Finally,
a high definition Blu-ray disk of Robert Redford’s 1980 masterpiece, Ordinary
People, has been released. To date, the film has existed on home video only
on VHS and DVD, and the new Paramount Presents edition is most welcome.
People
was
Redford’s directorial debut, and at the time audiences and critics expected it
to be good, but they didn’t count on it being that good. It took the
Best Picture prize at the Academy Awards, along with a trophy for Redford for
Direction, one for Alvin Sargent’s Adapted Screenplay (based on Judith Guest’s
wonderful novel), and a most deserved Supporting Actor Oscar for Timothy
Hutton. Granted, Hutton’s character, Conrad Jarrett, is really the protagonist,
i.e., the lead in the movie, so it’s one of those infuriating cases in
which an actor is nominated in the wrong category. (That said, there’s no way
Hutton would have won over Robert De Niro’s blistering once-in-a-lifetime
performance in Raging Bull, so the studio was smart to offer up Hutton
in the Supporting category, where he’d have a better than fighting chance.)
Mary
Tyler Moore also received a nomination for Best Actress, and Judd Hirsch a nod
for Supporting Actor (competing with Hutton). They are both brilliant, too.
Moore plays against type, portraying a woman with a cold heart who has
forgotten—or never knew—how to love, and Hirsch is the psychiatrist with whom
we all would want to spend two sessions a week. Missing from the Oscar awards
tally was Donald Sutherland, who, for this reviewer’s money, provides the
performance of his career. In many ways, he’s the center of the picture. We
slowly see that his stable assuredness is also cracking from the pretense going
in his family. Why Sutherland wasn’t at least nominated is a head-scratcher.
The
story is about a mid-to-upper class family living in the Chicago suburb of Lake
Forest. Everything should be as Beth Jarrett (Moore) believes it is—that their
family is happy and their world is perfect. “Neat and easy,” as her husband,
Calvin (Sutherland), describes how she keeps their lives. But under the
polished veneer, all is not well. Not one bit. The Jarretts recently
experienced a tragedy. The oldest son, Buck, drowned in a boating accident
while out on the water with his younger brother, Conrad (Hutton). Not long
afterwards, Conrad attempted suicide and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for
four months. Now he’s home, and Conrad is having a very difficult time
adjusting. He can’t relate the way he once did to his high school buddies. He
can’t feel as if he’s part of the school swim team, the way he could prior to
the incident. Worst of all, his relationship with his mother has deteriorated. Calvin
can see the conflict between them and does his best to play referee and
understanding father, but this only begins to drive a wedge between him and
Beth. It’s only after Conrad starts seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Berger (Hirsch),
that the teenager embarks on an excruciating but necessary emotional journey
toward wellness.
The
script is an honest and canny depiction of how families bury truths and put up
facades. Redford’s direction is sensitively nuanced, and the acting all around
is impeccable. This is powerful stuff. Ordinary People also provides one
of the better positive depictions of psychiatry ever put on celluloid, and this
reviewer challenges anyone viewing the film not to have welling eyes during the
scene in which Dr. Berger tells Conrad, “I’m your friend.”
Beyond
the quartet of principle stars, Elizabeth McGovern is striking as a high school
romantic interest for Conrad, a young Adam Baldwin is effective as one of the
teen swim team pals, M. Emmet Walsh has a turn as the clueless swimming coach,
and Dinah Manoff has a short but significant scene as a fellow hospital
patient, now out in the real world like Conrad.
But
the movie belongs to Timothy Hutton. Ordinary People was his first
feature film (he had made only one television movie earlier in the year, and
appeared uncredited, briefly, as a child in a picture in the 1960s.) His Conrad
is a virtuoso piece of acting.
The
Paramount Presents feature is remastered from a new 4K film transfer overseen
by Redford, and it looks crisp and colorful. The only supplements are two new,
short featurettes with interviews with Hutton and author Judith Guest, plus the
theatrical trailer.
Ordinary
People merited
every honor it received. It is an emotional roller-coaster that elevates the
Hollywood family drama to an unprecedented high. Enthusiastically recommended.
Some
personal observations and opinions here. There have been critics over the years
(Siskel and Ebert, for example) who have claimed that Ordinary People “stole”
the Oscar from Raging Bull, which is often cited not only as the “best”
movie of 1980, but of the entire 1980s decade.
I
love Raging Bull and consider it a magnificent example of bravura
filmmaking from Martin Scorsese. It’s slick, gorgeously shot in black and
white, brilliantly edited (by Oscar winner Thelma Schoonmaker), and it contains
not only powerhouse performances by Joe Pesci and Cathy Moriarty in supporting
roles, but the crowning screen appearance of Robert De Niro’s career. There is
no question that De Niro’s Jake LaMotta is one of the most accomplished acting
displays ever.
Yes,
Raging Bull is a great film… and I also find it unpleasant as hell. The
brutality is visceral, and of course, that’s the point. It’s about a man who can’t
control his rage. I may love the film, but I can’t say I enjoy it,
if that makes any sense.
Ordinary
People
is not a happy story, either—that’s true. While it’s without physical violence,
it is an emotionally violent tale; but it is so elegantly rendered with
intelligence and, yes, beauty, that I, personally, am always movedby
it. For me, it tugs at the heartstrings and the tear ducts. And while the fate
of the tale’s family is a tragedy, there is the hint of hope at the end that
all will be well for young Conrad Jarrett. I adore Ordinary People more
every time I see it.
Ordinary People deserved the Oscar for Best Picture in 1980.
A
Star is Born has
been made many times—as four Hollywood feature films, one television movie, and
one Bollywood picture. The 1937 original, produced by David O. Selznick,
directed by William A. Wellman, is often forgotten amongst the more recent
versions, such as the celebrated 2018 remake starring Lady Gaga and Bradley
Cooper.
For
this reviewer’s money, the 1937 A Star is Born is superior to them all.
Granted, it is obviously dated and one must place oneself within the context of
the period in which the movie was released. It is also not a musical, as all
the others are. The first version also deals exclusively with the motion
picture industry. The second one, released in 1954 and starring Judy Garland
and James Mason, did as well… but following adaptations went more into the
music professions of the characters and incorporated Grammy Awards rather than
Oscars. If you want A Star is Born without musical numbers, and there is
ample support that the piece works more realistically without them, then the
1937 version is for you.
The
Oscar winning story, by William A. Wellman and Robert Carson, was the basis of
all the remakes, but here it was the origin, turned into a screenplay by Carson,
Dorothy Parker, and Alan Campbell. The tale is by now familiar ground—a young
woman becomes a star overnight while simultaneously her husband experiences ruin.
A rise and a fall, all in lovely Technicolor!
Esther
Blodgett (Janet Gaynor) is an innocent but bright-eyed farmgirl who is intent
on making her way to Hollywood to become an actress. Against her father and
aunt’s wishes, but encouraged by her grandmother, Esther leaves the nest and
goes to Tinsel Town. She quickly learns that things are not so easy. With the
help of a neighbor, Danny (Andy Devine), who happens to be an assistant
director, she is placed in positions where she can “meet” people. Sure enough, she
encounters a big star, Norman Maine (Fredric March). Unfortunately, Norman’s
glory days seem to be behind him as the bottle has dictated a gradual descent in
popularity. Nevertheless, Norman is struck by Esther and finagles a screen test
for her with his producer, Oliver Niles (Adolphe Menjou). Oliver immediately
sees Esther’s potential, gives her the more marketable name of “Vicki Lester,” and
she is off and running. Promising to quit drinking, Norman asks Esther to marry
him, and she accepts. But as Esther/Vicki becomes more successful, Norman falls
off the wagon and their relationship goes off the rails.
There
is one scene that exists in all the versions of A Star is Born, and that
is when the husband embarrasses his wife during her moment of triumph at an
awards ceremony—here the event is the Oscars, as it is in the 1954 edition. The
moment is powerful and excruciating, and it is one of the reasons both Gaynor
and March were nominated for Best Actor and Actress for the film.
Producer
Selznick was known for overseeing lavish, gorgeous productions, and A Star
is Born fits the bill. Beautifully photographed in that distinctive, vivid
1930s Technicolor by W. Howard Greene (who received an Honorary Oscar for his
achievement), the picture displays the glitz and glamour of that bygone,
mythical Hollywood era. Director Wellman was nominated for his efforts, and the
movie was up for Best Picture (the category was called Best Production then).
Gaynor
is especially good, and March is always brilliant. The supporting cast—Menjou,
Devine, May Robson, Lionel Stander, and Edgar Kennedy—is stellar.
The
picture, while assuredly a drama that takes a hard look at the alcoholism
destroying Maine, is also striking for the amount of humor it contains. There
are many Hollywood in-jokes, such as when Gaynor impersonates several leading
actresses of the day when she is waitressing at a star-studded party. Stander,
Devine, and Kennedy, known for their comedic turns, also provide much of the
levity.
The
Warner Archive Blu-ray is a new, meticulous 4K restoration from the original
nitrate Technicolor camera negative, and it looks absolutely fantastic. In
keeping with Warner disks that employ “A Night at the Movies” supplements, this
one contains a treasure trove of extras. The 1938 cartoon, “A Star is Hatched,”
is one of those Looney Tunes that features Hollywood star caricatures, and it’s
hilarious. A 1937 comic short featuring Joe Palooka and Shemp Howard, “Taking
the Count,” is amusing, and two other vintage shorts—“Mal Hallett and His
Orchestra” and “Alibi Mark”—are also entertaining and indicative of the type of
fare one would see at the theater in those days. The disk also incudes two
different Lux Radio Theater broadcasts of the story—one from 1937 featuring
Janet Gaynor and Robert Montgomery, and one from 1952 starring Judy Garland and
Walter Pidgeon. The theatrical trailer rounds out the package.
This
new region-free Blu-ray edition from Warner Archive is a must for fans of any version
of A Star is Born. The 1937 original, though, is and will always be
grand entertainment. Highly recommended.
(NOTE:
Much of this review is repeated from an earlier Cinema Retro review of a
previous Blu-ray release.)
In
the world of the Jewish Conservative Orthodox community, a divorce is truly
final only when the husband presents his wife with a “get”—a document in Hebrew
that grants the woman her freedom to be with other men. Likewise, the wife must
accept the get before the man can re-marry, too.
This
is the crux of the story behind Hester
Street, an independent art-house film that appeared in 1975, written and
directed by Joan Micklin Silver. Starring Carol Kane, who was nominated for
Best Actress for her performance as Gitl, a newly arrived immigrant to New York
City in 1896, and Steven Keats as her husband Yankl, who, in an attempt to
assimilate, in public goes by the name “Jake.” Jake has been in America for a
while and isn’t looking forward to the arrival of his wife and son from Europe,
for he has begun an affair with a wealthy, assimilated actress in the Yiddish
theatre named Mamie. When the very traditional Gitl arrives with her son, the
marriage disintegrates.
Luckily,
Gitl meets Bernstein, an Orthodox man who is much more suited for her
requirements, seeing that Jake has become something of a capitalist cad.
Therefore, she needs a “get” from Jake so that both husband and wife can
divorce and go their separate ways. That’s when Mamie’s money comes into play.
Silver
beautifully rendered this period drama on a miniscule budget. Location shooting
took place in and around New York’s lower east side, where much of the flavor
of the late 19th Century Jewish Orthodox community is still pretty much the
same. Replace the cars with horses and buggies, get the correct vintage
costumes, and you’re more than halfway there. The dialogue is mostly in Yiddish
(with English subtitles), thus making it an American foreign language film—an
oddity in 1975, to be sure (although Coppola’s The Godfather Part II appeared a year earlier with a great amount
of its dialogue spoken in Sicilian).
Keats
plays Jake as a rake and a rascal, but our perception of him is not that of a
villain. In many ways, he is the generic immigrant who came to America and
sincerely tried to assimilate, become “American,” and leave the Old Country
traditions behind. His fault is that he dreams of making big money in the States and this becomes his all-consuming desire,
forgetting that he has a wife and son. Kane’s character and spot-on portrayal
not only illustrates the role of females in the Orthodox community, but in many
ways is a commentary on the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s.
Hester Street is a terrific little
film that went out of print on DVD years ago and became a collector’s item on
the resale market until a Blu-ray release appeared in 2015. With that also now
out of print, Cohen Media Group has issued a welcome new edition in a 4K
restoration. Filmed in black and white by Kenneth Van Sickle, the picture is
grainy and flat—much like the early silent cinema of the that era!—which
actually is quite appropriate for the movie’s setting. That said, the new
restoration considerably sharpens the images and the display is the best seen
since the movie’s 1975 theatrical release. The feature comes with an archival
audio commentary with director Silver and producer Raphael D. Silver.
Also
new to this release is supplementary material not present on the previous
Blu-ray. Approximately eight minutes of an alternate opening sequence, with
commentary by Daniel Kremer (author of an upcoming book about Silver and her
work), is an interesting find. There are two relatively recent video
conversations with director Silver and film historian Shonni Enelow about the
making of Hester Street and Silver’s career as a filmmaker (Silver died
in 2020). There are also vintage interviews with Carol Kane, Doris Roberts, and
both Joan and Raphael Silver, likely ported over from the old DVD release. The restoration
trailer rounds out the package.
Hester Street is an excellent synagogue
discussion-group item for American Jews who want to explore the immigration
scene and the topics of tradition and assimilation; but it is also a good
educational piece for non-Jews who want to learn a little bit about New York
history and the Jewish Orthodox religion. Recommended.
(Alan Ladd Jr. has passed away at the age of 84. In his honor, we're republishing Todd Garbarini's interview with him which originally ran in November, 2020.)
BY TODD GARBARINI
If you ask the average movie fan who Alan Ladd, Jr. is, you will
more than likely be greeted with a blank stare. Some might say, “Oh yeah, he
was in Shane!â€, erroneously thinking of his movie star father. If you
asked a movie fan who Laddie is, they would probably think you were referring
to that old TV show about the border collie. The truth is, “Laddie†is an
affectionate industry nickname for Alan Ladd, Jr., a man who grew up in and
made his profession in the movie business and has produced some of the greatest
and most successful films of all-time, including the Oscar-winning films The
Omen (1976), Chariots of Fire (1981) and Braveheart (1995). Arguably
his greatest professional decision was saying “yes†to George Lucas when all of
Tinseltown said “no†to his science fiction tale of a young man looking to
battle the Galactic Empire using a mysterious power known as The Force. The
Oscar-winning Star Wars (1977) paved the way for another film
green-lighted by Laddie, Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979).
A man of few words who prefers to work quietly under the radar and
on his own terms, Laddie is the subject of a new, award-winning documentary, Laddie,
The Man Behind The Movies, directed by his daughter, Amanda Ladd-Jones,
containing interviews with George
Lucas, Ridley Scott, Sigourney Weaver, Ben Affleck, Ron Howard, Morgan Freeman,
Mel Brooks, and Richard Donner to name a few, and has won the Best Documentary
Award at the 2019 Julien Dubuque International Film Festival, as well as
received nominations for Best Documentary and Best Film at both the 2018 Milano
International Film Festival Awards (MIFF Awards) and the 2018 NewFilmmakers Los
Angeles.
I spoke with Laddie about his career and Amanda on how the project
got started and became a reality.
Alan Ladd, Jr.: Rabbi Jacob, wow, I don’t even remember
what that was about!
Amanda Ladd-Jones: I never even heard of that movie! (laughs)
Todd Garbarini: It’s a hilarious slapstick comedy starring a very funny
French film actor, Louis de Funès, who unfortunately
passed away in 1983 at age 59. The film was subtitled, though I don’t recall
being able to read at the time! I was five years old and I just responded to
the onscreen action. The film revolves around all these shenanigans that he
finds himself in. It played here and there on the film repertoire circuit in
the 1980’s in New York, and I managed to see it again in August 1995 at the
Walter Reade Theatre near Lincoln Center.
Alan Ladd, Jr.:I’m glad that you liked it!
Todd Garbarini: Given
that your father, Alan Ladd, was a prominent film actor, do you personally feel
that it was inevitable that you would follow him into the film industry in some
capacity?
Alan
Ladd, Jr.:I guess so, since I was around it, and he sort of led me in
that direction. However, I never received any encouragement from him. I
always felt that I would be involved in movies somehow, but I didn’t know
exactly what it was I was actually going to do. I tried to be an assistant
director, but I couldn’t get into the Directors Guild. I tried to get into
editing, but I couldn’t get into the Editors Guild, either. So, I basically
ended up where I ended up through sheer luck more than anything else. There
weren’t any real options available, so I started off as an agent and then
worked my way up to film producer and then ultimately to studio head (of 20th
Century Fox).
Amanda Ladd-Jones: It’s probably safe to say that the Directors
Guild and the Editors Guild are lamenting the decisions that they made. They
probably could have collected some dues off of you!
Alan Ladd, Jr.:Well, they could have collected the dues,
yes, but I don’t know how the hell else they would have gotten anything else
out of me! (laughs)
Todd Garbarini: You’re described by Wikipedia as being a “film
industry executive and producer.†How do those roles differ?
Alan Ladd, Jr.:Well, an executive and a producer are
essentially the same thing. You basically have to try and find good material
and put it together and ultimately try and make the movie.
Amanda Ladd-Jones: The big difference between the two is that as
an executive, you have a steady paycheck!
Todd Garbarini: What would you say are some of the more difficult
aspects of being a producer, from your experience?
Alan Ladd, Jr.: For me, finding good material is ultimately the
most difficult aspect of the job. Once you do find really good material, then everything
else more or less just falls into place.
Todd Garbarini: In the pre-Internet days of mining and sourcing potential
material for a film, how did you go about finding good material? Did you sort
it out by reading books or reviews of books? Did you sort through
screenplays?
Alan
Ladd, Jr: It was a combination all of that, really. I
began my career as an agent in 1963 and I did that for a long time. It was
something that I enjoyed very much. As an agent, you learn a lot. You learn a
lot about how good deals are made and how bad deals are made. You learn to work
with the talent you represent, and you find out early on that they are just as
insecure as you are. These people may be famous stars, but they had their
insecurities and problems just like anybody else does.
Todd Garbarini: The 1970’s is, for me, the greatest decade in the
history of the American Cinema and William Friedkin’s The French Connection
from 1971 is my favorite movie of all-time. The outpouring of exceptional films
that were produced during this time was unbelievable. Star Wars was the
obvious watershed and May 25, 1977, the day of its release, is also known as
The Day the Movies Died, which I don’t feel is a fair assessment of the film’s
artistic accomplishments and intake at the box office. How did you come to meet
the film’s director, George Lucas?
Alan Ladd, Jr.: Well, Universal sent me a print of a movie he just
finished called American Graffiti. Universal didn't like the movie at
all and they had absolutely no desire to release it. So, they sent me a print
because they were really interested in getting the movie off their hands. They
wanted to sell it. So, I took a look at it at seven o’clock one morning, which
is really too early to be watching anything. I was very impressed with
it right off the bat. I thought the casting was terrific and I really liked the
way that George put the music in. So, I was impressed with the whole thing and
I called his agent and told him that I wanted to buy the film. Of course, once
I said that, Universal suddenly decided that if somebody wanted to actually buy
it that must mean that it must be good! So, they held onto it and decided to
release it themselves. It went on to be a very successful movie and made a lot
of money for Universal. Regardless, I still wanted to meet with George. We went
out for a drink and had a nice conversation. I asked him if he was working on
anything at the moment, and he told me that he had this idea for a movie that
was called Adventures of the Starkiller as taken
from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars. It went through many variations and had different titles. He later
wrote several different drafts which I heard about, but I never read them. He
wrote one draft that featured a lot of little people. That eventually morphed
into (Ron Howard’s 1988 film) Willow. So, eventually he produced Star
Wars, which is the script of the movie that we now have. At the time, though,
he gave me an earlier draft that ran nearly two hundred pages. I said, “George
this is ridiculous. This is going to be a five-hour movie!†He said, “No, it's
going to be two hours.†I said okay. He obviously knew more than I did! So, we
shot the film and it did come in just a few minutes over two hours. It was
obvious to me that he had written a script that was more for a director than it
was for me. I saw the film as it was being made. Several times, as I flew to
London to watch them shooting it.
Todd Garbarini: How difficult was it to get Star Wars made
at a time when science fiction films just weren’t big box office draws?
Alan Ladd, Jr.: It wasn't very difficult, really. It did go
considerably over budget which was difficult to explain. I mean, how do you
explain Wookies and droids to a board of directors? They don’t have any idea
what the hell you’re talking about. I’m sure it all sounded very crazy to them.
The film kept going over budget and the board kept demanding explanations for
that. At times, it was more difficult to keep the movie going than it was to just
get it going.
Todd Garbarini: That sounds like Jaws and what Steven
Spielberg went through on the set of that film, with Richard Zanuck and David
Brown trying to keep production afloat, no pun intended! What was your
reaction to the initial and explosive successive of Star Wars?
Alan Ladd, Jr.: It was wonderful. I remember thinking at the time,
Wow!