further along the story goes, the less the title character seems to be at the center of the action.

Sikes threatens Nancy (Shani Wallis).

REMAKES AND RETELLINGS:

As with almost any Dickens story, there are many film and television versions of Oliver Twist. The earliest is dated 1909, and variations of the story continue to be presented regularly. Some of the more notable adaptations include:

Oliver Twist (1922). Director Frank Lloyd, who would later helm Mutiny on the Bounty, directs this silent version starring Jackie Coogan as Oliver and Lon Chaney as Fagin. I haven't seen it, but contemporary reception was almost universally positive, with Chaney's caricatured Fagin influencing most later portrayals. Like too many silent films, it was lost for decades, until a print was found in 1973.

Oliver Twist (1948). Probably the most well-known non-musical version of Dickens' novel, this generally faithful adaptation was directed by David Lean. Alec Guinness's Fagin stirred controversy for playing up Jewish stereotypes, but his performance also was an obvious influence on Ron Moody's characterization (though Moody and director Carol Reed de-emphasized the stereotypical elements). As with most of Lean's works, the film is generally well regarded today.

Oliver & Company (1988). The Disney version makes Oliver a kitten who joins a pack of dogs to survive on the streets of 1980s New York. Dom DeLuise's Fagin is even less villainous than the 1968 movie's, with him coming across as well-meaning and likable. It performed well at the box office, and in retrospect its success was a sign that Disney's animation division was about to turn things around after lackluster output over the previous decade.

Oliver arrives in London.

OVERALL:

Oliver! is a fine production boasting strong performances by Ron Moody, Oliver Reed, and Shani Wallis. It also has an excellent child performance in Jack Wild's Artful Dodger, who makes a fun double act with Moody's Fagin.

Unfortunately, Oliver himself is a bland, personality-free void, and I found my interest waning any time he took center stage. The movie itself doesn't seem interested in him as a character, taking any excuse to focus on Fagin or Sikes or Nancy, to the point that the title character barely even speaks across the second half of the movie! In the end, I can't escape the sense that this movie has a big hole where its young hero should be.

I still liked it more than not - but I can't rate it as one of the better Best Picture winners. Given that The Lion in Winter and 2001: A Space Odyssey were released the same year, I think the Academy got this one wrong.


Rating: 6/10.

Related Post: Singing Through a Time of Change - The Musical, The Best Picture Oscar, and the 1960s.

Best Picture - 1967: In the Heat of the Night
Best Picture - 1969: Midnight Cowboy

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

1967: In the Heat of the Night.

A black northern detective (Sidney Poitier) reluctantly teams with
a bigoted Southern police chief (Rod Steiger) to solve a murder.

Release Date: Aug. 2, 1967. Running Time: 110 minutes. Screenplay: Stirling Silliphant. Based on the novel by: John Ball. Producer: Walter Mirisch. Director: Norman Jewison.


THE PLOT:

Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger), the new police chief of Sparta, Mississippi, has a problem: Northern industrialist Philip Colbert has been murdered. Colbert came to Sparta with his wife (Lee Grant), intending to build a factory that would bring much needed jobs and businesses to the community. Now his wife is threatening to take all of her husband's machinery, jobs, and everything straight back to Illinois if the murder isn't solved.

For a moment, Gillespie believes this might actually be easy. A black man (Sidney Poitier) is found waiting at a train station, his wallet full of cash. This stranger is arrested on the spot and brought to the chief for questioning... only to reveal that he's a police officer from Philadelphia: Virgil Tibbs, described by his supervisor as a "homicide expert."

With pressure bearing down, Gillespie swallows his pride enough to ask Tibbs for help. But when the investigation brings them into the orbit of local plantation owner Eric Endicott (Larry Gates), who was bitterly opposed to the factory and the modernization it represented, Gillespie finds his position in danger - and for Tibbs, the danger is to his very life!

Tibbs shows his badge to a suspect.

SIDNEY POITIER AS VIRGIL TIBBS:

Sidney Poitier was the #1 box office star of 1967, headlining three hit movies: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, To Sir, with Love, and In the Heat of the Night. This is the best of that very good trio, and it may well be the finest performance of his career.

Poitier was conscious of his status as Hollywood's first mainstream black star, and he took care to take roles that would show African Americans in a dignified light. "If the fabric of the society were different, I would scream to high heaven to play villains and to deal with different images of Negro life that would be more dimensional... but I'll be damned if I do that at this stage of the game." This did impose limits, with many of his roles being idealized, "too perfect" people.

Tibbs is anything but perfect. He's not merely prideful but genuinely arrogant, clearly viewing himself as superior to the hick cops surrounding him. There's also a near-constant undercurrent of (entirely understandable) anger. He keeps it as buttoned down as his suit, but you can hear the strain in his voice. It simmers in the background throughout, until he finally loses his temper at the worst possible moment.

These were notes Poitier didn't often get to play - and because of them, Tibbs ends up feeling more complete as a person than many of his '50s and '60s characters. Tibbs has to overcome his own flaws as well as the prejudice of others, and that makes his victory in solving the crime more meaningful. Poitier's performance crackles with energy, and I think being freed to be just a bit angrier, a little more stubborn, and even a touch unlikable probably felt good after years of being "perfectly dignified."

Rod Steiger won the Best Actor Oscar that year. But I'm not 100% sure that the award shouldn't have gone to Poitier.

Gillespie is under pressure to solve the crime quickly.

ROD STEIGER AS CHIEF BILL GILLESPIE:

In fairness to Rod Steiger, though, I'm not 100% sure that he didn't deserve every bit of the award that he won.

At a glance, Gillespie is Tibbs's opposite. He has none of Tibbs's education or expertise. Everything he knows he learned by working as a cop, probably in towns not dissimilar to Sparta. That doesn't make him bad at his job. When a suspect attempts to flee, the other deputies chase him on foot, quickly losing ground. Gillespie just waits in his car near the bridge to Arkansas. When the young man attempts to run to the safety of another state, he puts the car in gear and drives calmly up behind him until the younger man gives in to the inevitable.

While Tibbs keeps his emotions in check, Gillespie has a hair-trigger temper that he lets loose at Tibbs and his deputies alike. This makes Steiger's performance seem broad on the surface, and it's also responsible for many of the film's funnier moments. Beneath the surface, though, there's a lot of subtlety.

Steiger uses his physicality in a way that reminds me a little of Broderick Crawford in All the King's Men. Like Crawford, he's not ashamed to push his stomach out, actually making that a part of Gillespie's physical presence. He keenly feels how tenuous his job is, observing in a rare contemplative moment that this town "don't want me." Also, if you watch his expressions when he's not speaking, he is constantly reacting, processing whatever he's seeing or hearing even when he says nothing.

Gillespie is bigoted, though probably more due to upbringing than any strong hatred within himself. He recognizes Tibbs's expertise and accepts his help, however much he'd rather not. But what finally pierces his bigotry has nothing to do with any of Tibbs's frequent displays of competence and intelligence. Instead, it's the moment that Tibbs finally lets go of the tight reign he keeps on his emotions.

After Tibbs loses his temper with plantation owner Endicott, he momentarily stops caring who killed Colbert. Tibbs decides that Endicott is guilty because he wants Endicott to be guilty: "I can pull that fat cat down, I can bring him down right off this hill!" Gillespie stares in wonder for a moment before responding: "Man, you're just like the rest of us."

Instead of gloating at Tibbs's loss of control, Steiger instead delivers the line with wonder. This isn't a "win" for Gillespie to crow about: It's a moment of realization that Tibbs is a full human being, with all the faults and pride and pettiness that entails.

Deputy Sam Wood (Warren Oates) makes a gruesome discovery.

OTHER CHARACTERS:

Officer Sam Wood: As the deputy who discovers the body, Warren Oates is as good as always as a seedy, slightly pathetic sort. Before he finds the body, Sam drives by a house where a young woman wanders around naked in her kitchen, and there's a clear sense that this peeping is a nightly ritual. He not only doesn't question Tibbs when he finds him at the train station; he specifically orders Tibbs not to speak, making the threat clear. Despite this, Sam shows no resistance to Tibbs's presence in the investigation. In many ways, he and the other deputies show more respect to him than they do to Gillespie. This may be because they can see Tibbs's obvious expertise; or it may be because they know he will soon be gone, making him easier to tolerate than the other outsider who's likely to be staying.

Mrs. Colbert: The victim's widow, and Tibbs's champion in the investigation. She witnesses a disagreement between Tibbs and Gillespie, with Gillespie so desperately wanting the suspect in custody to be guilty that he argues with Tibbs over evidence that exonerates him. She is appalled, from that point on seeing Gillespie as someone who wants to make a "cover-up arrest" rather than genuinely solve the crime. She makes clear that the factory will only remain in Sparta if Tibbs is given a free hand. Lee Grant only has a few scenes, likely totaling less than ten minutes, but she registers strongly in that time.

Endicott: Actor Larry Gates registers even more strongly in a single scene. The owner of the cotton plantation that oversees the town, Endicott is an obvious suspect because Colbert's factory represented a threat to his power. He is genially patronizing to Tibbs, so cocooned in his own privilege that it takes most of the scene for him to realize that he's being questioned as a suspect. Then he becomes incensed at the temerity of a black man to question him, snapping: "There was a time when I could have had you shot!"

Mayor Schubert: Gillespie's main ally in the local government, though he's hardly a reliable one. The scenes between Gillespie and Schubert indicate that he was probably responsible for the new chief's hiring. Schubert encourages Gillespie to take advantage of Tibbs's experience, stressing how important it is that this crime be solved quickly. But after Endicott becomes upset, Schubert warns Gillespie that it will be hard to save his job in the wake of the wealthy man's displeasure.

Tibbs questions wealthy plantation owner Eric Endicott (Larry Gates). It does not go well.

THE SLAP HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD:

Tibbs's encounter with Endicott may be the best scene in a movie filled with excellent scenes. Tibbs tries to build rapport with the old racist by admiring his flowers and listening while the man draws a clumsy analogy between them and black people. When Endicott finally realizes that the two officers must be here for a reason and asks why, Tibbs does not immediately jump in. He looks over at Gillespie a couple of times, obviously recognizing that it would be best if the local police chief took the lead instead of him. It's only when Gillespie remains silent that Tibbs moves forward with direct questioning.

All of this already terrific. Then Endicott abruptly slaps Tibbs - and Tibbs instantly returns the slap, to the shock of both Endicott and Gillespie.

This simply cannot carry the same weight today as in 1967. It's still a strong moment. We can appreciate the impact of Tibbs's retaliation on Endicott and Gillespie. We can understand that of course a prideful character like Tibbs would, upon being slapped, return the gesture. We can even intellectually see how unthinkable this moment would have been at the time.

But in 1967, it was shocking. Journalist Steve Ryfle notes in his article, Desegrating Hollywood: The Impact and Legacy of "In the Heat of the Night", that this was the first time a mainstream studio film showed such an act from an African American character without that defiance being punished. It was even more startling because of Poitier's screen persona. Up to this point, Tibbs mostly seems like a slightly angrier and less likable variant of Poitier's usual characters: intellectual and non-threatening. Then comes the slap, with all of Tibbs' simmering anger emerging in a single act of physical defiance.

The scene might have ended there, after Gillespie refuses to take the retribution that Endicott clearly expects him to. Instead, the script adds two fantastic additional moments. Endicott weeps after the detectives leave, mourning that the world he's cherished is dying if it isn't dead already. Then Tibbs, suddenly focused fully on Endicott to the point that he isn't even considering other possibilities, prompts Gillespie's realization of Tibbs's humanity.

Without these moments, it would still be a great scene. With them, the scene is an absolute masterpiece of both writing and acting.

The victim's widow (Lee Grant) doesn't trust Gillespie to investigate properly.

OTHER MUSINGS:

In the Heat of the Night is a classic example of how captivating it is when a "great" movie remembers to work first and foremost as good entertainment.

This is a movie that deals with Big, Important Themes (TM). The racism Tibbs faces is the strongest and most obvious, but the script touches on all sorts of divisions. There's the divide between rich and poor: Mrs. Colbert's position allows her to dictate aspects of the investigation; Endicott's makes him a headache for Gillespie even before Tibbs antagonizes him. There's the divide between north and south, represented not only by Gillespie and Tibbs but also by Endicott and Colbert. There's the divide of past vs. present, with Endicott wanting to stay in the past and resenting Colbert and Tibbs, both of whom represent a future that he wants no part of. The script keeps returning, over and over, to the ways in which we divide ourselves: insiders vs. outsiders, educated vs. not, rich vs. poor, and black vs. white.

But none of that ever comes at the expense of this being a thoroughly entertaining and well-told story.

For one thing, this movie is funny. The biggest laughs come from Rod Steiger, who perfectly plays Gillespie's reactions as his bad week keeps insisting on getting worse. He's all swagger when he thinks that Tibbs is his killer - only to deflate like a popped balloon when Tibbs produces his badge. He calls in Officer Wood to rub his mistake in his face. The reactions of both actors are comedy gold: Warren Oates boggles at the badge like it's an artifact from Mars, while Steiger invests hilarious levels of scorn into a cry of: "Yeah - Oh, yeah!" I was left stopping the movie for a moment so that I wouldn't miss dialogue around my laughter.

Stirling Silliphant's screenplay is meticulously structured, with practically every scene used to develop both story and characters. A frustrated Gillespie jails Tibbs, demonstrating all his worst aspects: bigotry (it's the only scene in which he drops the "n" word), a willingness to make an easy arrest and call the case closed, and even his short temper. But instead of some protracted racial abuse, Tibbs is just taken back to the holding cells... where he shows his own intelligence by using this opportunity to draw information from the suspect.

For the most part, this is how the script develops characters: through their interactions and their reactions to events. There's no specific dialogue drawing attention to Gillespie and his deputies coming to accept Tibbs. We just gradually see them stop resisting his presence, with some of the deputies extending respect surprisingly quickly while others take longer to do so. By the end, when Gillespie makes an arrest, the deputies actually stop to ask Tibbs if he thinks the person is guilty, something they wouldn't have done earlier in the story.

"I've got a town that don't want me." Gillespie, in a moment of contemplation.

REMAKES AND RETELLINGS:

Author John Ball wrote several additional Virgil Tibbs mysteries. Inexplicably, none of these books became the basis for the movie sequels, which I suspect were much the poorer for it.

They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) is a competent but forgettable programmer that plays more like a TV pilot than a theatrical film. It's serviceable enough on its own terms, particularly if you fast-forward through the godawful boring scenes involving Tibbs's wife and kids, but it's all as predictable as could be. The Organization (1971) at least feels like a movie, opening with a wonderfully directed, dialogue-free break-in. It also features a good early role for future star Raul Julia. Sadly, it gets progressively sillier as it goes along, and not even in a fun way.

Both films suffer from a severely watered down Virgil Tibbs. Poitier's still good, but the character isn't. All that simmering anger and arrogance that make him so memorable? Those are stripped away, leaving behind a generic detective who feels like "Virgil Tibbs in name only." If you told me the studio just dusted off a couple of "cop thriller" scripts in a slush pile and renamed the hero as "Virgil Tibbs," I would fully believe you.

A more worthy successor was the 1988 - 1995 TV series, In the Heat of the Night, starring Carroll O'Connor as Gillespie and Howard E. Rollins as Tibbs. It's certainly not the equal of the movie, but that would be an unreasonable expectation. It's a good show of its era, with solid performances by its two stars, and it features several fine individual episodes... though the two main characters have had their edges sanded down significantly for television, and the show frequently lapses into the exact kind of heavy-handedness that the 1967 film avoided.

Tibbs is torn between investigating and leaving Sparta to its own devices and returning home.

OVERALL:

Flaws in this movie are minor. There's a brief scene that I think should have been removed, in which the mayor and Gillespie talk with the city council about the investigation. The scene adds no new information, and it features what may be the only really heavy-handed moment as a city councilman grins while predicting that Tibbs will be dead by Saturday (using the "n" word, of course). This is made worse by the overacting of the councilman.

There's also a bizarre change from the novel. The book doesn't telegraph the murderer, but it does clearly connect that character to the crime. The movie doesn't. As a viewer, you can guess the killer by applying the "economy of characters" rule - but in story terms, the movie gives no clue that this person even could be involved.

Neither of these keep In the Heat of the Night from being an excellent motion picture. It's superbly paced and wonderfully entertaining even as it grapples with significant themes. Still, taken together, these faults are just enough to keep me from awarding full marks.

Leaving the film still at a very strong rating of...


Rating: 9/10.

Best Picture - 1966: A Man for All Seasons
Best Picture - 1968: Oliver!


Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

1966: A Man for All Seasons.

Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) is named Lord Chancellor
 - a promotion that will put him into conflict with his king!

Release Date: Dec. 12, 1966. Running Time: 120 minutes. Screenplay: Robert Bolt. Based on the stage play by: Robert Bolt. Producer: Fred Zinnemann. Director: Fred Zinnemann.


THE PLOT:

King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) has a problem. He has failed to produce an heir with his wife, Catherine of Aragon. Henry is petitioning the Catholic Church to annul his marriage so that he may instead wed his mistress, young and fertile Anne Boleyn (Vanessa Redgrave).

Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield), Henry's Lord Chancellor, is a great legal mind who is absolutely loyal to his king. He is also a deeply and sincerely religious man, however, and he cannot offer his support for the requested annulment. Henry reluctantly agrees that so long as More does not oppose him, he will leave him out of it. It's a promise he won't be able to keep.

When the Church refuses Henry's request, the king declares independence from Rome. Fearing for their own heads, the various cardinals and bishops swear an oath that renounces Rome and instead recognizes the king as Supreme Head of the Church.

More cannot do the same. He hopes to navigate his dilemma by relying on silence: "Silence is my safety, under the law... The maxim of the law is, 'Silence gives consent.'" But Chief Minister Thomas Cromwell (Leo McKern) sees his silence as a condemnation, "bellowing up and down Europe!"

With the king paranoid about possible treachery, his officials become resolved: Thomas More must be made to swear the oath - or, failing that, be made into an example!

More with his plainspoken wife, Alice (Wendy Hiller).

PAUL SCOFIELD AS SIR THOMAS MORE:

Paul Scofield's More is no willing martyr. He's a man of great wit, and there's a certain self-satisfaction that we glimpse when he turns a phrase just right. A lawyer as much by temperament as by training, words are important to him. He chooses his own with care and, when told of Henry's oath, immediately wants to know what the exact words are. If there's any vagueness, then he may be able to take the oath in good conscience: "An oath is made of words... If I can take this oath, I will!"

When he finds no such escape, he still clings to the law as his protection, trusting in its precedents to protect his silence. He breaks that silence only when the last crumb of hope has gone. Then Scofield gets a chance to briefly but memorably unleash all the anger and frustration that has been building in More.

It's a great performance that not only anchors the story, but that also makes human someone who, in other hands, might have seemed too perfect and thus too remote.

Robert Shaw as King Henry VIII: unpredictable and dangerous.

OTHER CHARACTERS:

Alice More: Wendy Hiller, as More's plainspoken wife, is less showy but just as critical to the movie's success. Uneducated and illiterate, she nevertheless understands what More does not. "You think they'll leave you here to think?" she scoffs, knowing full well what he does not: that the powerful will have what they want. Hiller is superb, particularly in her final scene, when she clings to her husband and shouts out her defiance of the king and his council.

Thomas Cromwell: The ever-reliable Leo McKern plays the most visible villain, the Chief Minister tasked with obtaining More's consent to the king's annulment and new marriage. Cromwell is introduced as a rival to More: another lawyer, well-versed in the law and cunning. But unlike More, he has no scruples. He attempts to twist past events. When that fails, he doesn't hesitate to suborn perjury. He uses his position to bully, first intimidating Robert Rich into telling him one of More's secrets and finally intimidating the jury into rendering a verdict without any pause for deliberations.

King Henry VIII: Though he only has two scenes of substance, Robert Shaw makes such an indelible impression that his Henry looms over the rest of the story. His introduction emphasizes him as unpredictable and dangerous. Making an impromptu visit to the More estate, he hops off his boat into mud - whereupon all of his retainers freeze in terror, relaxing only when he finally laughs. He is friendly toward More; but when More doesn't voice support for the annulment, he switches on a dime to paranoid ranting about "treachery" with a rage as unrestrained as it is unhinged. He calms just as quickly, promising to leave More out of it; but we already understand that this promise is meaningless, and that the threats and anger were a truer reflection of the man.

Cardinal Wolsey: Orson Welles is superb as Wolsey, Henry's right hand, right up until he fails him. Welles uses his girth and his prematurely aged visage to show Wolsey as corruption personified. He isn't merely corrupt, though. He's a man of intellect, possibly the only character who seems to be More's intellectual equal. He fears for the country if Henry has no heir, speaking of the relatively recent dynastic wars with "blood-witted barons ramping the country from end to end." This isn't baseless fearmongering, as that very spectacle was still something in living memory, and this early conversation establishes the stakes for both sides. We later learn that More was recommended as the next Lord Chancellor by Wolsey himself, and we're left to wonder: Was this an act of repentance by Wolsey; or was it one of revenge, thrusting a political foe into a position that he knew was impossible? 

Robert Rich: "Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. But for Wales?" If More is this story's martyr, then John Hurt's weaselly Robert Rich is its Judas. He's introduced as a hanger-on, clinging to More in hopes of securing a position. More offers him one: schoolteacher. But Rich wants the money, power, and influence attached to the court. When More tries to instruct him by gifting him with a goblet that was intended as a bribe, Rich focuses only on how much he can sell the cup for. Inevitably, he goes to Cromwell. He's initially unhappy about doing so, and Cromwell has to browbeat him into talking about the goblet. "You'll find it easier next time," the prosecutor promises - words that prove prophetic.

Cardinal Wolsey (Orson Welles) tries
to convince More to compromise.

A STORY OF OPPOSITION:

"When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos."
-Thomas More explains the reason for his inflexibility.

A Man for All Seasons is structured around opposition. From the first, we see Thomas More in verbal conflict with more powerful figures. Interestingly, though his peril grows throughout, his opponents become steadily less formidable.

The first man he faces is Cardinal Wolsey. As Robert Bolt writes him and Orson Welles plays him, he's every bit More's intellectual equal. Their conversation does critical expositional work, laying out the basic conflict and the stakes for viewers not familiar with the full historical context.

More interesting is the sense of two opposites: More, the man of conscience, and Wolsey, the man of politics. Wolsey, the pragmatist, is frustrated by More's inability to "come down to Earth," sneering that the other man would like "to govern the country with prayers." More believes that sacrificing conscience for pragmatism inevitably will end badly. Neither man can sway the other, but both speak persuasively in a way that invites audience respect.

The next is King Henry VIII. Robert Shaw plays him as pure predator, switching between charm and rage - with the rage coming across as the more authentic. When More's answers displease Henry, the king leaves his estate without taking his meal, and there's a sense that More has already crossed a perilous line.

The main antagonists of the second half are Leo McKern's blustery Cromwell and John Hurt's twitchy Robert Rich. Cromwell is a man of law, like More, and a capable one; but he's introduced as a lackey to Wolsey, and he is portrayed as slime throughout. John Hurt's Robert Rich is constantly nervous, a small man intimidated by the larger men surrounding him. Early in the movie, More enjoys more power and influence than either of them. They are not inherently fearsome figures.

Unless you're powerless, that is - and by the end of the movie, More is. The brilliant paragon of integrity is undone not by titans like Wolsey and Henry. He's undone by the selfish actions of petty men who are looking out for themselves.

Or, as More puts it:

"If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride, and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice, and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little."

Alice's farewell to her husband - The only scene
that managed to engage my emotions.

A GOOD FILM, BUT NOT A GREAT ONE:

I can't particularly argue with A Man for All Seasons' Best Picture win. It is a very good movie. Its stage origins show, in that it's very much a film of people talking in rooms... but in the hands of writer Robert Bolt, adapting his own play, it's a succession of scenes of wonderful dialogue delivered by superb actors.

There are fantastic speeches here: More's "devil" speech, in which he states that he would extend benefit of law even to the devil himself, because otherwise the law would protect no one; Cromwell's speech to Robert Rich, in which he observes that administrators like them are unpopular but important because they minimize "inconvenience"; More's urging Rich to forget about the corrupt court and instead become a schoolteacher, an area where he believes the other man would excel. More is a character who values words, and the words of A Man for All Seasons are its greatest asset.

And yet... I'm not particularly moved. I'm entertained. I enjoy the wordplay and the performances, and I love the way the film tells its story. But the only time I actually feel is in the final scene between More and his wife. The rest of the time, I'm appreciating the craft but I'm not particularly caught up in the drama.

More tries to teach Robert Rich (John Hurt) by showing
an attempted bribe. Rich learns the wrong lesson. 

REMAKES AND RETELLINGS:

Before it became a movie, A Man for All Seasons was adapted twice as a television play: once in 1957, with Bernard Hepton as Thomas More; and again in 1963, with Wyn Roberts.

In 1998, Charlton Heston, who had wanted the role in 1966, directed and starred in a cable television production. He surrounds himself with a fine supporting cast: Vanessa Redgrave, who had a cameo as Anne Boleyn in the 1966 film, plays More's wife in this version, while John Gielgud appears as Cardinal Wolsey. Roy Kinnear, in his last film role, plays "The Common Man," a sort of Greek chorus character from the play whose part was distributed to multiple bit parts in the 1966 film. It's more faithful to the original play than the 1966 film, but it also drags a bit, indicating that Bolt and Zinnemann were right to trim it in the first place. Also, while I usually enjoy Heston's acting, I don't think he's a good fit for More. He plays the speeches well - but while Scofield found the relatable human being underneath, Heston mainly just plays the Icon.


OVERALL:

A Man for All Seasons is a very good movie, and it's an entertaining one. It's well paced, and I was never bored across its two hours. Still, I can't make myself rate it as the equal of movies that have transported me into their worlds, involved me, or moved me.

This film provokes thought as it entertains, and I admire it for that. Even so, I find it doesn't engage my emotions as strongly it does my intellect. As a result, while I would definitely recommend watching this film, I can't make myself consider it a great one.


Rating: 7/10.

Best Picture - 1965: The Sound of Music
Best Picture - 1967: In the Heat of the Night

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads