Quick takes on 5 classic films

Directed by Alexander Korda, That Hamilton Woman from 1941 starred one of the biggest Hollywood couples in its time, Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. Both were established stars (Leigh was just 2 years removed from her breakthrough on Gone With the Wind) and this film was a big hit. It starts with Emma Hamilton as an aged, haggard thief in London, and after being apprehended, she shares her life tale with her fellow prisoners. Born a poor country girl but with a startling beauty, Emma attracted the attention of a noble diplomat in Naples. She marries the much older man, but is drawn towards a younger war hero (England was, as always, in a series of wars with France). However, Emma finds it is much easier to live with her very public affair in Naples than in England when they return there. Like a lot of movies featuring real-life couples, their acting together feels a little wooden at times (strange that real chemistry is so hard to capture on film), but it is a well done film, and Leigh shines in her soliloquies, as she so often did.

I seem to say this a lot, but 12 Angry Men, directed by Sidney Lument, is one of the best films I’ve seen in a while. For a movie with no action and no change of scenes (all but a couple minutes takes place in a jury deliberation room), it is supremely, nail-bitingly intriguing. The premise is a young man is on trial for murdering his father, and the case against him is seemingly ironclad. The jury’s preliminary vote is 11-1 for guilty, with the sole dissenter being juror # 8 (Henry Fonda). He sees minor problems in the prosecution that creates doubt in his eyes. He spends the hour and a half of the film pleading the case for the accused to his fellow jurors. The dialogue in this film is fantastic, the moments of clarity among the jurors is thrilling. A truly incredible movie.

I’m not going to say anything more about 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express (also directed by Sidney Lument) than go see it. Get it on Netflix, check TCM, whatever you need to do. Far superior to the recent remake, this one is a true gem. Whereas the new one has an all-star cast, this one has an all-legends cast, featuring Albert Finney, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman (who won an Oscar), Lauren Bacall, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, and Martin Balsam, among others. The classic story of a group of passengers stuck on a train where a murder has happened, with Agatha Christie’s favorite detective, Hercule Poirot, there to solve it. The original “Clue” mystery of who-done-it, with-what, and how?

This Happy Breed, directed by David Lean, came out in 1944, but was based on a Noel Coward play from 1939, and follows a family in London in the 20 year period between the end and beginning of the two World Wars. The opening shot is of the family moving in to a new flat. Being lower-middle class, a large group shares the small space, including mother and father, their 3 near-adult children, the father’s sister, and the mother’s mom. A quiet film, it portrays the daily lives of this group, showing the big moments over their 20 years in the house. The children grow and get married and lead their own lives. The parents go with the flow through it all, as friends and family come and go, some permanently through death unfortunately. There is a poignant moment at the end, when all have moved out and mom and dad are left in the house alone and they too are moving out to a smaller place, where the father remarks that most rooms look bigger when they are emptied of furniture, but this one seems smaller. The movie ends as it began, and the front door of the house, though this time with people leaving. A very nice little film.

David Lean’s acknowledged masterpiece is Lawrence of Arabia. About the life of T.E. Lawrence, it is a long historical epic, coming in at nearly 4 hours in length, the kind of film that would have a hard time getting made today. I thought this very thing in fact early in the film when Lawrence and his desert guide, finding relief at a well, see a figure approaching from the distance. In suspenseful dead silence, the movie lets this unknown character slowly creep towards our protagonist. This quiet, long sequence isn’t fast paced enough for today’s movie goers, but it is brilliant in its simplicity. This film plays out like this scene; it lets the plot develop and come to the viewer, slowly but surely. Brash young Lawrence finds fame as an English officer in the Arab revolt, fighting alongside Arabs in their quest for independence from the Ottoman Empire. Without his knowledge, his quest is silently backed by the English powers, who hope to gain a foothold in the area after World War I. Later in the war, when Lawrence finds himself surrounded by people more interested in money than freedom, he finds that he too has changed, or perhaps, his love of war was always there with him. The film won 7 of the 10 Oscars it was nominated for in 1962.