Richie's Reel Reviews--My top 11 films

Richie’s Reel Reviews—My FAVORITE Films and other CLASSICS

I present my top few movies.  The first 4 are locks.  The remaining 7 on the are nearly interchangeable in terms of actual position.  I will present additional favorites in subsequent entries. 

1.      NORTH BY NORTHWEST

The occasion of my serendipitous introduction to the film certainly contributes to its being my favorite movie of all time (although it’s close with 2-4).  It was October, 1977.  Kentucky was playing football at Penn State, who was heavily favored.  I was with my friend and law school classmate that weekend at his home in Louisville.  We were listening to it on the radio and to our great surprise and joy, KENTUCKY WON!  As it happened the game was going to be replayed in Lexington that very Saturday night, so we drove back to my house to see the replay.  Exhilarating!

Well, immediately following the game the station, WKYT, went right into its late movie, something called North by Northwest.  Doug and I were all smiles after the game so we just sat contented watching this movie unfold, from its alluring intro and incredible Bernard Herrmann soundtrack, all the way to the end, with very few commercial breaks.

We just looked at each other afterwards and said, WOW, where did this come from?!  A different joy replaced the now long forgotten game played earlier that day. 

North by Northwest has EVERYTHING, and I mean everything, a superlative movie SHOULD have—scintillating story, humor, drama, suspense, class, photography, acting, a surprise yet satisfying ending, a moving soundtrack, action--and has NOTHING, and I mean nothing, that a great and entertaining film should NOT have—graphic violence, crude language, irrelevant or meddlesome dialogue, depressing and humorless aura.

The action starts in New York, the late 1950’s, with the quintessential Cary Grant as an advertising executive dictating orders to his secretary in the back of a Yellow cab on a typically busy Manhattan ride en route from his Madison Ave. office to a business lunch meeting at the venerable (but now defunct) Oak Bar[1] located within the even more venerable Plaza Hotel (but also just as defunct—now converted into private condos).

From there a classic case of mistaken identity has Roger Thornhill (Grant) stalked and kidnapped by the bad guys, taken to a lavish estate whereupon the action begins in earnest.  The movie moves from well-heeled Long Island, where we meet cold war-era bad guy spies James Mason and a young Martin Landau, back to Manhattan, to the Plaza, to the United Nations, to Grand Central Station, aboard a train to Chicago, upon where he meets who to my younger eyes then, and still now!, the most gorgeous woman ever, Eva Marie Saint.

The action is just starting—to the corn fields of Indiana (first famed scene--“strange, that cropduster’s dustin’ where there ain’t no crops” a brown-suited Hoosier says to Grant moments before the plane turns on him), back to Chicago, to Rapid City, South Da-KOT-ahh, as Cary would pronounce it, culminating in the famed cliffhanger scene on Mt. Rushmore.  Along with CIA master spy, Leo G. Carroll ("War's hell, Mr. Thornhill, even a cold one"), he flies on Northwest Orient airline from Chicago to Rapid City, which is apparently the basis for the film’s title.

We get to see Americana as it existed in her heyday.  Luxurious hotels, newly developed national parks, city, countryside, Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, classy clothes (I am still on the hunt for Cary’s slate blue suit with matching tie that he wears from beginning to end, and I still believe Eva’s red and black print dress that she wears to the art auction is the most stunning I have ever seen), and incomparably witty dialogue—the best since Casablanca, which is number two on my list. 

Never is a long time, but I don’t believe another movie will ever rival this one—at least for me.  You just may like it too. 

2.      CASABLANCA

Released in 1942, the story of Europeans trying to escape the Nazis through about the only point left at that time, Casablanca, Morocco, could not have been more timely.  It takes just a little imagination to imagine yourself as a patron of Rick’s Café Americain, maybe looking to get—by any means possible—a letter of transit, and if you were really fortunate, an audience with Rick himself, played by the only guy in the world ever who COULD play that role, Humphrey Bogart.

What makes Casablanca perhaps THE greatest movie of all time?  I don’t know, I can only answer, as with all my reviews, why they are special to me.  First, every line’s a classic.  And I mean EVERY SINGLE LINE of dialogue is quote-worthy.  Not one wasted syllable, hem or haw, much less a wasted word. 

The acting even by the smallest roles is dynamite.  The film noir quality, which today could never be duplicated, adds to the drama and suspense, as does the fabulous music.  Dooley Wilson deserved an Oscar for his piano playing and singing (As Time Goes By, Knock Three Times) alone, much less his acting.   

True suspense, a surprising and MOST INSPIRING ending, to which Woody Allen famously paid homage in his movie Play it Again, Sam (which I believe I actually saw before I had even seen Casablanca).  Add a star-studded cast including Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre along with truly amusing character actors like S.Z. Sakall (who played Carl) and you have…a MASTERPIECE.

3.      To Kill a Mockingbird

Great movies often come from great stories, and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird ranks as one of the all-time best.   However, a great story is no guarantee that the movie will do it justice.  Thankfully, this movie captures, distills and delivers in a way that is for me very personal and emotional, and to just about anybody who watches it, a powerfully moving experience.

Shot in black and white, set in the depression-era southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, the story focuses on racial injustice and the efforts to rectify that injustice by one of the most noble and pure character of all time, Atticus Finch, who is played by my late mother’s favorite actor, Gregory Peck. 

The storyline, the setting, compelling child actors and a mostly anonymous cast of adult actors (Robert Duvall plays Boo Radley, a central character but with little on screen presence) along with a heart-tugging Elmer Bernstein soundtrack all combine to elicit smiles, tears and a yearning to stand tall for truth and justice. 

Again, what takes this movie over the top for me are two factors.  One, my mother’s favorite actor was Gregory Peck, she just loved him.  Also, it was my mother who encouraged me to go to law school, and I made a deathbed promise to her to do so.  Two, I saw this movie at the University of Kentucky Student Center while taking a break studying for law school finals.  I was not that well-read, and I really had no idea what the movie was about, only that it was a classic. 

To say that the movie influenced my life and encouraged my desire to be an agent for positive change is a vast understatement.   Thanks mom, thanks Ms. Lee, thanks Robert Mulligan (the director), thanks Mr. Peck, thanks Mary Badham and Phillip Alford (Scout and Jem), thanks to EVERY actor, stagehand, costumer, errand boy and musician for making this life-changing movie.

4.      IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

 

Surely, you know this movie.  The fact that it is one of my favorite films points to MY criteria and therefore EXPECTATIONS of a truly great film: uplifting, positive theme and ending, along with humor, acting, photography and the like.  Many of the “Best Picture” Oscars I could give a tinker’s damn for, either because of the dark and cynical subject matter, the graphic nature or otherwise depressing storyline which many of them contain. 

 

It’s a Wonderful Life, as you know, is one of the most uplifting and truly, truly RELEVANT movies OF all time.  Which one of us could not use an occasional reminder how special our life—OUR life—truly is.  Even if we suffer, there are those who would suffer even more, the world would suffer even more, were we not in it, or had we never been in it! 

Wow, that is an awe-inspiring concept and generations of humanity have this film to thank for it.  Ahh, but I just gave the GRAVY of a great film.   What makes it great before you even get to the gravy, i.e. the fact that it is so inspirational, of course, is the incredibly moving performances by all the actors, particularly Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, the incomparable directing of Frank Capra, the soundtrack and…well you know!

 

5.      The Verdict

 

Paul Newman plays a down on his luck, alcoholic lawyer who tries to  turn his luck—and life—around on a gutwrenching case of medical negligence (his client was turned into a vegetable by being given the wrong anesthetic) against the best defense lawyer around (expertly played by the legendary James Mason). 

This movie reeks of old Boston.  Director Sidney Lumet makes sure that everything is consistent and authentic, from properly-accented character actors to setting, to a most appropriate TOTAL LACK of music!  Never was the saying “less is more” more fitting than the fact that there is nary a note of music in this entire film!

 

The foreboding, muted colors of a cold New England winter mirrors the increasingly desperate situation Paul Newman’s character finds himself in, out-maneuvered by a slick defense lawyer, and with virtually no chance to win a recovery for his client’s sister and her family who are utterly dependent on it.   The mahogany benches and diamond shaped old tile floor of the court room put you THERE, in the juror’s box as each side presents its case. 

 

A surprise ending that vindicates a positive, never-say-die attitude culminates what for me is an understated tour-de-force, one that I take the chance to see again whenever I can.  Oh, and by the way, I just happen to love Paul Newman, so that certainly contributes to this movie’s high standing on my list.  Perfect supporting roles by Jack Warden, Charlotte Rampling and Milo O’Shea complete what may be for you a surprising entry but what I consider…a masterpiece!

 

6.      The Graduate

Again, it was not only the actual movie, but also the circumstances under which I got to see it, that make this one of my favorites.  I was working one day after school in our store at the old Lexington Mall when Uncle Martin comes in from Whitesburg and asks if I want to see a movie with him.  “You’re the boss, SURE!” I said.  We went to the cinema in the Mall (in those days you got ONE movie if you were lucky).  I had no idea that I was about to see what turned out to be one of the best movies ever!   

Humor and outright laughs galore, fabulous acting from Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katherine Ross, Murray Hamilton, Alice Ghostly, cool California setting—Mrs. Robinson’s house still looks modern and contemporary, without a hint that this was shot in 1967.   Add to that director Mike Nichol’s ground-breaking use of Simon & Garfunkel’s[2] incredible soundtrack to create much of the aura and emotion and you have what is perhaps a new generation’s first Masterpiece.  At least for me it was…and is.

 

7.      Woody Allen  (early years)

 

I LOVE, love, love early Woody Allen—and some of his later stuff too, but particularly his early films,  upon which I cut my “independent” movie-going experience, i.e. movies to which I could drive myself.  The first Woody Allen I saw was with my cousin Eddie (he was at UK, I a junior at Lafayette High), Everything you wanted to know about Sex but was Afraid to Ask which we saw at the old and long gone Turfland Mall cinemas. 

I recall us just laughing HYSTERICALLY at what was truly a never-before-seen subject matter and style of cinematic delivery.  I was hooked on Woody from that point forward.   

Next came Bananas, then Play it Again Sam, then Love and Death, then Sleeper, Manhattan, then his universal biggie, the Oscar winner, Annie Hall.  Before that he had made Take the Money and Run, (“No that says gub (not gun) what’s a gub” says the bank manager as hapless bank robber, Virgil Starkwell, played by Woody, hands over a poorly written demand note to the teller) but one I did not see until after I had seen his later fare.   

Oh my God, so many funny, reality-based vignettes and lines in those movies.  This guy is pure, unadulterated genius.  He makes me laugh like crazy, he makes me love New York evermore, and he introduced me to jazzy and classical music the likes I have never heard before.  He is a consummate artist, with a purpose—to make us see the often incredible inanity of everyday life, and to highlight enduring virtues in a MOST FUNNY way.  He is the best! 

Also, he bears a remarkable resemblance to my cousin, Joe.  Just an aside, but one that I guess endeared me to him even more.  So I include all these Woody Allen movies collectively as number 7.

 

8.      The Odd Couple/The Out of Towners

RE The Odd Couple:  For a guy in 7^th grade, to break cherry on such Neil Simon magnificence—the likes of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, along with a cast of characters including Vinnie, Murray the cop, Speed, Roy, the Pigeon sisters was bound to be an unforgettable experience.  HI-larity, absolutely and complete hilarity from near-beginning to end.  “Oscar, you missed it!  The greatest triple-play in history and you missed it!!” If you don’t know what I’m referring to you are just going to have to see it, I ain’t givin’ it up for free. 

And The Out-of-Towners, again pure comedic genius.  Jack Lemmon, Sandy Dennis, unforgettable character actors, a fabulous romp through New York, which would shortly thereafter become like a second home for me until our company closed shop in 2008, this is a film I could see over and over and over again.  As these two movies show, I just love movies shot in New York!

 

9.      Peter Sellers Pink Panther series

 

I again include these films as a set.  I could see ANY Peter Sellers movie over and over and over again.  Peter Sellers is the funniest, most effective comedic actor of all time.  His inspector Clouseau—well, you know, surely you know.  For me, not only him, but the European setting and all the other elements of great movie-making come into play to make him and his films some of my all time favorites.

10.   Three Days of the Condor

 

A perfect thriller.  Perfect.  Robert Redford and his literary team read books for the CIA, looking for hidden clues and plots that may be hidden within.  He goes out to pick up lunch, comes back and…they are all dead!  Thus begins a realistically haunting cat and mouse where he eludes the assassin’s hunt, while trying to outmaneuver his way to a solution. 

What makes this a masterpiece is the incredibly efficient dialogue (no wasted anything), much of which is artful, even poetic at times, the setting, again NEW YORK—and a little in Washington D.C.  Director Sydney Pollack orchestrates every nuance perfectly.  The Dave Grusin soundtrack  is superb AND, bonus! It was shot during Christmas so there are background holiday songs throughout—from the Salvation Army brass playing Good King Wenceslas to what I believe may be the Ray Coniff Singers singing Joy to the World, all while spies are looking to kill good Robert.

 

The New York cold accentuates Joe’s (Redford’s character) sense of utter loneliness and isolation.  The cast, unreal:  Faye Dunaway is Catherine Hale, who Joe kidnaps so that he can hide out in her pad, Cliff Robertson is the CIA control agent, ostensibly on Redford’s side, John Houseman is the CIA chief pulling all the strings and Kurt Von Sydow is the assassin, who listens to classical music as he details mini-figurines in his hotel while awaiting his next move.   Colorful character actors, the sights and sounds of New York life in the 70’s, suspense, action and as surprising an ending as you will ever see make this…a MASTERPIECE.  As I said, a perfect thriller.

 

11.  Forrest Gump

Tom Hanks, one of my favorites, in a Gomer Pyle (also one of my favorite tv characters) type character who exudes nothing but pure goodness and innocence and for whom, because of such innate faith, everything turns out well in the end for him and for those around him.  Over-the-top creativity from director Robert Zemeckis, lots of classics songs from the 60’s and 70’s, an incredibly touching story and a great ending.  What’s not to like, make that love!

---

[1] The Oak Bar became my favorite NY hangout for years until it closed thanks to this movie.  The old portraits behind the famed bar, along with the whole room remained unchanged since the movie was shot!

 

[2] Simon and Garfunkel were a musical duo for ALL ages.  My dad, the late Woodrow Wilson Dawahare, detested “rock” music.  He was a fan of his music—big band, swing, the crooners he could dance to—and he loooovvved to dance.  But one day in his office I caught him hum-singing “Mrs. Robinson!”  I was elated, because they were and are one of my favorite groups.  It’s a scene I will always remember!