Bradley’s Hundred #81-90

Continuing the explication of my hundred favorite films, listed on the B100 page accessible above.

The Shining (1980): Never mind what Stephen King says, this is perhaps the best adaptation of his work. Jack Nicholson is terrifying as the alcoholic novelist serving as the winter caretaker in a remote hotel, Shelley Duvall is vulnerable as his wife and the mother of their precognitive young son, and the blood pouring from the elevators and those two creepy little girls are unforgettable. Yeah, Stanley Kubrick (who co-scripted with novelist Diane Johnson) made some changes from the book, but the result is an excellent film that succeeds completely in its own right. “Here’s Johnny!”

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold: Perhaps my favorite of Martin Ritt’s diverse and high-quality films, adapted from John le Carré’s breakthrough novel by Paul Dehn (Goldfinger, Murder on the Orient Express). Drunken spy Richard Burton romances librarian Claire Bloom as his life is going to pieces, and decides to accept an offer from the other side (represented by Oskar Werner), but all is not what it seems. With Rupert Davies as George Smiley and fab black-and-white photography.

Star Wars (aka A New Hope): First and best of the series, although the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, is a close second. Yeah, we all saw this fifty-seven times when it came out, and it’s still a great film, even if it did help to set in motion the Decline of Cinema as We Know It by ushering in the era of the mega-box-office-blockbuster. Mentored by Obi-Wan “Old Ben” Kenobi (Alec Guinness), farm boy Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) allies himself with interstellar smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) to rescue Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), and joins the rebellion against the evil Empire, represented by Darth Vader (David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones) and Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) aboard the Death Star. Throw in a “walking carpet” (Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca), two droll droids (Anthony Daniels as C-3PO and Kenny Baker as R2-D2), groundbreaking special effects that didn’t need to be fixed in George Lucas’s special edition, and an awesome score by John Williams, and stir.

The Sting: I do not hold against this film the fact that it took most of the Oscars for which The Exorcist was nominated that same year; after all, William Friedkin had quite rightly swept all of the major awards with The French Connection just two years earlier, though it was rather hard luck for author-producer-screenwriter William Peter Blatty—but I digress. (Yeah, I know, as usual.) This reunites Paul Newman and Robert Redford with George Roy Hill, their director on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, while throwing in a much more upbeat story (courtesy of screenwriter David S. Ward, who later wrote and directed the surprisingly funny Major League) about Depression-era con men, with good period settings, a superb Scott Joplin ragtime score, memorable villains in gambler Robert Shaw and corrupt cop Charles Durning, and a stellar supporting cast. “Ya folla?”

Stop Making Sense: Director Jonathan (Silence of the Lambs) Demme’s concert movie documents Talking Heads, playing at top strength and peak performance through the absolute cream of their repertoire to date, as they toured for their Speaking in Tongues album. Lead singer/composer David Byrne, who conceived the show, and Demme manage to make things visually interesting as well. I can honestly say this movie changed my life. I’d heard it was great, but resisted seeing it because I was unfamiliar with, and had a completely wrong impression of, the Heads’ music. But during my sojourn in Cambridge for the Radcliffe Publishing Procedures Course, it happened to be showing at a repertory cinema, and I said what the heck. I walked in a one-band man (not that I only liked one, but the Beatles overshadowed everybody else), and came out a Heads fan for life. Then they split…

Strange Days: I stand by my contention that this is a Blade Runner for the ’90s, and that like that film it will be better regarded in retrospect…someday. (Maybe now that director Kathryn Bigelow got the Oscar for The Hurt Locker, it will get some of the attention it deserves.) It ain’t often you find a film that is so bleak, pessimistic, and unrelenting in its depiction of a dystopic near-future world and its new technology, yet manages to end on a redemptive and (sob) romantic note. Ralph Fiennes is superb as the sleazy but ultimately sympathetic protagonist, Lenny Nero, who can’t let go of his love for opportunistic bitch Juliette Lewis, and Angela Bassett is a real revelation as the woman to whose own love he is blinded, in a role that should have made her the first female action hero. (It’s a great tragedy that, for whatever reason, Bassett did not play Storm in the X-Men movies.) My admiration for this film is no surprise given the involvement of co-writer James Cameron, Bigelow’s then-hubby; the photography, music, and acting are also uniformly excellent.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974): Literally from the first second, this outstanding film (one of the great New York movies of all time) grabs you and doesn’t let go, as the main-title theme representing the finest hour of composer David Shire (ex-husband of Francis Ford Coppola’s sister Talia) brilliantly evokes its subway setting. Walter Matthau, surprisingly effective in a dramatic role, is the transit authority cop who must suspend his disbelief when he learns that four heavily armed men have hijacked a subway train and are holding the passengers hostage for a million-dollar ransom. Taut negotiations ensue between Matthau and the hijackers (including Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, and Hector Elizondo) as their craftily conceived plan is carried out. The New York atmosphere and attitude are palpable, the supporting cast and dialogue are excellent, and the ending is a neat zinger. Twice remade, although why I don’t know, and as small a change as it is, I think the latest version, with Denzel Washington and John Travolta in the Matthau and Shaw roles, loses something by calling itself The Taking of Pelham 123. That’s Hollywood. Adapted from John Godey’s novel by Peter Stone (1776), and directed by Joseph Sargent (Colossus: The Forbin Project), whom I affectionately call “Big Joe,” this is that rare film I’ll watch at the drop of a hat.

The Thing (from Another World) (1951): Although jettisoning the central conceit of its source material, John W. Campbell’s novella “Who Goes There?”—i.e., a shape-shifting alien that can impersonate any of the characters, which later became the raison d’être of John Carpenter’s gory but great 1982 remake—this is a seminal SF classic. Producer Howard Hawks reportedly ceded directorial credit to his erstwhile editor, Christian Nyby, for union purposes, but his style is everywhere evident, particularly in the fast-paced, overlapping dialogue, male-dominated cast (led by genre mainstay Kenneth Tobey), and strong yet feminine leading lady (Margaret Sheridan). James Arness, later of Gunsmoke fame, is imposing but hardly recognizable as the vegetative alien who is unwittingly defrosted at an Arctic base and then makes mincemeat of the military personnel.

The Third Man: Probably the best Orson Welles movie not directed by the Big Guy (as it were) himself, this quintessential Cold War thriller was made just as that conflict was beginning, and set in post-war Vienna. It’s directed by Carol Reed, who almost makes one forget those damned dancing fishmongers in Oliver!, and written by Graham Greene, the unchallenged king of the thinking man’s spy story until the era of John le Carré, Adam Hall (aka Elleston Trevor), and Len Deighton. Featuring longtime Welles collaborator Joseph Cotten (whom I’ve never liked, but never mind) as Western writer Holly Martins; Alida Valli (later seen in Mario Bava’s Lisa and the Devil) as the heroine; Welles as remorseless racketeer Harry Lime, whom they both love in their own way; Trevor Howard as Calloway, the British military cop trying to nail him; Bernard Lee, best known as M in the James Bond films, as Howard’s right-hand man; and a superb zither score by Anton Karas.

This Is Spinal Tap: Rob Reiner’s hilarious “rockumentary” (actually a “mockumentary”) brilliantly skewers both the Beatles and heavy-metal bands, with script and songs co-written by the leads: Christopher Guest (who not only made a cottage industry out of creating such similar films as Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind, but also gets to go to bed with Jamie Lee Curtis every night), Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer (The Simpsons). Includes such toe-tappers as “Sex Farm” and “Big Bottom,” plus cameos by everyone from Patrick Macnee (The Avengers) to Ed Begley, Jr. Rather than quote the obvious line here, I’ll simply say, “You can’t dust for vomit.”