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Showing results for tags 'Julian Blaustein'.
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Like the 1939 Jimmy Stewart classic, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," Washington, DC residents can revel in the scenery of "The Day the Earth Stood Still," as virtually the entire film takes place inside the city, and you'll see numerous places you recognize, filmed 66-years ago (make sure you don't watch the 2008 remake, which is supposed to be pretty awful). Except it wasn't exactly "Mr. Smith" who came to Washington in this film - not by a long-shot. *** SPOILER ALERT *** A spaceship, circling the earth at 4,000 mph, plops down in the middle of the mall in DC, and out strides Klaatu (Michael Rennie, whom I just saw in episodes 16 and 17 ("Fly Away Home, Parts 1 and 2") on "Route 66" - why Rennie didn't become more famous after playing Klaatu is beyond my comprehension. Klaatu is a tall, debonair, handsome alien, at first dressed in a twinkly spacesuit, and carrying some sort of baton-like instrument which makes all the soldiers panic, and one of them shoots it out of his hand. "It was a gift for your President," Klaatu said - it would have helped him study life on other planets. So, once again, our "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality implants the bullet directly into our own foot. Unfortunately for Earth, after Klaatu is wounded, out comes the tremendously imposing Gort, an 8-foot tall robot with a "death ray" which he can shoot from his eye (sounds odd, but it's quite effective). After destroying the soldiers' guns (but leaving the soldiers unharmed), Gort picks up Klaatu, and carries him back into the ship, before reemerging to stand guard. Gort is made of the same, impregnable material as the spaceship - impervious to every known human weapon - lasers, diamond drills, everything. And now we wait. The President of the U.S.A. wants to meet with Klaatu, but Klaatu doesn't care about America - he wants to address all the leaders on Earth simultaneously. When told that's impossible due to political conditions, he decides to give a harmless show of power in case they don't agree: For exactly 30 minutes, he shuts off all electricity on the planet - all electricity, that is, except for airplanes in flight, hospitals, and other situations that would bring harm to people. This causes worldwide panic. Klaatu decides to integrate among the earth's population, so he sneaks out, looking dapper in a suit, rents a room in a DC house, and makes friends with a little boy, Bobby (Billy Gray who played Bud on "Father Knows Best" - you won't recognize him), taking him out for an entire afternoon of fun. He sees the problems in our culture, and only sees peace and harmony in this child. Klaatu sustains a relatively minor injury, and is immensely worried about Gort going into "automatic protection mode" - he gives Bobby's entrusted mother (Patricia Neal) a three-word order ("Klaatu barada nikto") to stop Gort from hurting anyone, and makes his way back to the ship. He turns towards the leaders of Earth, and gives a long, moral speech - his planet is a member of sort of an "interplanetary United Nations" that has been watching Earth. They didn't worry about the planet's own infighting, i.e., WWII, but now that they're nearing the ability to have space travel, they're worried that they'll take their newfound nuclear capabilities, and cause harm to other planets. He says, in no uncertain terms, that Earth's inhabitants have two choices: 1) Work out their violent tendencies, or 2) Face total destruction. Klaatu then gets back into the ship, after releasing his friend - the boy's mother - gives a friendly nod to Bobby, and takes back off into outer space, and the movie ends, with the Earth obviously left to ponder its ultimate future. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" may not be a "great movie," but it's one of a handful of 1950s science-fiction films worth watching - it's an important and influential film. -
"Broken Arrow" (1950) is Director Delmer Daves' Western in Technicolor, Starring James Stewart as Tom Jeffords and Jeff Chandler as Cochise, the Chief of the Chokonen Band of the Chiricahua Apache Tribe. Though clearly Hollywood-ized, it's also based on a true story, and if the viewer is willing to do some digging, can learn quite a bit from it. I have mixed feelings about watching old Hollywood Westerns for obvious reasons, but for me it's easy, because I generally pull for the Native Americans, and look at any type of "loss" as a tragic element - plus, I learn something, no matter how small, from each film I watch: I know less about Native American history than I do just about anything, and I'm well-aware that these "red-face" movies are filtered through the prejudiced eyes of Hollywood and America, so I adjust accordingly, and invariably walk away more educated. I did not know, for example, exactly where the Chircahua Apaches were based, and that led me to an article entitled "Apache Wars" on wikipedia.com - that's just one example. Not to mention that if you come across a decent one, these movies are action-packed and (dare I say it?) just plain fun. James Stewart played a wonderful character in Broken Arrow, and for someone not to see it just because they were "anti-Native American movies" would be a loss. Stewart plays an ex-Union soldier, Tom Jeffords, who was prospecting for gold before a new Colonel rode into Tuscon to see him. The Apaches were attacking the Pony Express, and Stewart volunteered to go meet with the Apache equivalent of Keyser Söze, Cochise. After Stewart assured Cochise that the Pony Express contained no messages of war (whch were all sent by telegraph), Cochise promised not to attack the carriers, and he kept to his word. Milt Duffield, mail superindendent (Arthur Hunnicut) is the only man courageous enough to test Cochise's promise not to attack mail delivery, and when he returns unscathed, gets a hearty ovation from the townspeople. Incidentally, you might recognize Hunnicutt from one of our favorite Twilight Zone episodes, "The Hunt." Stewart had earlier saved a 14-year-old Apache boy - whose brother and sister were both killed - from dying of thirst, and Cochise returned the favor both by letting him go earlier in the film, and by keeping his promise about the Pony Express - this can easily be seen as a metaphor for larger situations in life. Ben Slade (Will Geer) doesn't understand why Jeffords didn't kill the 14-year-old boy, and is suspicious enough to lead an attempt to *hang* Jeffords after the fifth mail rider returns unscathed - Slade convinced people that Jeffords was spying for Cochise. Not only that, but Duffield, the mail supervisor, thinks Jeffords is daft for wanting to learn to speak Apache - Jeffords wants to meet with Cochise on his own turf, and figures knowing some Apache is the best way to make entry (not to mention the fact that he has fallen *very* deeply in love with an Indian maiden). However, Cochise in no way agreed to end the war - when white soldiers weren't killed in raids, they were tortured to death in unspeakable ways: Of three wounded soldiers, two were suspended from a tree branch while an Apache shot the trunk with a burning arrow, allowing the flames to slowly expand outward, and the third had it even worse: He was buried up to his neck, and his face was smeared with Mezcal juice so the ants would slowly eat his face off. None of this was graphic, of course (it was 1950), but just thinking about it is enough to give anyone the shivers. "They say that cat Cochise is a bad motha-f ..." "Shut yo mouth!" (Name the song! Hint: It's what Native Americans got in this country.) Sonseeahray ("Morning Star," played by Debra Paget), a fictional character - note the pronunciation: "Sun, see a ray" - is experiencing a holy ("coming-of-age") ceremony, and blesses Jeffords' old, wounded arm, saying that it will never hurt again. Jeffords' arm has been a source of constant pain, and this young, beautiful girl looking after him goes straight to his heart. There is a genuinely tender, albeit dated, moment when Jeffords falls in love with Sonseeahray - there is absolutely *nothing* sexual about this (at first); he simply realizes, after seeing her for the second time, and still having strong feelings for her, that he has fallen in love for the first time in his life - this may seem "awkward" to today's woman - a man in his 40's falling in love with a young maiden who probably just turned 15, but it works here, and I found it incredibly touching because Jeffords makes no attempt at physical contact; he merely tells Sonseeahray that, for the first time in his life, he's going to miss somebody. And, because the mail is getting through, but an entire wagon train was slaughtered, Jeffords is - as mentioned above - accused of being Cochise's spy: No good deed goes unpunished. The townsmen, with their mob mentality, go so far as to drag Jeffords out of a bar, string a rope up, and prepare for a public hanging (think: "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"). This is big-deal stuff - just as Jeffords is about to be hanged, a General (a full-fledged General - Oliver Otis Howard (Cochise is mentioned on his Wikipedia page), known as "The Christian General," and played by Basil Ruysdael) arrives - yes, yes, I know, yet another Deus ex Machina - pulls Jeffords into his office, and tells him that he has authority from President Ulysses S. Grant to make a peace treaty with Cochise. I mean, that is pretty bad-ass, especially considering that the gist of the story is true. Could it be, that Geronimo, whom we *all* know of, but none of us know anything about, is *the* Geronimo who "walks away" in this film? My initial impression, upon seeing the moment, is, 'Yes, he is.' I don't know enough about Geronimo to say for sure, but if he was any type of Apache split-off, then this was most likely him, lending even more historical significance to what is already a great movie. Damn I wish I had been sober enough to remember how it ended. In all seriousness, this is an excellent movie - I have been choosing particularly well of late. If you're in the mood for an action-packed Western, with plot, seriousness, historical importance, and great depth and substance, this would be a good film for you to choose. Pathetically, screenwriter Alfred Maltz was blacklisted as one of the Hollywood Ten. Hey, if being a commie means I can write this well, color me red any day of the week. Here is an excellent review: Oct 9, 2010 - "Groundbreaking Western" by James Hitchcock on imdb.com
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