Fortunes of War (1987)

This BBC mini-series stars Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, and in fact is where they met. It’s based on a series of novels by British writer Olivia Manning, The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy, which are part of the Guardian newspaper’s 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. [Actually, by my count, more like 1070.)

The 7-episode series opens with newlyweds Guy and Harriet Pringle (Branagh and Thompson) on a train to Bucharest, Rumania. Guy is an English teacher there – his employer seems to be a British agency similar to the USIA – and Harriet has met and married him during his summer vacation in England. Guy has been chatting in German with a fellow passenger. At a border crossing the other man discovers that his pocket has been picked and he has no identification and no money. As the German-speaker is hustled away, Guy follows and gives him a few pounds – an ineffectual but kindly-meant gesture which is all too typical of his character.

As Guy and Harriet arrive in Bucharest, the Nazis have invaded Poland and Britain has declared war on Germany. Life becomes a strange mixture of the everyday joys and concerns of two young people, and the anxiety of living in a foreign country which is not only poised for invasion by either Germany or the Soviet Union, but also has internal struggles. In fact, soon the Prime Minister is assassinated by the home-grown Fascists, the Iron Guards. Harriet meets a circle of Guy’s friends and acquaintances – Dobson, the head of the British legation; Sophie, the Rumanian girl who may be a rival; Prince Yakimov, an impecunious Russian prince with a British passport who talks like Bertie Wooster; and more.

During the course of the series, Guy and Harriet manage to stay one jump ahead of the Nazis, leaving first for Athens, then Cairo, and Harriet spends some time in Damascus. The series, which was meant to be the BBC’s answer to such ITV hits as Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel in the Crown, was shot on location (although the then Yugoslavia stood in for Rumania) and cost $12 million to make in 1987. It is visually stunning with great costumes (but realistic – Thompson doesn’t have a new dress each time she appears), careful period detail, and some wonderful atmospheric scenes such as an Egyptian funeral and an Orthodox Easter service. As one expects from British TV, the acting is first rate. Although there are many shocking and harrowing scenes, there is humor as well – especially in Alan Bennett’s turn as 'Professor Lord Pinkrose’ futilely attempting to give his lecture on Byron. I really liked the music, too. And, ever since I read my first Helen MacInnes novel, I’ve been a sucker for tales of “romance in a danger zone.”

I’m looking forward to reading the books now, and seeing how they differ. But if you’re not up to reading a six-volume duo of trilogies, you might just enjoy the 407 minutes of this adaptation.

Plus ça change: State of the Union (1948)

Imagine a film made by a Republican director/producer in which the Republican candidate is firmly in favor of universal health care, affordable housing, and world government. Sound implausible? Yet, in 1948, that’s the film Frank Capra made. Based on the 1946 play of the same name by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, State of the Union stars Spencer Tracy as the candidate, Katherine Hepburn as his wife, and Angela Lansbury as the girlfriend (mistress? it’s never quite clear), a newspaper owner who wants Tracy as her puppet President.

Tracy’s character is an airplane manufacturer who wants labor, management, agriculture and everyone else to work together for the good of the country. Lansbury and has-been campaign manager Adolphe Menjou want Tracy to be President for their own selfish reasons. As Tracy is setting off for a speaking tour as an unannounced candidate, they tell him he needs to take his wife along, even though they’ve been somewhat estranged for several months. Hepburn plays her usual sharp-tongued “best friend and severest critic” type of wife – but one who has a vulnerability under the bravado, for she wants to win Tracy back from Lansbury. Van Johnson is the ace political reporter who’s assigned to travel with the prickly pair. His initial cynicism is overcome by Tracy’s straight talk. All is going well – from Hepburn’s viewpoint – until they reach Detroit. Tracy’s speech in Wichita socked it to the big labor leaders but went over well with the public. Now he’s about to give business leaders the same medicine, and his behind-the-scenes handlers want none of it. Tracy resists Menjou’s exhortations to change his speech, but then he’s taken into another room of the hotel and emerges ready to compromise. Of course, it’s Lansbury who (unbeknownst to Hepburn) was in the other room and persuaded him. Once Tracy gives in, we start to see a lot of backroom deals with politicians and other leaders who promise to swing convention delegates for Tracy if he’ll promise them something in return. (This was still the “smoke-filled room” era when the nominee really wasn’t known until the convention.) Hepburn, disillusioned, goes home to their Long Island estate, but agrees to host the campaign kickoff, which is to be broadcast on radio and the new medium, television. The combination party and campaign kickoff brings everything to a head with revelations all over the place.

Other reviewers have compared State of the Union with Capra’s other and better-known political film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and found it darker. I’d say it was actually a bit more optimistic, as Capra and the playwrights made the main character more forceful and more realistic. He is a man with no little ambition and with all the enlarged and sensitive ego of the politician, but tempered by pragmatism and with the clear-eyed Hepburn to take him down a peg when he needs it. The deeper moral of the film – expressed several times – is that it is the common voter’s indifference and inertia that allows the bosses and special interests to manipulate not only candidate selection, but lawmaking as well. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Although this is a drama, there’s plenty of comedy as well, including a turn by Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer as a bumbling bellboy. State of the Union is worth seeing for a refreshing look back at a time when a Republican candidate could talk sense and not be rejected by his own party. And of course, it’s Tracy and Hepburn.

The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)

Tony Randall plays several parts in The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964).  The film is part fairy tale, part romance, part Western. Dr. Lao (Randall) is a “Chinese” medicine man who comes to a small Western town with his circus. We quickly see that he has magical powers when, coming to the newspaper office to place an ad, he is able to repair the balky printing press without laying a hand on it. Dr. Lao also deals out swift but merciful justice to some bullies who are harassing an Indian. Through the various characters in his circus (all played by Randall), he shows people the truth about themselves, enables the townsfolk to stand up to a rapacious land developer, and encourages the romance between the newspaper editor and the widowed librarian. At the end, Dr. Lao disappears into the sunset, leaving the good townspeople better off than he found them.

This would be a good movie for parents and kids to see together. Some things may warrant explanation in light of our modern sensibilities about ethnicity, but the film as a whole has plenty of action and special effects to keep the kids interested, and many ideas that can start some good discussions. Most of the comments and short reviews I’ve seen online were from people who saw the movie as children and have never forgotten it.

Musical Documentary: Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns

Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns (2002) focuses on the career of the hard-to-classify singer-songwriter duo They Might Be Giants. Although I’m not a tremendously knowledgeable fan of theirs, I have enjoyed some of their music and the film was well done. However, I doubt it would be very interesting to someone who is not already an aficionado of the group.

TV Detectives: Cadfael, Foyle, and Fraser

As do many other people, I keep some of my Netflix queue for television series that I missed on broadcast or cable. Recently I’ve finished watching two series, and begun watching another which I’d viewed only sporadically in the past.

I’ve read all of Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series of medieval mysteries, and enjoyed a few on PBS’s Mystery! Now I’m coming back to watch the ones I missed or have forgotten. I haven’t listed them in order as I usually would, since, although there is a character arc, it isn’t so big a part of the story as to present a problem in watching out of order. The episode I watched the other day was The Potter’s Field (1998), in which a potter who has left his wife to become a monk is suspected of murdering her when her body turns up a year later.

I think the most interesting aspect of the Cadfael stories for me is the theme of change and transition which is present in all of them to some degree. The 12th century in England was a time of change – the Cadfael series takes place during the civil war between the forces of King Stephen and the Empress Matilda for the crown of England.  In addition, the social system was changin as serfdom was becoming less common and free artisans and tradesmen gathered in towns. Returning Crusaders such as Cadfael brought their new ideas and experiences back with them. All these aspects of 12th-century life combine with each episode’s murder mystery for an entertaining and – dare I say it – educational program. I noticed that The Potter’s Field was structured almost like a modern police procedural novel, with a number of suspects, dead ends, and the puzzle solved only when Cadfael finally asks the right question.

I said above that I had finished watching the Foyle’s War (2002) series, but just the other day I heard the welcome news that three more episodes, taking the story up to V-J Day, would be filmed soon. Of course, it will probably be some time before they are available here. It has been a fine series and deserves to reach its logical ending point. Although we sometimes found the plots a bit far-fetched, it was easy to overlook that in light of Anthony Horowitz’s talent for bringing wartime England to life on the screen. The cast, as so often in British television, was excellent, both the recurring characters and the guests. Horowitz showed both the heroic and the venal in the actions of Britons (and others) in World War II.

The longest of these series, as it began on American TV, is Due South (1994). Canadian Paul Gross is one of my current Top 10 Favorite Actors – also producers, directors, screenwriters – he even sings! The other actors in the series, many of them also Canadian, do a great job as well. In the last several episodes, the writers and cast seemed to be having even more fun than usual – Camilla Scott as Fraser’s boss “Meg Thatcher” gets to sing gospel in one episode, for example. The two-part finale, “Call of the Wild,” wraps up a number of storylines. The real Ray Vecchio (David Marciano) returns, as does Leslie Nielsen as the flatulent Buck Frobisher. In a bit of an inside joke, Gross’s real-life wife, Martha Burns, makes a cameo appearance as the ghost of Fraser’s mother. I was happy to have had the chance to watch this series of gently humorous Ripping Yarns.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

I’ve been a little slow in catching up with Harry Potter – I only read the final book last year. I watched this film in case I made it to the theater for Half Blood Prince, but I guess I’ll be waiting for the DVD on that one too.

One of J.K. Rowling’s strengths with this series has been how the characters and plots mature from book to book. Although it’s now a problem for some kids who come of age to read the first book now that all of them are available, it worked very well for that group of children who matured along with the books. The Harry Potter films reflect this maturing as well. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, not only do Harry, Ron and Hermione continue moving through adolescent angst and the pangs of young love, but they also begin to understand more fully that adults – even Harry’s yearned-for and idealized parents – are flawed and fallible human beings.

Neither the book nor the movie is my favorite of the series, and that may well say more about me than about the works themselves. The whole Dolores Umbridge sequence is just too hard for me to take. For some reason – and I can’t recall ever experiencing anything even close to this – the unfairness and humiliation (to say nothing of the actual torture) that Harry undergoes at Umbridge’s hands are almost impossible for me to watch. Umbridge’s comeuppance at the end of the film doesn’t seem a strong enough recompense for her actions.

So, not my favorite, but we still get the charming bits of wizardry, some great broomriding, and the consistent performances of Radcliffe, Grint and Watson. Recommended for older kids, teens and adults.

Tootsie (1982)

For some reason (possibly because I had two small children and didn’t get out much!) I missed Tootsie (1982)when it came out. Oh my, is it ever 80s! When actresses are auditioning for a part as a hospital administrator in a soap opera, they all turn up in mannish suits “softened” with a bow at the neckline, à la The Women’s Dress for Success Book, and oversized glasses. It’s enough to bring a shudder to anyone who lived through that time.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the movie. Surely everyone knows the plot – unsuccessful actor Dustin Hoffman disguises himself as a woman to get the above-mentioned part.  He falls in love with co-star Jessica Lange; other men get interested in “Dorothy” (Hoffman’s alter ego); and there are several farcical scenes of quick changes to escape detection.

There were excellent performances all around, but especially by Hoffman. One could almost see how his character could fool so many people into believing he was a woman. But of course, there has to be a deeper meaning, or several. The one I found was also very 80s – Hoffman “gets in touch with” his feminine side, and it makes him a better man and opens the possibility of a relationship with Lange.

I also very much enjoyed the behind-the-scenes glimpse at the actor’s world, both in the soap opera scenes and, even more, at the beginning of the film where Hoffman is teaching a class of other aspiring actors. I was glad to have included this in my mini-festival of Hoffman along with The Graduate and Rain Man.