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

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1953: From Here to Eternity.

First Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) has a dangerous
affair with the wife (Deborah Kerr) of his commanding officer.

Release Date: Aug. 5, 1953. Running Time: 118 minutes. Screenplay: Daniel Taradash. Based on the novel by: James Jones. Producer: Buddy Adler. Director: Fred Zinnemann.


THE PLOT:

Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) loves the army. He insists that he's a "thirty year man," intent on making the military a career. But he's also prideful and stubborn - so much so that, after he's passed over for the post of First Bugler, he takes a demotion in order to transfer to Oahu.

Captain Holmes (Philip Ober) is delighted to have him, as Prewitt was a top middleweight boxer at his old regiment and Holmes sees boxing success as a path to promotion. There's only one problem: After accidentally injuring a friend while sparring, Prewitt refuses to box. Holmes prevails on his NCOs to make the private's life miserable until he accedes - but the private seems to actively take pride in enduring it.

First Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) is the man who truly keeps the company going, doing all the administrative work that Holmes ignores. He is initially unimpressed with Prewitt, dubbing him a "hardhead." As the situation goes on, however, he changes his mind. He intercedes when Holmes asks to prepare a court martial against Prewitt, and he even arranges for a weekend pass for the beleagured young man.

Both men become involved in relationships. Prewitt falls for a nightclub hostess (Donna Reed), though Capt. Holmes's "treatment" leaves him with limited opportunities to see her. Ward gets into an even riskier relationship, striking up an affair with Karen (Deborah Kerr), the captain's wife - which, if it became known, could end his career and even leave him in prison!

Warden meets the newest addition to the regiment:
"hardhead" Private Prewitt (Montgomery Clift).

CHARACTERS:

Sergeant Warden: Though he labels Prewitt a "hardhead," he's just as stubborn in his own way. Karen suggests that much of their dilemma would be solved if he applied to become an officer. The movie repeatedly demonstrates that he is a born leader and a gifted administrator, and everyone he mentions the idea to agrees that he would be a fine officer. Still, he resists the move - even though, inevitably, he's the one who takes charge when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Even this sequence contains a reminder that Ward limits his potential by refusing to advance, when he's delayed in getting weapons to his men because no officer is present to authorize it.

Private Prewitt: While he admits that the "treatment" he's receiving from Holmes's NCOs has him on edge, he seems to take a perverse sort of pride in enduring it. He refuses his friends' urgings to file a formal complaint. He says something about not wanting to "give (Holmes) the satisfaction," but that makes little sense; even by this point in the film, enough anecdotal evidence has accumulated that any investigation would likely give the promotion-happy captain the opposite of satisfaction. He absolutely should report the situation, not only for himself but for all the other soldiers Holmes has/will similarly torment; the "treatment" is so casually done that there's no way Prewitt's is the first case. Still, he just can't bring himself to involve others in what he sees as "his" problem.

His refusal to box is not simple stubbornness, however. We learn midway through the film exactly how badly his fellow boxer was injured, and that it happened as a result of a very normal punch to the head. This has left Prewitt afraid - not of potential injury to himself, but of inflicting a similar injury on others. Even when he is pushed into a fight late in the film with one of his tormenters, he spends most of the fight specifically avoiding any punches to the other man's head.

Karen: When Captain Holmes's wife is introduced, we're told that she's promiscuous. Seeing Ward's interest in her, one of his friends tells him that it's not just rumors - something he knows because he was one of the men. When Ward confronts her, she scornfully tells him exactly what led her to turn to other men. Deborah Kerr, who up to this point had been typecast as idealized "good girls," seems to relish playing the character's angry bitterness. She only gets one scene of substance opposite her husband, but it's also a striking moment, as she responds to him with contempt sharp enough to cut through steel... a contempt that, by this point, we know he has entirely earned.

Alma/Lurene: Also cast against type is Donna Reed, who would go on to win the Supporting Actress Oscar as the "hostess" (Hays Code speak for prostitute) with whom Prewitt falls in love. Though she goes by "Lurene" so that she'll sound more exotic for the customers, her real name is Alma. She has a firm plan for her future. She carefully saves the money she makes. Once she has a pre-set amount in savings, she will stop working and return home to buy a house and live a "proper" life. That Prewitt doesn't really fit into that plan is not lost on either of them. The final scene sees her talking openly about Prewitt on the one hand... but on the other hand, every word she says about him is a lie.

Private Angelo Maggio: Frank Sinatra also won an Oscar - and, more importantly, changed the course of his career with his energetic performance as Prewitt's likable best friend. Sensationalism aside, I'm fairly sure that no horse appendages ended up in anyone's bed to secure his casting. Sinatra was persistent in lobbying for the part, even paying for his own screen test; and since his career was at a low ebb, his very recognizable name value came with a ridiculously cheap $8,000 price tag. He's also perfect in the role. He brings a sort of weary cheerfulness to the downtrodden Maggio. He's almost always seen with a smile, but there's a hint of something pathetic about him, and his hot temper speaks of hidden resentments. Sinatra has excellent buddy chemistry with Montgomery Clift, whom he would later credit with helping him with his performance.

"Fatso" Judson: Yet another case of excellent casting, with a young Ernest Borgnine memorably chilling as the sadistic stockade sergeant. When Prewitt and Maggio first encounter him, they're warned that he enjoys violence. He's the last person either of them should antagonize... which means that Maggio inevitably picks a fight. Judson warns Maggio that someday, he'll end up in his stockade, and then “I'll show you a couple of things.” It would have been easy to overplay this, but Borgnine doesn't even deliver the line as a threat. He just states it, calmly and simply, as an immutable fact.

Maggio (Frank Sinatra) antagonizes sadistic
stockade sergeant "Fatso" Judson (Ernest Borgnine).

FILMING THE UNFILMABLE NOVEL:

James Jones's novel, From Here to Eternity, was regarded as unfilmable. It was long - almost 1,000 pages - and that page count was not in any way inflated with big print or wide margins (quite the opposite). It was a work that was highly critical of military culture, which was a problem when Army cooperation would be needed to film it with any degree of authenticity. On top of all that, the book featured frank sexuality that was woven into the work in such a way that it was difficult to imagine the story working without it.

Somehow, screenwriter Daniel Taradash managed to deal with all of these issues without losing the core of what made the novel so memorable. I'd even go so far as to say that the film improves on the book in many respects. Subplots are either simplified or pruned away entirely. Profanities have been removed, but the spoken dialogue still feels real. Many minor characters have been deleted, and others have been merged; notably, Frank Sinatra's Maggio fills the role not only of book Maggio, but also of some minor prisoners tormented by Judson in the novel. This makes the Judson subplot more focused and more personal to both Prewitt and the viewer.

The movie implies brutality instead of showing it. When Maggio inevitably ends up in Judson's stockade, the viewer is never directly shown the violence. The conflict between the two men has already been established, and all that is directly shown is a single moment. Maggio is taken before Judson, who smiles in recognition. Judson's billy club sits on his desk, and the man waits until Maggio sees it and looks at it. Then Judson reaches out for the weapon - and the scene fades to black. We don't see anything more, and we don't need to. The simple gestures of Maggio staring at the club, followed by Judson reaching for it, tell the full story.

When I reviewed producer David Selznick's Rebecca, I posted a supplemental essay about Selznick's struggles against the Hays Code. I noted that Hays Office dictates resulted in severe compromises to Rebecca's story. It's still a fine movie, but its impact was blunted by the demands of the Code.

Well, From Here to Eternity may represent the other end of the scale. This is a movie that I think is better for having to work within those constraints. There is still a heavy carnal element to the relationship between Warden and Karen, which is all the stronger thanks to the chemistry between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr - but that element is never the point of their scenes, which always focus tightly on the two characters.

Even the famous beach embrace is followed by a character-focused monologue, as Karen recalls the miscarriage that was made into a medical crisis by her husband's drunkenness. This is another change from the novel, in which her bitterness and infidelities began after her husband passed an STD to her... and it's yet another alteration that I find to be for the better.

Alma (Donna Reed), Prewitt's love interest, has
no room for him in her carefully planned future.

OTHER MUSINGS:

Director Fred Zinnemann focuses on making the film feel as real as possible to the viewer. He shot in black-and-white and in the standard 1.33:1 format, feeling that either color or widescreen (which was just emerging) would be distractions. He shoots in an almost documentary style. Visual flourishes are kept to a minimum, with the waves crashing over Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr as they embrace on the beach being the most "Hollywood" image presented.

This approach extends to the performances. There are plenty of quotable lines. Prewitt responds to Warden's hesitation about applying as an officer candidate by telling him that "a man should be what he can do." He replies to Alma's confessions by saying that "nobody ever lies about being lonely." But, as with Ernest Borgnine's deliveries of Judson's threats, lines like these are simply spoken. The sense is of people talking, and sometimes stumbling across eloquence without knowing it, rather than of actors chewing on movie quotes.

I think this has helped From Here to Eternity to age better than many of its contemporaries. The story is as much a soap opera as the one in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show On Earth. It's the presentation that makes this soap opera feel more meaningful than that one did. Characters are shown as ordinary people, and the world in which they exist feels lived-in. What might have come across as cheap melodrama ends up feeling grounded and real, which keeps the story involving.

The mournful bugler: Prewitt plays 'Taps.'

REMAKES AND RETELLINGS:

While there has been no direct remake on the bigscreen, there have been a couple of attempts to retell this story for television.

In 1966, a thirty-minute pilot was shot with Darren McGavin in the role of Warden. It was not picked up as a series, which was likely a good choice.

A 1979 miniseries saw William Devane and Natalie Wood taking over for Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. I haven't seen it, but it was generally well reviewed and was highly successful. Proving that network execs don't know when to quit, it then became a weekly series, with Devane but minus Natalie Wood. It lasted all of twelve episodes, as strong initial ratings rapidly tailed off. The back half of the series was repackaged as TV movies, burned off throughout 1980 during what would otherwise have been rerun season.


OVERALL:

1953's From Here to Eternity benefits from strong direction, excellent performances across the board, and an adaptation that captures the spirit of the novel while paring the story down to its essentials. It's a rare film that I prefer to its source novel, and time has been kind to most of the choices made in this adaptation.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Best Motion Picture - 1952: The Greatest Show on Earth
Best Motion Picture - 1954: On the Waterfront

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The Greatest Show on Earth versus High Noon: Politics, Popularity, and the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture of 1952.

1952's Oscar frontrunners: The Greatest Show on Earth (left) and High Noon (right)

The ceremony for the 25th Academy Awards was held on March 19, 1953. It was the first Oscar ceremony to be televised, allowing viewers at home to watch in real time as the Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named its picks for the best movie achievements of 1952.

The big winner that year was producer/director Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth, which has gone on to be viewed as one of the very worst Best Picture winners. As I wrote in my review, I don't agree with that assessment. I'll acknowledge that I don't think it deserved to win, but it's an entertaining film, one that I'd easily rank above The Broadway Melody, Cimarron, Cavalcade, or The Great Ziegfeld.

Its main competitor was High Noon, which was regarded as the favorite. High Noon was the critical darling of the year and a box office success in its own right, and it has gone on to be regarded as one of the greatest westerns ever made. After the upset, many believed that the choice to give the big award to Greatest Show had less to do with film quality than with the political climate of the day.

A demonstration for "The Hollywood Ten" -
and the beginning of the Hollywood blacklist.

THE RED SCARE AND THE HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST

"The presence within the Government service of any disloyal or subversive person constitutes a threat to our democratic processes... maximum protection must be afforded the United States against infiltration of disloyal persons into the ranks of its employees."
-from the text of Executive Order 9835, marking the official start of the Second Red Scare.

High Noon was viewed by many, even at the time, as an allegory of the Hollywood blacklist, the motion picture industry's response to increased public and government scrutiny during the period now known as the Second Red Scare. The First Red Scare, in the early 20th century, was concerned not with the nascent movie industry but rather with labor politics, and so will go unmentioned in the rest of this posting.

The seeds of the Second Red Scare were planted throughout the 1940s, but its "official" start came in 1947, via President Harry S. Truman's Executive Order 9835. This order was a mandate to screen federal employees for associations deemed "totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive." By the end of that year, the House Un-American Activities Committee began focusing on Hollywood, with "The Hollywood Ten" - a group of writers, producers, and directors - cited for contempt of Congress when they refused to answer questions about their involvement with the Communist Party.

Government scrutiny of Hollywood grew... and the public was firmly on the government's side. In response, the motion picture industry responded much the way it had done in the early 1930s, when it had come under fire for depictions of immorality. The studios decided to police themselves in order to keep the government from doing so.

The result was the Hollywood blacklist, in which industry figures who were suspected of ties to communism were barred from work by film studios. Some were members of the Communist Party USA; possibly the most famous blacklist example was screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was an active and fairly open communist until 1947 - the same year his contempt citation was issued. More often, such as in the case of director Edward Dmytryk, the blacklisted men had flirted (sometimes quite briefly) with communism but had left that political philosophy behind years earlier.

Meanwhile, the early 1950s saw multiple cases of espionage involving communist nations. State Department official Alger Hiss, accused of having spied for the Soviet Union, responded by suing his accuser for libel... which backfired spectacularly when new evidence saw Hiss tried and convicted of perjury in 1950. A year later, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of supplying the Soviet Union with American military secrets. None of which really had anything to do with Hollywood or its blacklist - except that it further stoked America's fear that communist agents really were lurking around every corner.

And it was in 1952, at the height of the Red Scare, that the movie High Noon was released - with its credited screenwriter a man who had been recently blacklisted...

With killers coming for him, Marshal Will
Kane (Gary Cooper) is left to stand alone.

CARL FOREMAN, HIGH NOON, THE COOP, AND THE DUKE:

"Everybody says High Noon is a great picture... It's the most un-American thing I've ever seen in my whole life. The last thing in the picture is ole Coop putting the United States marshal's badge under his foot and stepping on it. I'll never regret having helped run (Carl) Foreman out of this country."
-John Wayne on High Noon, in his May 1971 Playboy interview.

High Noon was scripted by Carl Foreman, who had been a member of the Communist Party from 1938 to 1942. He testified to the HUAC that at the time, communism was "just in the air," and he had quit the party when he enlisted in the military. However, he refused to provide names of party members to the committee and was therefore classified as an "uncooperative witness." That was more than enough for him to end up blacklisted by the major studios.

That was far from the end of Foreman's career, as he took refuge in the UK and worked on movies without credit for the next several years. One of those was The Bridge on the River Kwai… which means that this post will likely receive a sequel when I reach that movie in my Best Picture reviews.

1952's High Noon follows lawman Will Kane (Gary Cooper), who is credited with cleaning up the town and is considered a pillar of the community. But on the morning of his joint wedding and retirement, he receives a message: Frank Miller, an outlaw he jailed years earlier, has been pardoned and will arrive back in town in a little over an hour to seek his revenge. Will tries to round up a posse of "special deputies," only to discover that nobody wants to help. When he makes an appeal at the local church, a community leader praises him for his years of service, right before metaphorically stabbing him in the back:

"If (Will)'s not here when Miller comes, my hunch is there won't be any trouble, not one bit. Tomorrow, we'll have a new marshal. And if we can all agree here to offer him our services, I think we can handle anything that comes along... Will, I think you better go while there's still time."

It's not hard to see how, even at the time, this was seen as a blacklist allegory: Cooperate with the committee, and we'll all be able to go on with our lives without any trouble.

Being a western, it was first offered to superstar John Wayne - "the Duke." Wayne, a conservative icon and strong supporter of the blacklist, recognized those parallels and decried the script as "un-American." He retained his low opinion of the film in the decades to come, though he did bend enough to accept Gary Cooper's Best Actor Oscar on his behalf.

Like John Wayne, Cooper was a conservative Republican and was staunchly opposed to communism. Unlike Wayne, he did not support the blacklist. When Foreman came under scrutiny, Cooper publicly spoke out on the writer's behalf, calling him "the finest kind of American." Foreman would later name him as "the only big (name) who tried" to help.

From a cinematic perspective, Wayne rejecting the script was the best thing that could have happened to the movie. Gary Cooper's performance is a masterclass in nonverbal acting: a face that becomes increasingly drawn and weary as the hour progresses; eyes that dart around, sometimes in fear and sometimes in harsh judgement; a lanky form that gradually starts to droop from sheer exhaustion. Will isn't memorable for anything that he says, but rather for all the thoughts and emotions that he indicates but never gives voice to. It's possibly Cooper's greatest performance - one that Wayne, even on his very best day as an actor, simply couldn't have pulled off.

The movie's director, Fred Zinnemann, denied any overt politics, calling it "a story about a man's conflict of conscience" and calling it a spiritual sibling to his own later film, A Man for All Seasons. It would go on to become a favorite of figures both liberal and conservative. Republican Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan were fans of it, as was Democratic President Bill Clinton. It remains commonly regarded as a blacklist parable, however, and it doesn't require a particularly detail-intensive viewing to see why.

An extended parade showcases some of the spectacle of
Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth.

THE OSCAR: POLITICS, POPULARITY, OR A LITTLE BIT OF BOTH?

"As a technical tour de force, The Greatest Show on Earth defies description... No merger in the theatrical world has ever come off more stunningly than this."
-David Hanna's 1952 review in The Hollywood Reporter.

"...A vast vulgar strident Technicolored turmoil of circus-life under the biggest Big Top imaginable, and with more clowns, elephants and trapeze artists to any square inch on the globe's surface."
-Virginia Graham's 1952 review in The Spectator.

I've written a lot about High Noon here and not very much about The Greatest Show on Earth, the film that actually did win the Best Picture Oscar. I'll just briefly restate what I already noted in my review of the film: I found it to be well-made entertainment. On a story level, it's shallow soap opera; but as a spectacle, it holds up pretty well even today.

It was also safely apolitical. There's a reference to a nearby Republican convention - but only as an offhand quip from circus manager Charlton Heston when he searches for a wayward elephant. The movie is concerned with the circus as a way of life, one that was soon to change, while its story worries about which of two men star Betty Hutton will end up sleeping with. Anyone who thinks they see complex parables in there is probably looking a bit too hard for them.

It's an open question as to why this movie won Best Picture over High Noon, which was already recognized as the superior motion picture. Certainly, politics may have played a part. It's not crazy to suggest that, at the height of the Second Red Scare, Academy voters may have been shy about giving the big award to a film from a blacklisted writer that was already seen as an implicit criticism of the blacklist.

However...

Even if High Noon was deemed "politically unacceptable," there were "safe" alternatives that were likewise considered to be better movies. One of the year's other Best Picture nominees was The Quiet Man, directed by perennial favorite John Ford and starring pro-blacklist, ultra-conservative John Wayne. Like High Noon, it is widely regarded as a superior movie to Greatest Show, and it is regularly named among both Ford's and Wayne's best - but it also lost to The Greatest Show on Earth. That's not even mentioning Gene Kelly's Singin' in the Rain, which is now considered one of the greatest musicals ever made - and which wasn't even nominated!

Finally, there is The Greatest Show on Earth itself. The movie has not gone on to be well-regarded over time. Even so, there are several reasons why Academy voters might have opted for it that stem from the film itself, with no relation to its competition. It was a mammoth production, filled with the kind of spectacle that the Academy had responded to before and would respond to again. It was produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, an aging industry veteran whose career spanned back to silent film, and whom the Academy likely wanted to recognize. It was also enormously popular, earning $36 million dollars in 1952. Adjusting for inflation, it remains among the top hundred grossing films of all time - and the Academy has traditionally rewarded success.


CONCLUSION: MOVIE AWARDS AS CULTURAL ARTIFACTS:

I've said before that movies are cultural artifacts, reflecting the values of the times in which they are made. This also is true of the awards given to movies.

I don't think it's controversial to say that the Best Picture Oscar rarely goes to the year's actual best picture. But even when the Academy gets it wrong - even when they get it very wrong - the movie they choose to enshrine will always represent something that was valued at the time of its release. This is true of the all-time classics, and it is also true of the films that age like milk. Even when that value boils down to politics, technical achievement, or simple popularity, the fact that this one movie was named "Best Picture" is a snapshot that, if only for a moment, it reflected something of its era.

We'll never know exactly why individual Academy voters checked The Greatest Show On Earth on their ballots. Then again, that's true every year. It was not the first Oscar headscratcher, it would not be the last, and I would rank it as far from the most egregious - even if I also happen to believe that High Noon was far the better movie.


Review: The Greatest Show on Earth

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