Wences

The transformation of 30 year old bakery worker Charly Gordon (Best Actor winning Cliff Robertson) with an IQ of 59 into a supergenius via a science experiment, Charly's disproportionate, stunted emotional growth compared to his intellectual development, highlighted by his primitively-displayed seduction of his special-ed teacher Alice Kinnian (Claire Bloom) (who eventually falls for him and romps with him in the outdoors in a lengthy montage); the sorrowful scene in which Charly finds out that his newfound intelligence is only temporary, and tells Alice to leave him (after she had proposed marriage to him), and the tearjerking freeze-frame shot of Charly, once again mentally retarded but smiling and care-free, playing with other children on a see-saw, in director Ralph Nelson's soap-opera-ish adaptation of Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon.

The lyrical, often-imitated opening scene of Olympic runners in slow-motion in the surf on the edge of a beach preparing for the 1924 competition in Paris underscored by Vangelis' score, and evangelical Christian Eric Liddell's (Ian Charleson) breaking of the race tape in the 400 m. finals, in Hugh Hudson's Best Picture-winning British drama.

The violent fight scene on a slippery Paris rooftop between Peter Joshua (Cary Grant) and hook-armed Herman Scobie (George Kennedy), and other memorable chase sequences; and the witty dialogue regarding the relationship between lovely Regina ("Reggie") Lambert (Audrey Hepburn) and Peter (Reggie: "Do you know what's wrong with you?" Peter: "No, what?" Reggie: "Absolutely nothing"), and the final scene's revelation that Peter was none other than Mr. Brian Cruikshank in the Treasury Department - their closing discussion about marriage is interspersed with his demands for the hidden fortune (stamps): (Reggie: "...Marriage license! Did you say marriage license?" Cruikshank: "Now don't change the subject. Just give me the stamps" Reggie: "Oh, I love you, Adam... Alex... Peter... Brian... Whatever your name is. Oh, I love you. I hope we have a lot of boys and we can name them all after you" - in this tongue-in-cheek thriller and mystery-romance by director Stanley Donen.

Charade (1963) is a classic cat-and-mouse, "Hitchcockian" romantic comedy and enigmatic thriller all in one, from director Stanley Donen - known more for his musicals such as On the Town (1949), Singin' in the Rain (1952), It's Always Fair Weather (1955), and The Pajama Game (1957). The plot twisting, witty, and suspenseful film (similar to Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935), and the entries in the James Bond series), shot on sets and on-location in Paris, is a sophisticated, yet off-balanced combination of thrills and comedy, from screenwriter Peter Stone's first film screenplay.

Its sole Academy Award nomination was for Best Song, by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer (lyrics). The film's mood was captured in the film's tagline displayed on posters: "You can expect the unexpected when they play..." Jonathan Demme's stylish The Truth About Charlie (2002) was a remake with numerous French New Wave references, starring Thandie Newton and Mark Wahlberg in the lead roles.

One of the best films about boxing and prize fighting, with intense boxing scenes, and the character of brutal, arrogant and savage prizefighter Michael 'Midge' Kelly (Oscar-nominated Kirk Douglas) who decides to cross the mob-fixed fight by KO-ing his opponent, in director Mark Robson's (and producer Stanley Kramer) archetypal, film-noirish sports film.

The two major tear-inducing scenes: the jail scene in which drunken and incarcerated Andy 'Champ' Purcell (Oscar-winning Wallace Berry) reluctantly disowns his young, adoring and devoted son Dink (Jackie Cooper) to send him away to live with his mother ("I'm tired of feeding you, let her feed you for awhile. I don't like ya anymore, you're hanging around to every place that I go, and I don't like it, that's all") as the bawling boy begs: "I wanna stay with you," and the climactic scene after a boxing bout in which the down-and-out ex-heavyweight boxing 'Champ' wins the match, but dies with Dink by his side in the locker room as he implores: ("Keep your chin up, don't cry, come on, give your old man a smile, keep it..."), in King Vidor's emotional father-son tearjerker.

The milestone scene - the first US film to depict an individual (Martin Balsam as blustering Col. Cathcart at a United States Air Force base on the Mediterranean island of Pianosa) defecating on a toilet seat, and then unwinding a long piece of toilet tissue while nonchalantly talking to earnest Chaplain Tappman (Anthony Perkins) - reminiscent of President LBJ during the Vietnam War, in Mike Nichols' war comedy - a screen adaptation of Joseph Heller's 1961 first novel about the absurdity of war.

The kitten-faced young bride and Balkan artist Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) who is haunted by her inner demons - in one scene, she claws the sofa with her nails, and then is jealously involved in two frightening, feline stalkings of rival female Alice Moore (Jane Randolph) for her architect husband's (Kent Smith) attention: on a Central Park path at night (accentuated by the hissing, squealing air-brakes as a bus pulls abruptly into the screen), and a second similar scene in a YWCA indoor swimming pool when she terrorizes Moore - accompanied by growls and shadows of a black panther; also the film's aftermath includes the fate of psychiatrist Dr. Louis Judd's (Tom Conway) after kissing Irena, in Jacques Tourneur's low-budget supernatural thriller.

Cat People (1942) is a low-budget horror classic from RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. - the haunting, low-key story of the difficulties of a foreign-born immigrant sketch artist and young bride (Simon) in an unconsummated marriage, especially her victimization and torment by menacing fears of the supernatural and unknown. It is often hinted that she is sexually frigid and according to legend, she may be stained through heredity by being a descendant of a certain Serbian tribe. Emotional arousal or jealousy may literally (and metaphorically) turn her into a lethal, animalistic killing force that may devour its male prey.

The atmospheric, suspenseful B-film tale with expressionistic, film noirish photography (by Nicholas Musuraca) was effectively directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Russian-born Val Lewton - it was the first in a series of chillingly suggestive films in which Lewton would play upon unseen horrors and draw upon viewers' imaginations. (In two scenes toward the film's climax, the studio almost destroyed the mood established by the entire film by insisting that the actual creature be shown.) Neither Tourneur or Lewton ever received an Academy Award nomination for their evocative works.

The moody, early 1940s film, with a screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen, was one of the first to make an explicit link between horror and female sexuality, something that has since become a staple of modern-day horror films. An unsubtle, erotically-sexualized and violent remake-sequel of the same name by screenwriter/director Paul Schrader in 1982 starred Nastassja Kinski as the bewildered woman who is metamorphosized into a black panther when sexually aroused.

The image of a sexually-frustrated Maggie "the Cat" (Elizabeth Taylor) usually in a slinky slip or white dress - fighting with presumed homosexual husband Brick (Paul Newman), and the scene in the cellar between Brick and Big Daddy (Burl Ives), in Richard Brooks' powerful drama adapted from Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (1958) is the powerful, highly-charged, moving story of a neurotic, dysfunctional Southern family with its rivalries, tensions, and avarice. Its provocative screenplay by Richard Brooks and James Poe was adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Tennessee Williams. [It was Williams' second Pulitzer Prize win.] MGM's posters proclaimed: "ALL THE SULTRY EXPLOSIVE DRAMA OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS' PULITZER PRIZE PLAY IS NOW ON THE SCREEN." A sexually-explicit, made-for TV remake was created in 1976, starring Robert Wagner, Natalie Wood, Maureen Stapleton and Laurence Olivier in the lead roles. A second made-for-TV production was co-produced by pay-cable station Showtime and PBS's American Playhouse in 1984, starred Tommy Lee Jones, Jessica Lange, Rip Torn, and Kim Stanley.

The film, one of the top ten box-office hits of its year, was honored with six major Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Paul Newman with his first Oscar nomination), Best Actress (Elizabeth Taylor with her second of four consecutive nominations), Best Director (Richard Brooks, who had replaced George Cukor as the film's original directorial choice), Best Adapted Screenplay (Richard Brooks and James Poe), and Best Cinematography (William H. Daniels) - but it failed to win any awards. Curiously, Burl Ives was nominated and won an Oscar in 1958 as Best Supporting Actor in The Big Country rather than for his performance in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof. The play was originally directed by film director Elia Kazan, starring Ben Gazzara, Barbara Bel Geddes, Burl Ives, and Mildred Dunnock - with Ives as the only one reprising his role in the film version.

Because of strict censorship Production Codes in the late 1950s at the height of Hollywood's concern about film content, all references to homosexuality and four-letter words were deleted, watered down, or obscured from the shocking, original play, and the ending was considerably changed from the original Tennessee Williams play.

Major star Elizabeth Taylor was deeply affected by the tragic airplane crash death of her husband Mike Todd, only a little over a week into the shooting. Her role was as the passionate, sexually-frustrated, feline Maggie ("The Cat" in the film's title) whose advances and lustful sensuality are thwarted by the unloving temperament of her alcoholic, injured, impotent, and apathetic husband Brick (Paul Newman) who is still suffering from the suicidal death of his (homosexual) friend Skipper, and also has suffered a broken ankle. [In the play, Maggie had allegedly seduced Skipper, an instance of heterosexual infidelity - to keep their homosexual relationship at bay - an important plot element missing in the film.] The action occurs on the occasion of the 65th birthday of 'Big Daddy' Pollitt (Burl Ives reprising his stage role) - the patriarchal plantation head (who is secretly suffering from terminal cancer), when the greater Pollitt family gathers and inevitably quarrels - greedily - over the granting of the expected inheritance.

The opening pre-Saul Bass' credits sequence (his last work before he passed away) in which Jewish gambler Sam 'Ace' Rothstein (Robert De Niro) walks out of a casino and enters his parked car - and the slow-motion car explosion to Johann Sebastian Bach's Passion According to St. Matthew; the smooth sequence showing how everyone is watching everyone else ("In Vegas, everybody's got to watch everybody else") in the casino from the players to the dealers, to the boxmen, to the floormen, to the pit bosses, to the shift bosses, to the casino manager, to the security camera ("the eye in the sky"); the introduction of the sexy prostitute/hustler Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone) at a roulette table and Ace's first look at her by spying through the security camera, and the quiet, faithful hang-dog character of Ace's right-hand man Billy Sherbert (Don Rickles in a serious role); the disintegrating relationship between Ace and violent mob hit-man/enforcer Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) including their tense desert scene ("Normally, my prospects of comin' back alive from a meeting with Nicky were ninety-nine out of a hundred. But this time, when I heard him say, 'A couple a hundred yards down the road', I gave myself fifty-fifty"); and the film's four very memorable violent sequences: the scene in which a scam artist running a blackjack racket is tortured; the eye-popping scene in which a rival mob tough's head is crushed in a vise; the scene of Nicky and his brother Dominick (Philip Suriano) beaten up with baseball bats and shovels, and then buried alive by Frank Marino (Frank Vincent); and the rub-outs to silence potential witnesses (when the mob leaders are arraigned) including the loyal Andy Stone (Alan King, also in a serious role); also, Ace and Ginger's disintegrating marriage, especially when a jealous Ace has her pimp ex-boyfriend Lester Diamond (James Woods) beaten up; and Ace's final eulogy for Las Vegas casino life ("The town will never be the same...Today, it looks like Disneyland"), in Martin Scorsese's mob film based on Nicholas Pileggi's non-fiction novel.

The first view of Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) in his Cafe Americain nightclub playing chess by himself, the unexpected entrance of former love Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) with her vulnerable beauty and her request of piano player Sam (Dooley Wilson) to once again play "As Time Goes By," Sam's rendition of the song and Rick's strident interruption and first glance at Ilsa, the images of Rick's masculine mannerisms and the self-pitying scene later that evening of Rick alone with a cigarette and a bottle asking Sam to play "As Time Goes By" again, the flashback to bittersweet memories of Paris, the ink of Ilsa's goodbye note being washed away in the rain - and then Ilsa's unexpected appearance in the doorway in a shaft of light, Rick's nodding to the band leader to permit the playing of "The Marseillaise" - the French national anthem - and the memorable duel of national anthems with the crowd joining in to sing and drown out the Germans' anthem "Wacht am Rhein" - and Yvonne's proud reaction with tears in her eyes, the scene in which Ilsa realizes she cannot shoot Rick and then when he moves toward her and embraces her and gives an explication of what really happened in Paris, Capt. Louis Renault's (Claude Rains) acceptance of his gambling winnings AFTER closing down the cafe, and the final farewell scene between trench-coated Rick and Ilsa on the rainy, foggy airstrip with "Here's lookin' at you, kid" and Rick's noble sacrifice to let Ilsa leave with her husband, Renault's tense pause before ordering: "Round up the usual suspects," and the closing line: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" as Renault and Rick walk off the tarmac to an uncertain future - and so many more memorable sequences, in Michael Curtiz' definitive and popular Best Picture-winning classic.

The classic and much-loved romantic melodrama Casablanca (1942), always found on top-ten lists of films, is a masterful tale of two men vying for the same woman's love in a love triangle. The story of political and romantic espionage is set against the backdrop of the wartime conflict between democracy and totalitarianism. [The date given for the film is often given as either 1942 and 1943. That is because its limited premiere was in 1942, but the film did not play nationally, or in Los Angeles, until 1943.]

With rich and smoky atmosphere, anti-Nazi propaganda, Max Steiner's superb musical score, suspense, unforgettable characters (supposedly 34 nationalities are included in its cast) and memorable lines of dialogue (e.g., "Here's lookin' at you, kid," and the inaccurately-quoted "Play it again, Sam"), it is one of the most popular, magical (and flawless) films of all time - focused on the themes of lost love, honor and duty, self-sacrifice and romance within a chaotic world.

Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972) paid reverential homage to the film, as have the lesser films Cabo Blanco (1981) and Barb Wire (1996), and the animated Bugs Bunny short Carrotblanca (1995). The line "Play it again, Sam" appeared in the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946). Clips or references to the film have been used in Play It Again, Sam (1972), Brazil (1985), My Stepmother is an Alien (1988), and When Harry Met Sally (1989).

Directed by the talented Hungarian-accented Michael Curtiz and shot almost entirely on studio sets, the film moves quickly through a surprisingly tightly constructed plot, even though the script was written from day to day as the filming progressed and no one knew how the film would end - who would use the two exit visas? [Would Ilsa, Rick's lover from a past romance in Paris, depart with him or leave with her husband Victor, the leader of the underground resistance movement?] And three weeks after shooting ended, producer Hal Wallis contributed the film's famous final line - delivered on a fog-shrouded runway.

The sentimental story, originally structured as a one-set play, was based on an unproduced play entitled Everybody Comes to Rick's by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison - the film's original title. Its collaborative screenplay was mainly the result of the efforts of Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch. In all, six writers took the play's script, and with the models of Algiers (1938) and Only Angels Have Wings (1939) to follow, they transformed the romantic tale into this quintessential classic that samples almost every film genre.

Except for the initial airport sequence, the entire studio-oriented film was shot in a Warner Bros. Hollywood/Burbank studio. Many other 40s stars were considered for the lead roles: Hedy Lamarr, Ann Sheridan, French actress Michele Morgan, and George Raft.

[It's an 'urban legend' that Ronald Reagan was seriously considered for a role in the film. The Warner Bros. publicity office famously planted a pre-production press release in The Hollywood Reporter on January 5, 1942 (it was also released to dozens of newspapers across the country two days later), stating that Reagan would co-star with Ann Sheridan for the third time in Casablanca (1942) - in order to actually encourage support for the soon-to-be-released film Kings Row (1942) with the two stars.]

And pianist Sam's role (portrayed by "Dooley" Wilson - who was actually a drummer) was originally to be taken by a female (either Hazel Scott, Lena Horne, or Ella Fitzgerald). The lead male part went to Humphrey Bogart in his first romantic lead as the tough and cynical on-the-outside, morally-principled, sentimental on-the-inside cafe owner in Casablanca, Morocco. His appearance with co-star Ingrid Bergman was their first - and last. As a hardened American expatriate, Bogart runs a bar/casino (Rick's Cafe Americain) - a way-station to freedom in WWII French-occupied Morocco, where a former lover (Bergman) who previously 'jilted' him comes back into his life. She is married to a heroic French Resistance leader (Henreid). Stubbornly isolationist, the hero is inspired to support the Resistance movement and give up personal happiness with his past love.

The Hollywood fairy-tale was actually filmed during a time of US ties with Vichy France when President Roosevelt equivocated and vacillated between pro-Vichy or pro-Gaullist support. And it was rushed into general release almost three weeks after the Allied landing at the Axis-occupied, North African city of Casablanca, when Eisenhower's forces marched into the African city. Due to the military action, Warner Bros. Studios was able to capitalize on the free publicity and the nation's familiarity with the city's name when the film opened.

It played first as a pre-release engagement on Thanksgiving Day, 1942 at the Hollywood Theater in New York. [On the last day of 1942, Roosevelt actually screened the film at the White House.] Its strategic timing was further enhanced at the time of its general release in early 1943 by the January 14-24, 1943 Casablanca Conference (a summit meeting in which Roosevelt broke US-Vichy relations) in the Moroccan city with Churchill, Roosevelt, and two French leaders - DeGaulle (the charismatic Free French leader) and General Henri Giraud (supportive of Marshal Petain). [Note: Stalin declined the invitation to attend the so-called 'Big Three' Conference.]

The big-budget film (of slightly less than $1 million), took in box-office of slightly more than $4 million. It was considered for eight Academy Awards for the year 1943. [Actually, it should have competed against Mrs. Miniver (1942) (the Best Picture winner in the previous year), since it premiered in New York in November of that year. However, because it didn't show in Los Angeles until its general release that January, it was ineligible for awards in 1942, and competed in 1943.] The nominations included Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains), Best B/W Cinematography (Arthur Edeson, known for The Maltese Falcon (1941)), Best Score (Max Steiner, known for Gone With the Wind (1939)), and Best Film Editing (Owen Marks). The dark-horse film won three awards (presented in early March of 1944): Best Picture (producer Hal B. Wallis), Best Director, and Best Screenplay. Bogart lost to Paul Lukas for his role in Watch on the Rhine. And Bergman wasn't even nominated for this film, but instead was nominated for Best Actress for For Whom The Bell Tolls (and she lost to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette). Bogart had made three other films in 1943: Sahara, Action in the North Atlantic, and Thank Your Lucky Stars.

The scene of a terrified Carrie's (Sissy Spacek) first menstruation in a high school locker-shower room; and the scene of Carrie's religiously-fanatical mother Margaret White (Piper Laurie) warning Carrie about boys and prohibiting her from going to her prom ("Boys. Yes, boys come next. After the blood, the boys come. Like sniffing dogs...grinning and slobbering, trying to find out where the smell comes from, where the smell is. That smell!") - and the much-celebrated, exhilarating prom sequence in which the camera circles counterclockwise around Carrie and dream date Tommy (William Katt) as they move in the opposite direction, Carrie's bloody high school prom experience as she is crowned prom queen and then cruelly doused by pig's blood - and her murderous, fiery, violent telekinetic revenge (shown in split-screen); her mother's ecstatic crucifixion-death scene; and the recurring nightmare - shock second ending in which the dead girl's arm bursts out of the ground from beyond the grave toward classmate Sue Snell (Amy Irving), in Brian De Palma's classic horror film adapted from a Stephen King novel.

The sexual fumblings of the threesome courtship of young, 1940s Amherst College roommates: the predatory Jonathan Fuerst (Jack Nicholson) and naive Sandy (Art Garfunkel) with coed sweetheart Susan (Candice Bergen), and how their lives approached middle-age; the bedroom-shower sequence revealing the vulnerability of Jonathan's unhappy and unfulfilled voluptuous actress-mistress-wife Bobbie (Ann-Margret) ("I wanna get married" and "the reason I sleep all day is 'cause I can't stand my life...I need a life") when he verbally demolishes her about her uselessness ("You want a job? I got a job for ya. Fix up this pigsty!"); Jonathan's slide-show lecture of his sexual conquests and the women in his life (titled "Ballbusters on Parade!"), and his dysfunctional solace found in the final scene with prostitute Louise (Rita Moreno) as he was sexually massaged ("It's rising, it's rising...more virile, domineering. More irresistible. It's up, it's in the air!"), in director Mike Nichols' dramatic and controversial film.

The ending scene of the cat-and-mouse chase through the subway and Grand Central Station for Puerto Rican drug-dealing criminal Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino), when Carlito is shot by Bronx punk Benny Blanco (John Leguizamo) in the stomach and is dying in ballet dancer/stripper Gail's (Penelope Ann Miller) arms on the train platform - and his come-to-life dream of "Escape to Paradise" (a billboard with a Caribbean beach and a woman dancing before a sunset) before and during the end-credits while on a stretcher bound for the hospital - also the voice-over ("...Hope she uses the money to get out. No room in this city for big hearts like hers... Sorry baby, I tried the best I could, honest... Can't come with me on this trip, Loaf. Getting the shakes now, last call for drinks, bars closing down... Sun's out, where are we going for breakfast? Don't wanna go far. Rough night, tired baby... Tired..."), in director Brian de Palma's gangster film told in flashback.

Portuguese fisherman Manuel's (Spencer Tracy) playing and singing (a song to a fish: "don't cry") with a hurdy-gurdy on the deck of his ship, his rescue, care and education of a spoiled rich kid Harvey (Freddie Bartholomew) (his "leetle feesh"), the sequences of the schooner race, Manuel's tragic death scene as he drowns in the waves, and the poignant memorial service scene with Harvey's father (Melvyn Douglas) comforting his son in the final shot - silently, arm in arm, the two watch wreaths float away together in the outgoing tide, in Victor Fleming's adventure/drama.

One of cinema's greatest classic adventure stories is director Victor Fleming's Captains Courageous (1937). It is an adaptation of English novelist Rudyard Kipling's 1897 work of the same name, and advertised: "As Great as Mutiny on the Bounty" with exciting action sequences, and a heart-felt story of the emerging relationship between an over-privileged and bratty young boy and a humble, common fisherman.

The classic MGM, coming-of-age children's film acquired four Academy Award nominations (Best Picture, Best Film Editing - Elmo Veron, and Best Screenplay - Marc Connolly, John Lee Mahin, Dale Van Every) with Spencer Tracy taking home his very first Best Actor Oscar (he experienced back-to-back wins when he also won Best Actor the following year for Boys Town (1938)) for his heart-warming performance.

A suspenseful and intense late b/w film noir from director J. Lee Thompson (James Webb's screenplay was based on John D. MacDonald's novel "The Executioners"), and with moody music by Bernard Herrmann - under the opening credits, the evil, intimidating, vengeful and insolent character of cigar-smoking, Panama hat-wearing psychopath Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) was first exemplified when he walked inside a Southern courtroom and as he ascended the stairs ignored a woman who dropped a book in front of him. Also the many chilling moments in which the sexually-predatory Cady pursued and stalked the female family members of lawyer Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) intent on raping them -- he first poisoned the family dog Marilyn with strychnine (mid-barking, the dog let out a long whine), then menaced young teenaged daughter Nancy Bowden (Lori Martin) at her school, and later sexually threatened both females on a houseboat on Cape Fear River. In a deeply frightening scene, the bare-chested ex-con threatened to force Sam's wife Peggy (Polly Bergen) to have consensual sex with him in order to save the rape of her daughter - and then after creating a diversion, went after young Nancy too. The film ended with a climactic conclusion when Sam saved Nancy, fought bare-fisted against Cady, overpowered him, held him at gunpoint, and decided to not kill him: "We're gonna take good care of you. We're gonna nurse you back to health. And you're strong, Cady. You're gonna live a long life - in a cage! That's where you belong. And that's where you're going. And this time, for life! Bang your head against the walls. Count the years, the months, the hours, until the day you rot!".

The scene of the by-the-book and paranoid Captain Queeg's (Humphrey Bogart) disintegration on the witness stand while manipulating steel ball bearings in his hand - and his incoherent, crazy ramblings about disloyal officers and about the strawberry incident ("Ah, but the strawberries! That's, that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with, with geometric logic, that, that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist") after being broken down by lawyer Lt. Barney Greenwald (Jose Ferrer), during the court-martial trial in the conclusion, in director Edward Dmytryk's military drama.

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The Caine Mutiny (1954) is the story of shipboard conflict and a mutiny aboard a WWII naval vessel, and the subsequent court-martial trial of the ship's captain. The film follows in the long tradition of naval mutiny and court-martial films, such as Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), The Sea Wolf (1941), Treasure Island (1950), and Billy Budd (1962).

The film with the tagline: "Big As The Ocean," was based upon Herman Wouk's best-selling, and 1951 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, from a screenplay by Stanley Roberts. (Wouk's original novel of about 500 pages had already been the basis for a successful nationwide stage play titled The Caine Mutiny Court Martial.) Independent producer Stanley Kramer and director Edward Dmytryk (one of the original blacklisted "Hollywood Ten" and director of Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Crossfire (1947)) had earlier collaborated on the melodramatic thriller The Sniper (1952), the dramatic combat film Eight Iron Men (1952), and The Juggler (1953) with Kirk Douglas, but this fourth film was their most-acclaimed and successful work.

It was adapted for a Broadway stage play (by producer Charles Laughton) with Lloyd Nolan as Captain Queeg and Henry Fonda as Lt. Keefer, and later became a Robert Altman-directed TV movie The Caine Mutiny Court Martial in 1988, with Eric Bogosian (as Greenwald), Jeff Daniels (as Maryk), Brad Davis (as Queeg), Peter Gallagher, Michael Murphy, and Kevin J. O'Connor.

Similar to the making of From Here to Eternity (1953) - another film depicting semi-negative aspects of military life, the Navy Department originally objected to the making of this film, due to its depiction of a mentally-disturbed man (obsessed about the theft of frozen strawberries, and continually rolling steel balls in his hand) as the captain of a US naval vessel, and the use of the word 'mutiny' in the film's title. After concessions were made within the script, the Navy fully cooperated with Columbia Pictures (and chief studio head Harry Cohn) by providing ships, planes, combat boats, and access to Pearl Harbor and the San Francisco port.

This was Humphrey Bogart's last great film role (he died three years later). Bogart received his third Best Actor nomination (one of the film's seven nominations) for his late-career performance, but lost to Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (1954). There were six other un-rewarded nominations: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Tom Tully), Best Screenplay, Best Sound Recording, Best Film Editing, and Best Dramatic Score (Max Steiner). Fred MacMurray was again cast against type as an unlikeable Lieutenant (similar to his earlier role in Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944) and later in The Apartment (1960)).

The character of McQueen - the wheelchair-bound, repressive, and semi-lesbian prison warden (scream queen veteran Barbara Steele), and various attractive and empowered cell-block prisoners, including Erica Gavin, Roberta Collins and Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith, often glimpsed in shower scenes; with expected exploitative scenes of sadistic torture by the prison's doctor, tongue-in-cheek humor, dirty catfights, rebellion and the requisite prison escape, etc., in director Jonathan Demme's (The Silence of the Lambs (1991)) early trashy cult women-in-prison flick produced by B-movie king Roger Corman.

The expressionist cinematography and the distorted, jagged, angular sets, in Robert Wiene's classic and influential silent film.

The opening dance number "Wilkommen" introduced by Berlin's seedy Kit Kat Club's androgynous, leering, white-faced emcee/Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey), the seductive and wildly reckless American dancer/singer Sally Bowles' (Liza Minnelli) performance of "Mein Herr" wearing a black derby hat and a deep V-necked costume; the duet of MC and Sally singing "The Money Song"; the scene with Sally and bi-sexual British writer Brian Roberts (Michael York) in which she asks: "Maybe you just don't sleep with girls", and the threesome sexual moment with the two of them and rich German playboy-baron Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) when the three danced slowly together and the record stopped with a potent silence; also the scene at an outdoor cafe in which a young, fresh-faced German blonde, blue-eyed, tenor-voiced boy sings "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" and the camera quickly reveals that he is wearing a brown uniform and his arm is wrapped with a Nazi swastika armband - and the patrons of the German beer garden join in the triumphant Nazi anthem; and Sally's defiant, show-stopping, belt-it-out rendition of "Cabaret" ("Life is a cabaret, old chum / Only a cabaret, old chum / And I love a cabaret!") -- her vow to continue her destructive, decadent lifestyle as Brian returns to England, and the chilling final shot as the camera pans along the twisted, mirrored mylar wall and settles on a Nazi swastika (as the cymbal crashes after a drum roll), in Bob Fosse's dark, classic musical.

The amusing banter throughout the film between two western legendary, train-robbing anti-hero outlaws Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford); Butch's swift crotch kick at brutish Bowie-knife-wielding gang member Harvey Logan (Ted Cassidy) (who has been distracted and exclaims: "Rules - in a knife fight? No rules!"), the gang's many train and bank robberies together (including one with too much dynamite detonated ("...Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?") and another with clever ventriloquism to trick Woodcock (George Furth) into opening the train door); the sexy and surprising scene of Sundance's visit to schoolmarm Etta's (Katharine Ross) farmhouse bedroom when he orders her to unbutton her blouse and undress in front of him at gunpoint; the lyrical musical interlude sequence of Butch riding a bicycle with Etta and "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head", the long, relentless pursuit sequence by a mysterious posse and Butch's repeated question: "Who are those guys?"; when cornered on a dead-end cliff, Sundance's admission: "I can't swim" (with Butch's guffawing retort: "Why, you crazy, the fall'll probably kill ya") and their big jump off a steep canyon ledge into a fast-moving river below while yelling a long and drawn out: "AWWWWW S-----T"; and the final sequence in which the wounded and doomed heroes joke and daydream ("For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble") and then are caught at the point of death as Yanqui banditos in a freeze-framed (turning from color to sepia-toned) shootout in Bolivia, in George Roy Hill's comedy-western.

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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) is the likeably entertaining, charming and amusing comedy/drama of the friendship and camaraderie shared between the two handsome and humorous buddy leads - legendary, turn-of-the-century Western outlaws and their "Hole in the Wall" gang. Historical antecedents for the two daring "Robin Hood" outlaws actually existed, two notorious figures who were sadly anachronistic for their turn-of-the-century times:

"Butch Cassidy" (outlaw Robert Leroy Parker) "The Sundance Kid" (outlaw Harry Longbaugh)

In the early 1900s, they came toward the tail-end of a long stream of bank/train robbers and highwaymen in the 19th century. Their exploits were perfect for a film that was intended to portray outlaws who mock and defy authority and the Establishment. After relentless pursuit by authorities, the train-robbing outlaws fled to Bolivia (after a brief stopover in New York City) with the Kid's schoolteacher-lover - hoping to find better luck.

Instead of the ultra-violence typical of other outlaw films, the screenplay (William Goldman's first screenplay - he also authored The Great Waldo Pepper (1975) and Marathon Man (1976)) and the direction of George Roy Hill focused on the endearing mis-adventures of the bandits/heroes, using impudent slapstick comedy, conventional Western action, contemporary music, and humorous dialogue to characterize the past and irreverently poke fun at typical western film cliches. The whimsical revisionist Western film, with the new "M" rating (for mature), although varying considerably in tone and mood, did so by imitating the styles of other cultish outlaw films, including director Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967), and the balletic graceful shootouts of Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969).

The good-natured film from director George Roy Hill, one of the most popular (and highest-grossing) westerns ever made, revived the careers of two 'golden-boy' Hollywood actors:

superstar Paul Newman (in most of his previous films, he had been a rebellious loner - The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963), and Cool Hand Luke (1967)) newcomer Robert Redford - who had previously appeared in stage plays and only a few films (i.e., Barefoot in the Park (1967))

[Warren Beatty was originally slated for the Butch role, and Steve McQueen for the Sundance Kid role.] The two male leads would again co-star (only once more) as big-screen buddies in George Roy Hill's Best Picture winner The Sting (1973), with ten Oscar nominations and seven wins. The flip-side of this light-hearted buddy picture was its major competitor of the year, the X-rated, dark Midnight Cowboy (1969) with its anti-heroes Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) and Joe Buck (Jon Voight).

Of the seven Academy Award nominations, there were four Oscars: Goldman was awarded an Oscar for Best Story and Screenplay and Conrad Hall was honored for his cinematography. Two other statues went to Burt Bacharach for Best Song ("Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," lyrics by Hal David) and Best Original Score. The other three nominations were for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Sound.