ZOOEY DESCHANEL’S ‘NEW GIRL’ FIRST TV HIT OF THE SEASON 

Whether it’s on television or in the movies, Deschanel deserves to be a star. With so many cookie-cutter actresses out there, she really stands out. There’s a quality about her and a very real talent. Though I’ve never met her, I did get a chance to watch her work for a day on a film set and can testify that she’s every bit as charismatic and fetching in real life. And that voice … wow. 

WHAT?!?! MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS LOST A PART TO JAMIE FOXX? 

What was Quentin Tarantino thinking? Normally, I wouldn’t even come close to questioning the director’s normally inspired casting choices, but just the idea of Williams — who brought to life “The Wire’s” Omar, one of the greatest characters on the big screen or small — in the title role of Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” makes me want to get in line for a ticket now.

Nothing against Jamie Foxx, but Williams is one of those once in a generation actors. Reportedly, Tarantino is writing a part in the film just for him. So that helps some.

Some. 

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINK-TACULAR

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KIRSTEN STEWART AS SNOW WHITE …  ON A HORSE

‘AMERICAN HORROR STORY’ OPENING CREDITS ARE TOTALLY CREEPY 

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CLASSIC PICK FOR FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30

TCM:

8:00 PM  ET Point Blank (1967)  –  A gangster plots an elaborate revenge on the wife and partner who did him dirty. Dir: John Boorman Cast:  Lee Marvin,  Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn. C-92 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format.

Mel Gibson did his best to recreate this classic with “Payback,” but he threw too much charm into the character, tried too hard to get us to like him. Lee Marvin, on the other hand, couldn’t give a damn whether we like him or not, which is one of the main reasons the film works so well.

From the moment you see Marvin walking through that long LAX hallway that leads you out of the airport and into the City of Angels, this killing machine is on a trajectory of violence and vengeance that not even a willing Angie Dickinson can slow. Brutal, nasty, ugly and awesome.

Oh and Angie Dickinson is about as smoking hot here as smoking hot gets.

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The reasons for this are legion. First and foremost, Wayne was a second-to-none screen presence. There aren’t many actors who could blow the likes of Lee Marvin, Kirk Douglas, Montgomery Clift, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda or John Ford’s wonderful collection of character actors off the screen — but Wayne could without moving a muscle. He also personified the flawed but sympathetic hero, the loner who lived by a simple code and was rarely welcomed into the civilization that wouldn’t have been possible without his violence. And finally, John Wayne was one of the greatest actors to ever grace the silver screen; the rare movie star who not only possessed range, but also a bottomless emotional depth in his well-known screen persona.  There will never be another John Wayne and that I have lived long enough to see our critical community finally (and in some cases, grudgingly) come to terms with that means more to me than I can express.

Something else the Duke did very, very right – again, better than any other movie star – was to make one damn fine film after another. After toiling away in quickie Westerns for over a decade, Wayne finally became a star portraying the Ringo Kid (greatest character introduction ever) in John Ford’s unqualified 1939 masterpiece “Stagecoach.” From there he never looked back or stopped working straight through to his fitting final role as a dying gunfighter in “The Shootist” (1976). In-between, though, he starred in nearly 80 films, a canon of work that – at least to us Wayne fans – contains surprisingly few clunkers.

Forget about the dozen-plus outright masterpieces like “The Searchers” and “Red River.” Discovering Wayne’s lesser-known, pre-1960 titles such as “Wake of the Red Witch,” “Seven Sinners,“ “Dakota,” and “Tall in the Saddle,” is to discover a treasure-trove of unpretentious, well-paced stories, perfectly staged around their star and surprisingly diverse in both tone and genre. For every dud like “The Conqueror” or “The Barbarian and the Geisha” there are three undeniable classics, five objectively terrific adventures, and two offerings only a Wayne devotee could love, like “Blood Alley” or “The Hellfighters.”  You can’t underestimate how much this large bounty of good material contributes to Wayne’s enduring appeal.  

Many movie stars from the classic era have a pretty good batting average when it comes their legacy (especially when compared to today’s stars), but very few worked non-stop over five decades or starred in the kinds of films that never seem to age. Action-adventures and robust comedies always play well and Wayne’s have remained especially timeless due to enduring themes that examine everything from courage and honor to the poison of racism to what it means to be a man. Quality and quantity. Incredibly, however, Wayne’s batting average only improved as he got older.

From 1960 until his death, Wayne starred in nearly 25 films that to this day seem to loop endlessly on cable television – and for very good reason. These are the films that made me a fan. In my late teens, I spent an entire summer renting one VHS after another from the local library and was rewarded each time with rollicking adventure, good humor, and the kind of life lessons the smart-set now calls corny. But they’re wrong.

These films endure thanks in large part to deceptively complicated themes and characters. “In Harm’s Way” (1965), deals with rape; “The Green Berets” (1968), hot-button politics; “The Undefeated” (1969), national reconciliation and forgiveness; “Big Jake” (1971) and “The Cowboys” (1972) both contain children menaced by sadistic killers; “Cahill U.S. Marshall” (1973) pits a father’s values against his own son’s criminality and “The Shootist” (1976) deals with your time coming to end as poignantly as any film ever has. I could go on, but you get the idea. Which brings me to the reason you’re all here…

Directed in 1960 by one of the greatest studio directors of all time, the legendary Michael Curtiz (directing his lastfilm), in many ways “The Comancheros” set the template for the rest of John Wayne’s career. So it’s fitting that on its 50^th anniversary this is one of the few Wayne films (thus far) to get a top-shelf Blu-ray release as a special edition with a ton of superb extras.

The year is 1843 and the place Texas. Wayne plays Texas Ranger Capt. Jake Cutter, a widower of two-plus years still in mourning over the untimely death of his beloved wife. Charged with bringing in Paul Regret (Stuart Whitman), a sophisticated, well-dressed ladies man (Frenchman to be more accurate) who killed a rival for a woman’s affections during a gentleman’s pistol duel, at first the two men engage in some standard snob meets slob comedy,  but this comes to an abrupt end once they enter Indian territory. Life with the Comanches was never easy in Texas but a renegade band of black market gun runners who call themselves the Comancheros have stirred things up and now innocent settlers are paying the price.

Regret escapes, Cutter has bigger things to worry about and goes undercover to infiltrate the brutal and secretive world of the Comancheros, and from there the plot moves with lightning speed and wraps up with one of my favorite closing lines from any movie: “Don’t forget to mend those fences!” You’ll have to see it to know of what I speak.

The widescreen Cinemascope transfer is absolutely gorgeous, Elmer Bernstein’s score contagious, and Lee Marvin’s few minutes of screen time as the trigger-tempered Tully Crow unforgettable; a future superstar being born before your very eyes. And like the films mentioned above, there’s also a number of complicated themes at work. The story opens with the kind of sexuality you rarely saw in 1960 and as was almost always the case in Wayne’s Westerns, the relationship and portrayal of the Indians was nowhere near as black and white as his critics would lead you to believe.

But best of all this is a John Wayne film, one that plays to his endless supply of strengths and never stops entertaining over 107 minutes. The extras are just as good and alone are worth the price of the disc. There’s feature-length commentary with, among others, Whitman and Wayne’s son Patrick (who has a small but memorable role); a two-part documentary , “The Duke at Fox,” that examines Wayne’s legendary feud with studio head Daryl Zanuck, and a historical look at the settling of the Southwest that’s shockingly non-PC. packaging is very nice, as well.

Frequently I’ve dreamt of a gizmo that could erase my already bad memory and allow me the pleasure of discovering any number of treasured films again for the very first time. This isn’t the case with Wayne, though. The pleasure has always been in rediscovering his films, returning to the comfort of them again and again. Great stories, great action, great dialogue and always in the subtext the challenge to become a better man.

Hollywood used to be great and thanks to DVD and Blu-ray it thankfully doesn’t matter what they are today.

Contrast that to the soul-crushing dismay when you realize that what you hoped would be a great couple of hours is instead going to be a dreary death-march of clichés, lazy writing and bad music broken only occasionally when you glance longingly at your watch and wish you could have your $11.50 and two hours back. 

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You know a great opening when you see it; if fact, you feel it.  My definition of “opening” is rather loose.  An opening can go up to, or past the credits, or it may just be the credit sequence itself.  Some openings are rather long, 10-15 minutes.  Some are just a couple of minutes.  There is no one formula for a great opening – the ten listed here as my personal favorites are as different from each other as Democratic Party governance is from competent leadership.  But there are some common threads.  A great opening tells you something about the story you will see.  It might be in words of formal narration, or a sequence that takes you into the story, or in some cases it’s just a few images.  There may be prominent music, or little or none.  But when the opening is over, you are ready – you understand enough to begin the journey.  And, more importantly, you are eager to go. 

It’s easy – and serves an important purpose – to point out where Hollywood fails.  But it’s a special pleasure to point out where it got it just perfect.  Here are my Top 10 favorite movie openings: 

1. The Guns of Navarone (1961) 

This is one of the great “men on a mission” WWII movies of the Sixties, a rousing story of a band of commandos led by Gregory Peck trying to destroy the titular cannons on a German-occupied Greek island.  This 5 ½ minute opening sequence is an example of narration and music in action.  Over beautiful shots of Greek ruins intercut with newsreel footage, James Robertson Justice provides a detailed prologue setting up the story (though, sadly, the narration track is not on YouTube) while Dimitri Tiomkin’s Oscar nominates score plays quietly. 

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It’s one of the screen’s great orchestral themes, and as the narration ends and the opening credits begin it sweeps up into its full glory – rousing, majestic and stirring.  You watch the Cyrillic-style star credits flash by – Greg Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn – as that score plays and you know you’re about to watch one of Hollywood’s adventures.  

2. Alien (1979) 

Ridley Scott’s extraterrestrial terrorfest is one of only two movies that every really, truly scared me.  In contrast to the crowded, familiar outer space of Star Wars (see below), Scott’s universe is silent and cold, at once claustrophobic and massive. 

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With the terrible emptiness of space as the background, the opening credits leisurely form the title “Alien” as Jerry Goldsmith’s superbly creepy and jarring score sets you on edge.  Audiences had never seen or heard anything like it, and it set exactly the right tone of dread and disorientation that would permeate one of the greatest movies ever made.  

3. The Wild Bunch (1969) 

A band of cavalry troopers led by the heroic William Holden slowly ride into a dusty western town – they’re clearly the good guys, right?  Director Sam Peckinpah takes it nice and slow while dropping hints – a bunch of kids torment some scorpions, and when the credits come on screen Peckinpah photo-reverses Holden’s image, like Holden is the opposite of what he appears to be. 

Holden escorts an elderly lady across the street.  Ernest Borgnine even offers to carry her boxes – how nice of him!  Then they enter the bank and draw guns as Holden throws a civilian to the floor and orders his men, “If they move – kill ‘em!”  And then they shoot their way out of town in a bloody gun battle that leaves criminals, bounty hunters and a score of innocent civilians strewn across the streets. 

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Can you say “Anti-heroes?”  Well, you don’t have to – after that amazing opening, you knew that you were watching something entirely new.  And you knew that it wasn’t going to have a happy ending. Just an awesome one. 

4. Se7en (1995)

Here, director David Fincher wants to take us into the mind of a serial killer, but not in the same way a thousand hack directors had.  Se7en’s opening credits, set to Trent Reznor’s “Closer,” are displayed over a series of icky, freaky images – many of which, in retrospect, turn out to relate to the story to come (Look for the shot of the book discussing pregnancy!).  You know you’re on you’re way to crazyland, and you know you have no idea what’s going to happen next. 

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The credits are not a particularly delightful experience, and neither is the film.  But, undeniably, there is nothing else like it, and Fincher created an opening that was worthy of it. 

5. Goldfinger (1964)

There had to be a James Bond film on this list, and the most James Bond film of all James Bond film is Goldfinger.  The third of the series (you can read much more about it in Lawrence Meyer’s Big Hollywood series), it set in concrete many of the Bond traditions that would follow through five decades of  Bonds up through today. 

A Bond opening has three parts.  The first is the MGM lion roaring and the dancing dot that becomes the barrel of a gun aimed right at 007, who pivots at the last second and fires, followed by the animated sheet of blood pouring down the screen as the dot finds a corner and expands into the cold open action sequence. 

The opening sequence rarely has anything to do with the plot (though the recent ones are going in a different direction).  Here, Bond infiltrates an enemy facility disguised with a duck on his head.  Yeah, unfortunately there’s a bit of silliness in some of these, but it fades into a nice fight in a hotel room (where the amoral Bond uses a femme fatale’s head as a shield) and gives us one of the earliest hero quips: “Shocking, absolutely shocking,” he remarks about the baddie he just electrocuted. 

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Now, the third part of a Bond opening is the main titles, and these – with the legendary Shirley Bassey singing the best of the Bond themes – are just great.  Scenes of the film play out on the golden skin of a naked model as the credits play.  That pretty much sums up our James Bond.  Pretty girl, beware of this heart of gold! 

6. Star Wars (1977) 

In nerdspeak, it’s Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.  But since I saw it in the theater, and I don’t put up with geek nonsense, this was, is and ever shall be known only as Star Wars.  And seeing it in the theater – as well as being around for the incredibly revolutionary effect Star Wars had on the movies – makes this legendary opening all the more memorable.  

We sat in the theater, the lights go down, the 20^th Century Fox intro played followed by the sky blue titles on a black field reading “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”  Then BLAM!  John Williams’s unforgettable score hits you.  The iconic Star Wars graphic appears on the screen followed by the written explanation of the nonsensical plot.  Then the camera falls, a musical freefall supported by the score, and BLAM!   We are in a space battle with starships the likes we had never seen before that day in 1977.  

Maybe you had to be there…. 

7. The Dirty Dozen (1967)

Another terrific Sixties WWII “men on a mission” movie, but it could not be more different from Guns of Navarone in story, tone or opening.  It opens cold as a hearse enters a military prison.  The inmates are rioting as a condemned prisoner is being led to his doom.  On the gallows stands Lee Marvin as Major Reisman, who watches the proceedings with grim detachment, pausing only to glance at the priest’s Bible with a raised eyebrow.  The sentence completed, he departs.  A title card announces we are in London in 1944.  Reisman then gets his mission from our old pal, General Ernest Borgnine, in a great scene, snappy scene.  The jousting among the characters is marvelous – we learn just what kind of man Reisman is not just from dialogue describing him but from his actions.  He then returns to the prison to meet his team of convicts.  Only then, about 10 minutes in, do the credits play as the sergeant introduces each one with character name, crime and sentence. 

In one economical, fluid opening, we meet and understand the hero, learn about his challenge and get thoroughly introduced to each of the Dozen.  Now that’s how a movie is made! 

8. Gone With the Wind (1939)

Just a title card, credits and the lush, amazing score of composer Max Steiner provide a worthy opening to what many consider the greatest American film ever made.  GWTW was a huge event when released, and in those days they felt they had to make a film worthy of the hype.  It was also better than three hours long.  Sure, critics today have problems with it – they probably feel it lacks alienated hipster characters whining about their feelings, and they astonishingly expect a 70+ year old movie to share the same lockstep vision of political correctness that characterizes the Hollywood of today (conveniently forgetting the fact that GWTW was revolutionary in the dignity it bestowed on many black characters, a dignity you will not find in the average gangster rap video or Martin Lawrence “funny black guy in a fat suit” sequel.) 

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The opening is amazing.  Steiner’s music begins with a flourish that evokes the Old South with a hint of “Dixie” then turns into the sweeping, grand “Tara’s Theme” as a title card sets the stage and then the credits roll over an idealized backdrop of a life soon to be swept away.  As a son of the Union whose family’s home town of Chambersburg was burned by Confederates (and whose great-great grandfather preceded me as a U.S. Army cavalryman by 125 years), I have no illusions about where the pretty life the characters live early in the movie came from, but the opening still perfectly captures the sense of these characters whose way of life would be “gone with the wind” of history during the course of this magnificent film. 

9. Magnum Force (1973)

Yeah, this one tells you all you need to know about the next two and a half hours of awesome, prime Eastwood mayhem.  

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A disembodied hand raises up and holds a Smith & Wesson .44 magnum revolver over a red background for a couple minutes as the credits run and Lalo Schifrin’s awesome, swingin’ n’ jazzy theme plays.  That’s it.  That’s all. 

Then the thumb pulls back the hammer, the looming barrel swings toward the audience, and Clint intones his famous “Do you feel lucky?” line from the original Dirty Harry.  Wait a beat.  BLAM! 

Rad.  Well, a man’s got to know his limitations.  And if you don’t dig that opening, it’s your manhood that’s limited. 

10. The Road Warrior (1981) 

Wind.  “My life fades.  My vision dims.  All that remains…. are memories.  I remember a time of chaos.  Ruined dreams, this wasted land.  But most of all, I remember the Road Warrior”  

With these words, uttered by the now elderly Feral Kid, one of the best action films ever made begins.  You don’t need to have seen the original Mad Max – the narration and footage bring you up to speed on the scenario, and on Max, and on why he went out to the desert…. 

But the narration isn’tall.  No, it’s just the beginning, because as the narration ends and director George Miller’s camera swoops down onto the endless road, the white lines shooting past, into darkness as a roar overtakes you.  And the roar gets louder and louder, and then the camera pulls back out of a tunnel, but it’s not a tunnel at all – it’s the yawning mouth of the supercharger on Max’s car, “the last of the V8 Interceptors.”  And we are right in the midst of Max’s latest asphalt battle for his life. 

Okay Hollywood, that’s how it’s done.

Look at the leading men of today. When I saw Leonardo DiCaprio as a tough guy in Gangs of New York I wasn’t sure if it was a drama or a comedy. Matt Damon isn’t too bad but I‘m not convinced he could take a punch. I like Bill Pullman but he looks like he is always on the verge of breaking into tears. George Clooney, please my sister could throw him down and twist him up like a pretzel.

Here are my top five unrecognized real men of filmdom. I skipped the obvious choices like The Duke and Clint and went for some guys who are well known but not often looked at as Alpha dogs. Can you imagine any of these guys sitting in anything but a leather barber chair? Can you see any of them wondering if they should get frosted tips or a mani-pedi? Just being a tough guy wasn’t enough for my list they also had to have the craft of acting down too!

Even modern actors who seem to know their way around a good street fight like Vin Diesel and The Rock don’t have the acting chops that a lot of the classic tough guys did.  What’s that?  Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme? I like Chuck’s politics and Seagal’s new reality show has promise but please don’t waste my time trying to convince me that those guys wouldn’t wilt under the steely eyed stare of any of the five guys in my list. Hum… While you’re reading I’m stepping out for a burger. 

5. Richard Roundtree 

One word – Shaft! They say this cat is a bad mother….and he is! Richard is a New Yorker, football player and manly enough to beat a rare form of male breast cancer.

4. Lee Marvin  

One of my favorite all time movie bad guys is Liberty Valence. So much pure evil without a hint of any redeeming social value he could have been a Democrat. He served in World War Two and was wounded in the battle of Saipan. He would have been higher on my list but I have talked to a few people who knew him and he was apparently a pretty nasty guy in real life. They invented the word “palimony” for this guy.

3. Charles Bronson 

From The Magnificent Seven to his series of Death Wish films he was a man of few words. He hung in with wife Jill Ireland as she suffered through cancer. That’s a man!  

2, Edward G Robinson

The real OG! From being Little Caesar Rico to the evil Dathan and then slapping down a straight flush on fellow tough guy Steve McQueen in the Cincinnati Kid nobody was more the quintessential American tough guy than Eddie G.  Not bad for a Jewish kid from Romania!

1.  Denzel Washington  

The epitome of the modern strong silent type. Who else could play Malcolm X, the rogue cop in Training Day, a stoic naval officer and a tort lawyer and make them all sympathetic? I can’t wait to see the Book of Eli. My favorite Denzel tough guy line is when as Detective Keith Frazier in Inside Man he enters a restaurant and the maître d asked him, “May I have your hat?”  He comes back with, “No get your own!” Shades of Philip Marlow!

Born in 1916 in Brooklyn, Gleason was no stranger to tragedy. His sickly brother died when he was three, and his mother died when he was nineteen. But it was his father vanishing that gouged the biggest hole in his soul. “I was about nine when one day my pop didn’t come home,” Gleason said in later years. “A few days before, my mom and he had a violent argument and he took every picture out of the house that had him in it. That should have been the tip-off, but I was too young to know.”

The sudden loss sent both him and his mother into an emotional tailspin. “On Christmas Eve, Mom and I went to midnight mass at Our Lady of Lourdes church. I prayed that Pop was still alive — and that he would come back to us. I was scared to death.” But all the prayers came to naught, and his dad’s disappearance haunted him for the rest of his life:

If he had only dropped by once to say hello. Surely, he must have seen me on TV. Everybody else in the country did. I never was angry about Pop leaving us. I figured there must be something between him and Mom that I didn’t know about. He always was OK with me. He had a great sense of humor, that I do remember.

If he had just dropped by once. Just once.

Gleason’s school years were rebellious, but performing in an eighth-grade play changed his life. At one point a microphone tipped over and the school principal ran out to set it aright. Almost without thinking Gleason looked out at the audience, pointed at the departing principal with his thumb in classic Ralph Kramden fashion, and quipped, “That’s the first thing you have ever done for this school.” It brought the house down, and on the way home his Mom gave him his first review: “You were good — but too damn fresh.” At that moment he knew he wanted — needed — to be on stage.

He began emceeing local auto shows, and by age twelve was frequenting billiard halls and developing into a competent pool shark, a skill that would lend authenticity to his Academy Award nominated performance in The Hustler decades later. After his Mother died he went to downtown New York and began seeking out gigs at bars and nightclubs, and quickly he realized that he was far funnier drunk than sober. Alcohol would become a crutch, a salve, and a joy for the rest of his life.

Through dogged perseverance he clawed his way up to Broadway shows, and eventually caught the attention of Jack Warner, head of the Warner Brothers movie studio, who signed him to a Hollywood contract. Bit parts in movies followed, but it was the budding medium of television that really sent his career into high gear. A series of increasingly successful shows led him to his career triumph, The Honeymooners:

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The now-legendary program was a perfect storm of talent and genius. Various lines from that show and others — “And away we go!”, “How sweet it is!”, “Do you wanna go to the moon?”, “POW! Right in the kisser!”, “Baby, you’re the greatest.” — all became a part of the national vernacular. Gleason became known as a fun-loving carpe diem celebrity and a comedian nonpareil. But by the Seventies, his glory days were long behind him.

Then one day he got a script in the mail from Hal Needham.

The part as written was small and fairly nondescript, but Needham promised he could improvise — every word if need be. Gleason, an improv master who disdained following scripts, was intrigued. Here was a rare, late-career chance to build a character from the ground up, just like in the old days. Just about any other screenwriter/director would have balked at letting an actor toss out the screenplay, but Needham figured that “You’re messin’ with perfection when you try to tell Jackie Gleason how to be funny.”

The movie’s other big star agreed. Since both actors lived in Florida, Burt Reynolds paid his elder a visit. When he asked the old master how he thought the sheriff should be played, Gleason replied with an emphatic, “I see him as talking filthy!” According to Reynolds, he then “did an impression of a Southern sheriff that caused me to fall down laughing. Overly polite to women, Jackie explained, those sheriffs would get the man and say, ‘Look, you sumbitch, what the f*** you think you’re doin’?”

“I knew when Burt and Hal Needham the director wanted me to play that sheriff, I had to come up with something different,” Gleason said later. “The redneck sheriff had been done too often before. That’s why I drew the pencil mustache and came up with the expression ‘sumbitch.’”

There’s a perception among many critics and even fans that Buford T. Justice is a ridiculous clown of a character unworthy of the same respect Gleason gets for earlier roles like Ralph Kramden, Joe the Bartender, and Reginald Van Gleason the Third. In truth, the performance is hardly one-note, or even particularly outrageous. Far from being a hopeless doofus, Sheriff Justice starts out as a formidable adversary. His opening scene shows him (aside for the antics of his dumb son) expertly handling a bunch of kids stripping his son’s wedding car. Throughout the film he veers between the outward politeness and decorum expected of a respected officer of the law, and explosions of frustration at barely missing his wily quarry. It’s a character that has a surprisingly realistic core despite the lunacy of the stunts and the high-octane chases, just as Ralph Kramden could get caught up in the silliest situations and yet always come across as a true, emotionally resonant personality and not a cartoon.

Of course, just like with his past great characters, Gleason in Smokey and the Bandit gave audiences a host of new lines of dialogue to add to the pop-culture vernacular:

“What we’re dealing with here is a complete lack of respect for the Law.”

“Put da evidence in da car.”

“I’m gonna barbecue your ass in molasses!”

“Where are you, you sumbitch!?!”

There are comic moments in this movie that have seldom been equaled, and I can still remember the thunderous explosions of laughter that erupted from 1977 audiences watching Gleason on screen. At one point, when a rival sheriff tells him that something “isn’t germane to this situation,” Gleason replies with a seething, “The goddamn Germans got nothing to do with it!” At another juncture, as a long funeral procession has temporarily halted the pursuit, Gleason reluctantly stops his car, removes his hat in a sign of respect, and growls under his breath: “If they’d cremated the sonofabitch, I’d be kickin’ that Mr. Bandit’s ass around the moon by now.”

All of these lines, great and small, were improvised by Gleason on the set, frequently accompanied by gales of laughter from the cast and crew. No expert comedy writers, no years of developing drafts — just a grandmaster bringing forty years of experience to bear on a role with no interference.

“Jackie was brilliant on his own,” Reynolds says, “For instance, it was his idea to have the toilet paper coming out of his pant-leg when he left the Bar-B-Q, which put me on the floor.” A master improviser himself, the younger actor expertly played straight man to Gleason, letting him get most of the big laughs and in the process becoming Gleason’s finest comic foil since Art Carney’s Ed Norton from The Honeymooners. “I have always prided myself on being able to make chicken salad out of chicken shit,” Reynolds says with typical self-effacement, “but Jackie can make it into cordon bleu.”

Smokey and the Bandit helped Gleason as much as Gleason helped it, but it was for all practical purposes his last hurrah. The next year, he suffered a heart attack on stage and had a triple-bypass. He kept acting for another decade, a period that included two terrible Smokey sequels. Smokey II did well (even the thoroughly awful Smokey III made a bit of money) but his other movies flopped, and his health deteriorated with them. He died in 1987, on the heels of his final role, Nothing in Common, with a young Tom Hanks.

In all probability, history will primarily remember him for two roles: Ralph Kramden (there’s even a statue of Gleason as Kramden in front of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey bus terminal) and Buford T. Justice. Of course, not everyone agrees with this assessment. In the single worst biography on Jackie Gleason (and, not coincidentally, the one most embraced by critics and fans on the left), the late Pulitzer Prize-winning author William A. Henry III provides us with an uncharitable description of the aged comedian during the period of his Smokey and the Bandit renaissance. Deriding the often-sweet Bandit as “a coarse movie,” Henry sees the sixty-year-old Gleason as

a pathetic sot. Trapped in the lifestyle and bad habits of the forties while living in a society obsessively self-absorbed with the health consciousness of the eighties, this Gleason was merely a clown, the only interesting element about him the hint of willful self-destruction in his sprees.

With a sneer, Henry goes on to reluctantly grant that, “Gleason claimed to have improvised much of his role, which is not implausible given the general state of the script, and he inspired Burt Reynolds to describe him as the greatest genius Reynolds had worked with (one must note that Olivier, Gielgud, Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman do not adorn Reynolds’ resume.)”

Yes, “one must note,” mustn’t one? This line of attack always cracks me up. Which great American actors, pray tell, have Bergman and Kurosawa adorning their resumes? And are Laurence “Clash of the Titans” Olivier and John “Arthur” Gielgud really not to be spoken of in the same breath as (to take a sampling from Reynolds’ resume) Lee Marvin, Dana Andrews, Darren McGavin, Harry Dean Stanton, Howard Keel, Ossie Davis, Melvyn Douglas, Yul Brenner, Jon Voight, Woody Allen, Gene Hackman, Lotte Lenya, Myrna Loy, Pat O’Brien, Charles Durning, David Niven, Jessica Tandy, Julie Andrews, Clint Eastwood, and Hal Holbrook?

The truth is that Jackie Gleason was a genius, Reynolds’ pride in starring alongside him is perfectly valid, and it is a truly uncharitable soul who sneers at the “lifestyle and bad habits of the forties.” At one point during the filming of Smokey and the Bandit, Gleason was well into his lunchtime cups (friends recall his usual noon repast as being “six double scotches with no ice, no soda, no water, and no food”). Suddenly there was a loud crash — Gleason had fallen backward in his chair, upending it and tumbling to the ground. Heart attack? Stroke? Reynolds and the rest of the crew rushed over. There was the fallen chair, with Gleason’s two legs sticking up in the air behind it and one arm stretched skyward like the Statue of Liberty, holding aloft a cup brimming with booze. From behind the wreckage came muffled laughter and a slurred cry of triumph: “I didn’t spill a drop!”

They called him The Great One for a reason, folks.

Next Saturday in For Conservative Movie Lovers, we dig into the production of Smokey and the Bandit, and look at how a neophyte director and a largely improvisational cast managed to create a comedy classic.

Previous posts in the series “Hal Needham, Burt Reynolds and Smokey and the Bandit”:

Part 1 | Part 2

FURTHER READING and VIEWING

Jackie Gleason in Modern Drunkard magazine: One of the joys in researching Gleason was discovering this wonderful journal. Part serious effort to turn back the relentless encroachment of the nanny-state where drinking and fun are concerned, part Mad Magazine/National Lampoon laugh-fest, editor Frank Kelly Rich clearly has a blast tweaking the tender sensibilities of the humorless, life-crushing, nightmare Utopians on the Left. But under the jokes and parodies lies a serious and principled defense of basic freedoms and one’s right to engage in a healthy enjoyment and relish of life. Definitely read his excellent overview of Jackie during his prime, and also check out the hilarious “Clash of the Tightest” elimination tournament staged to determine the greatest boozer of all time. You think Gleason has a chance to take the title from the likes of Hemingway, Poe, Bukowski, Thomas, Fitzgerald, Byron, Burton, Ruth, and Bogart? Click on the link to find out.

Here’s a rare YouTube video showing Jackie Gleason coming out for Richard Nixon for President in 1968, at the very height of the hippie madness. “How sweeeet it is!”:

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There’s tons more Gleason material on YouTube — interviews, television clips, even musical numbers he composed. Grab a cocktail and happy browsing.

You’ve probably experienced the Basterds publicity blitz.  Brad Pitt looks like he stepped out of a Calvin Klein underwear ad. Folks I know who have been around him say he really is a pleasant and laid-back guy, and these are hardly the characteristics of a beady-eyed killer.  Creepy Eli Roth, taking some time off from directing his degenerate torture movies, is just a leering clown – he looks like he should be squatting in the back of his Ford panel van offering Tootsie Rolls to passing tweens.  And B.J. Novak?  The guy is a hilarious writer and is really funny in The Office , but I’m not buying this cat as the scourge of the Third Reich.

In contrast, Lee Marvin’s tough guy legacy lives on despite the fact that his body rests with thousands of other heroes in Arlington National Cemetery. He earned that right when he was wounded fighting the Imperial Japanese Army in the Pacific as a Marine private. His Purple Heart is 100% USDA certified proof positive of his prime badassary. Who is the Hollywood tough guy of today who can dare step up to the Lee Marvin plate and take a swing?

Nobody.

Marvin got discharged from the Corps, came home and started doing crummy odd jobs to support himself – his willingness to work instead of freeloading off of others is itself an anachronism in today’s entitlement culture. He found acting and appeared in various supporting roles until he starred in a hit television series (M Squad) and moved on to bigger roles. He even won an Oscar for Cat Ballou.  Serving his country, working hard, honing his craft and winning the recognition of his peers – Lee Marvin’s career had a lot in common with that of fellow all-American badass Ernest Borgnine.   

How tough was the on-screen Marvin? He brawled with the Duke in Donovan’s Reef and stalked Chuck Bronson as a Mountie (!) in Death Hunt. His classic performance as the grizzled First Infantry Division squad leader in The Big Red One has inspired legions of American sergeants.

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Check him out in 1967’s Point Blank. As Walker, a single-minded human tsunami of violence, he smashes through the psychedelic Sixties’ Summer of Love with his .357 and mantra of “I want my money!” This flick works for me on several levels. As a soldier, I respect his character’s fearsome firepower choices; as an attorney, I find his character’s single-minded focus on getting paid inspiring.

Remade in 1999 as the tepid Payback, Point Blank was harder-core than any of the watered-down, focus-tested, suit-neutered, glorified filmstrips that limp out of the studios today and pretend to be edgy.  

For sheer cinematic awesomeness, his performance in The Dirty Dozen as Major Reisman, leader of the cutthroat band of condemned convicts on a mission to solve the Nazi overpopulation crisis, is never going to be matched. It’s actually unfair to even use it as a standard against which to measure subsequent action films. In the teachable moment regarding action movies that accompanies the release of The Inglorious Basterds, The Dirty Dozen would be Sgt. Crowley’s Full Moon beer while Little Quentin’s movie would be the President’s Bud Light.

Marvin was totally fearless, including when he should have been afraid. He did a terrifying musical, Paint Your Wagon, and even had something of a hit song – Wanderin’ Star. Sadly, that little ditty sounds like a duet between Tom Waits and a drunken leaf blower, but it did lead to Marvin being paid homage to by The Simpsons – another great honor he shares with Ernest Borgnine. 

In his personal life, his shacking up with his girlfriend led to a lawsuit that led to the creation of the legal concept of “palimony,” empowering a new generation of golddiggers. And politically, according to the always accurate Wikipedia, he was a liberal Democrat – hey, nobody’s perfect. But if you get shot fighting for this country, dude, for all I care you can vote for a transsexual Marxist cocker spaniel that buys into global warming.

Hollywood needs to look harder for its tough guys because the new ones just can’t cut it. All the fake blood and stylized mayhem in the world are no substitute for the hard edge of real life experience that WWII vets like Lee Marvin and Jimmy Stewart – I should say, Brigadier General James Stewart – brought to their roles.  Today, the critics’ favorite director sends boy toys, torture pornographers and comedians to battle the SS. Yawn.

If Tarantino really wanted to kill Nazis, he could just bore them to death with his endless, pseudo-academic dissertations on so-bad-they-are-just-plain-bad B-movies. Too bad Eisenhower didn’t have a videotape of QT sounding off at Cannes about his personal artistic vision to use to soften up Omaha Beach. But fortunately for us, he had men like Lee Marvin.

Psychologists say that a parent’s grief over the death of a child is “the most difficult loss to endure and surely among the most difficult to integrate into one’s life” because our children are an enormous part of our legacy, and “in their deaths, a large part of our own future dies.”  The natural order of our lives has been turned upside down, bringing on an emotional chaos.

For the parents of military men and women who have died after volunteering to serve their country and walking into the face of death in the 21^st century’s war on terror, this grief and chaos has been exponentially multiplied by liberal Hollywood.  But one has to actually walk this path to understand it.  The anti-war sentiment and films that have spewed from liberal actors, producers, and directors have burdened our hearts unspeakably as they have served only to aide the greatest enemy our country has ever faced and to deface and demoralize the greatest ambassadors our country has: the men and women who wear the uniforms of the United States military.

Two years following the death in Iraq of our son, Sergeant Patrick Tainsh, age 33, my husband’s only child and namesake, Dave and I walked through the Smithsonian’s history section.  On the walls hung reminders for the reason America fights wars.  One such display read:  “The Axis Powers”:  “Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan pursued territory and power. Underlying Axis ambition were strong beliefs in racial and ethnic superiority that were used to justify wanton slaughter.  When allies joined forces to defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan they did so with the resolve that the war could never end in a truce.  The battle required unconditional surrender and replacement of enemy governments.”

As I continued reading the history of that time, I came to the section regarding Hollywood and its great contributions to support the war effort, show American pride and a call for no less than victory.  One display read: “In early 1942, Hollywood released its first patriotism by building morale-boosting movies produced in close collaboration with the U.S. office of war information.  The films pitted heroic Americans against villainous Nazis and fanatical Japanese, depicting a home front united for victory.  Top Hollywood directors made motivational pictures for troops.”

With this reminder of all that had been great about Hollywood, tears of betrayal and anger flowed down my face.  Where was that Hollywood?  Where were the new true Hollywood heroes who could follow their great and brave predecessors like Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin, Tyrone Power, Steve McQueen, Hugh O’Brien, Sterling Hayden, Gene Hackman, Ed McMahon, Charles Durning, and others who served in the United States Marine Corps? Where were those heroes of support like Ronald Regan, Betty Grable, Jimmy Dorsey and the great Bob Hope?

Why does the 21^st century Hollywood not work to help our troops win our new wars on radical terrorism instead of dividing our nation divided and providing encouragement for the enemy to kill more allied troops and innocent Iraqis?  Instead, top producers and directors turn their backs on the very military men, women, and families that were and still are willing to voluntarily sacrifice to the death to defeat an enemy who would as soon set a bomb to their ostentatious homes or behead their loved ones.  Along with news media, liberal Hollywood has helped paint a false picture for America’s public who continually hears negative information instead of the positive strides that our military has made and continues to make.

While channel surfing one evening I caught a glimpse of Stephen King, whose books have become major Hollywood films. In speaking to a college student audience, King stated that, to write, one must be a voracious reader. He went on to add that he encouraged reading and education so the students wouldn’t end up in places like Iraq.

Again, I was devastated and angry.  King’s words reflected his ignorance regarding the many college diplomas and “through the roof” IQs of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Special Forces, and Navy Seals who are responsible for providing him and those students the very freedoms they would never want to relinquish to radical terrorists.

Our son left behind a letter whenhe died in Iraq.  He said:

I came to help people who couldn’t help their situation.  Maybe someday they will enjoy freedom as we do.  As for me, it was an honor to experience that freedom.  It was an honor to fight and die with an American flag on my shoulder.  Honor.  That’s a big word and some people don’t know what it means.  It’s not something that happens right away, it’s something that builds up inside your soul.

What would Sergeant Patrick Tainsh now say about Hollywood?  Probably this:  “They just don’t know what true honor and freedom is.  That’s why those like me and my comrades exist, because we do know, and it’s our job to try and protect even the ignorant who just don’t ‘get it.’”

Yes, the pain experienced with the death of a child is indescribable, and to have our own country’s greatest powers aide the enemy instead of supporting our troops and families adds to the greatest burden we will ever carry. But as for my family, along with our grief, we are comforted through the memory of having a true hero come from our home to serve our great country – even with its flaws. A memory we can always live with and smile about.  But the memory and pain of the betrayal by a power such as Hollywood in the 21^st century’s fight against worldwide terror is a memory that will forever remain a dark place in our hearts and in history. And maybe this history should be written on the walls of the Smithsonian to remind all how Hollywood has changed from a power to help bring pride and victory for America to a power that is helping to aide the enemy and kill our own.

Deborah Tainsh, mother of Sergeant Patrick Tainsh, February 11, 2004 Iraq

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Hollywood movies often focus on the commanders, the captains and colonels, but they have also managed to highlight some great sergeants as well.  When you are picking out DVDs for next weekend, remember that May 16th is Armed Forces Day and consider a few selections that show the sergeant in all his gruff and grumbling glory. 

If you have never experienced the joy of going through basic training and do not plan to, your first stop should be Full Metal Jacket, with R. Lee Ermey’s legendary portrayal of a Marine drill instructor who must have missed out on the block of instruction on sensitivity.  I saw this in the theater about a week before I reported to Basic.  That was a poor idea.

The Marines I know seem to prefer Jack Webb in the more realistic The DI, but I am partial to Warren Oates as the “Big Toe” of a platoon of Army foul-ups in Stripes.  This is one great performance – as Sergeant First Class Hulka, Oates is both hilarious and moving.  You can see how this veteran NCO (his character wears the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, meaning he had seen action) truly cares about teaching his men to survive, and you kind of sympathize with him when Bill Murray’s smart-assery pushes him into slugging our hero in the gut.  Hulka’s contemptuous rejoinder to “Psycho” – “Lighten up, Francis” – is classic, as is his inventory of baffled expressions while watching the antics of his recruits.  I remember getting some of those looks myself from Drill Sergeant Whittlesey. 

And do not forget Louis Gossett, Jr. as another Devil Dog making Naval officer candidates earn the right to receive his salute in An Officer and a Gentleman. My only objection to this movie is that it made Squid School look a lot more fun than Fort Benning’s Army Officer Candidate School, but then I didn’t look like Richard Gere.

The tough sergeant turning a band of screw-ups into a well-oiled fighting machine is classic Hollywood.  The archetype is Marine Sergeant Stryker in The Sands of Iwo Jima, in which John Wayne supposedly utters the quintessential NCO aphorism “Life is tough.  It’s tougher if you’re stupid.”  But even if the Duke actually never says those words in the film, he should have, and generations of NCOs have shared that particular insight with their soldiers. 

Right up there is Clint Eastwood as another jarhead in Heartbreak Ridge.  It’s a good action flick, but what was particularly interesting is how he developed his nerdy lieutenant into a tough, confident leader who ends up saving the platoon.  But not all sergeants get to work with top notch officers.  In the miniseries Band of Brothers, Donnie Wahlberg does a great job as Easy Company’s First Sergeant Carwood Lipton, who was faced with protecting his men from a cowardly commander.  He does, but suffers a terrible fate – he receives a battlefield commission and becomes a mere lieutenant.  As Colonial Marine Gunnery Sergeant Apone in the fantastic Aliens, Al Matthews not only contends with an incompetent platoon leader, but flesh eating space bugs and Bill Paxton’s loudmouth Private Hudson.  “Game over, man!  Game over!”

The definition of an NCO is someone who makes things happen – whether or not strictly within the bounds of the regulations.  Don Rickles embraces this as the entrepreneurial and sharp-tongued supply sergeant Crap Game in Kelly’s Heroes.  Steve Martin played another NCO who didn’t let little things like rules get in the way in Sgt. Bilko.  James Caan, as real-life WWII Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun, rescues his critically wounded officer from the battlefield and takes him to an aid station in A Bridge Too Far.  When the doctor refuses to look at what seems to be a hopeless case, SSG Dohun did what any good sergeant would do and improvised – by sticking his cocked .45 in the surgeon’s face.  The wounded officer lived.

Behind every good officer are literally dozens of great NCOs.  Even Lee Marvin could not have handled The Dirty Dozen without Richard Jaeckel’s Sergeant Bowren.  In Crimson Tide, the feuding officers vie for the support of the Master Chief Petty Officer, the “Chief of the Boat.”  Tom Hanks may have been the commander, but the heart of his company was Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore) in Saving Private Ryan.

That is not just a Hollywood cliché – that is real life.  In fact, some of the best portrayals of NCOs in the movies have simply been the telling of the true stories of what they really did.  Black Hawk Down accurately shows modern urban combat as a confusing and deadly amalgamation of separate firefights involving small units led by young sergeants.  Josh Hartnett does a good job as a Ranger squad leader trying to keep his men alive, while Eric Bana and William Fichtner are Delta sergeants who take the fight right to the enemy. 

But the portrayals that best show the reality of the American NCO are that of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Johnny Strong as Delta Force Master Sergeants Gary Gordon and Randall Shugart.  As the movie shows, when one of the Blackhawk choppers went down, they repeatedly requested permission to fast rope in to protect the injured crew knowing it would mean near certain death.  Finally getting permission, they set up a perimeter and fought until overrun, littering the streets with the bodies of Somali militiamen and saving one member of the crew.  They earned the Medal of Honor, but I suspect that if we could ask them both would say that they were simply doing what NCOs do and nothing more.

Sam Elliot played another real-life hero, Command Sergeant Major Basil Plumley, in We Were Soldiers. As the movie shows, most enlisted troopers in the Second Battalion, Seventh Cavalry, and the wise officers as well, treated CSM Plumley with an awe verging on terror.  But when the battalion was surrounded by a division of North Vietnamese at Ia Drang, CSM Plumley stayed cool, keeping morale strong in the face of what should have been a massacre.  In the film, and in reality, these cavalrymen fought a massively superior force to a standstill.

Though I am a former cavalry commander, my favorite NCO portrayal is of an infantry sergeant in the British Army.  Zulu depicts the true story of the legendary near-last stand of a company of Welsh soldiers at Rourke’s Drift in South Africa.  The tiny band held their ground against a brave and deadly enemy force forty times their size.  As Colour-Sergeant Bourne, Nigel Greene is the ultimate NCO.  From keeping up standards in battle – “Button your tunic!” – to advocating for his exhausted men to facing down an iklwa-wielding Zulu warrior with his bayonet, Colour-Sergeant Bourne was the backbone of the company. 

Sergeants truly are the backbone of the Army and of the other services.  Right now, a young buck sergeant is leading his Marine fire team through the mountains of Afghanistan, a platoon sergeant is prepping a cavalry patrol through the streets of Kosovo, and a command sergeant major in Iraq is double checking his troops before another convoy mission.  These men and women are the heart of our military.  Take a moment to think about them as you pop in a movie and sit back and relax next weekend, safe and secure.  And raise a beer to them.  I will.

6:45am PST – Big Heat, The (1953) – A police detective whose wife was killed by the mob teams with a scarred gangster’s moll to bring down a powerful gangster. Cast: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby Dir: Fritz Lang BW-90 mins, TV-14

There’s nothing quite like a Glenn Ford slow burn. Watching Ford’s nice guy characters take it and take it some more until they give it back with compound interest is one of the delights of Ford’s under-appreciated work. My favorite of these is “The Violent Men,” a 1955 Western that pits mild-mannered, square-shouldered Ford against land grabbers Edward G. Robinson and Barbara Stanwyck.  It’s “Death Wish” on a horse.

Today’s pick is another engrossing Ford slow-burner, this one a noir classic directed by The Mighty Fritz Lang and co-starring the delicious Gloria Grahame as a horribly scarred, boozy moll. The film’s real delight, however, is Lee Marvin in his breakthrough role as a complicated enforcer dealing with something he didn’t quite expect from Ford’s crusading cop.

Look for references to Ford’s “Gilda,” Carolyn Jones in a small roll, a scene that might have influenced a similar one in “The Godfather,” hardboiled dialogue, a blistering pace and a revenge theme (Lang’s specialty) fully realized to a satisfying and memorable finish.