Category: Best Screenplay

THE HURT LOCKER

By Marc S. Sanders

Often the most effective war movies hardly focus on the enemy.  It’s the environment that keeps us on our toes.  Like Oliver Stone’s Platoon, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is a widely acclaimed depiction of the Iraq War, centrally located in Baghdad in 2004. Her film follows a frighteningly tense perspective of three members of Bravo company – a bomb disposal team.  

After their leader perishes in a surprise attack, Sergeant J. T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty) welcome Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner) to the squad for the remaining thirty-eight days of their rotation. Beyond evading suicide bombers and questionable Iraqi civilians who observe from the sidelines, Sanborn and Eldridge fear they’ll have to survive James’ maverick approach to deactivating sophisticated bombs that hide in the scorching hot desert area. William James claims to be responsible for shutting down eight hundred and seventy-three explosives in his young career.  He’s good at what he does but he disregards the best interests and care for others within his vicinity.

The art direction for The Hurt Locker is most impressive.  The expected sand rubble and distressed tenement buildings are convincing as Jordan stands in place for the film’s Baghdad. Bigelow’s team goes to great lengths with sophisticated explosives.  An early moment has James gently tugging on a red cord that eventually leads to other cords and then what comes out of the desert sand is six identical underground bombs surrounding him from all sides.  With her camera positioned overhead, pointing down, this feels like a monster movie with tentacles springing out in a circumference around the hero.

Another early scene has James recklessly undressing from his bulky, anti-bomb suit, and disassembling an abandoned car to look for the suspected device that’s hidden inside.  With Eldridge and Sanborn remotely demanding updates, the wild man chooses to toss his headset away to focus on his dire circumstance, solo.  

Ahead of the film’s thrilling opening, a quote from someone named Chris Hedges appears: “The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.”  A more appropriate phrase would not describe Jeremy Renner’s character any better.  There’s no denying this guy is an expert and the best of the absolute best.  However, he’s positively the worst at accounting for his team or the environment around him.

Kathryn Bigelow is an outstanding director who gets better with each passing film.  The Hurt Locker elevates her finished products that began with cops and robbers fare like Blue Steel and Point Break.  Bigelow is not aiming for laughs or Hollywood shootouts.  With Mark Boal’s Oscar winning script, the filmmaker zeroes in on how someone so proficient with dangerous work pushes beyond limits of caution.  The three characters covered within this tiny sliver of a larger war find themselves tested with each passing day.  

There’s a routine to these guys as they respond to other desert platoons as the sun rises. They are summoned to come upon bombs and mines and people strapped to bombs and mines.  They load up in their Humvee, drive to the next site and do what is expected of themselves like firefighters would in any neighborhood. The conflict is these guys just do not work in sync with each other.  At night, they return to base following a full day’s work to play shoot ’em up video games, drink, and roughhouse with each other as a means to grasp who is the dominant one of the trio.  

Psychologically, James, Sanborn and Eldridge are not on similar planes.  Eldridge is the frightened one who confides in a Colonel with an empathetic, bedside manner.  Sanborn is the sensible levelheaded one.  James seems to lack priority for anyone including his on again/off again girlfriend back home (Evangeline Lilly) and the child they share together.  He’s bent on conquering the next sophisticated, wired device.  It only gets personal for him when one of the few kids in the area meets a gruesome demise and James goes lone wolf at night, within the towns, even though he’s not covert ops. His risks are too great for this war, his squad, and maybe himself.

Kathryn Bigelow effectively sets up environments that’ll rattle your nervous system.  Using handheld cameras, this film often works like documentary footage with quick cuts to citizens of Baghdad who may be staring at what this squad is doing, or maybe they are waiting for their cue to detonate something nearby and trap them.  A local butcher with a cell phone in his hand feels like the worst kind of threat.  A kid with a soccer ball seems untrustworthy.  A guy in a suit pleading for desperate help at the other end of the street is a person I wouldn’t want to stand next to.  There’s an abundance of desert citizen extras to look for and hypothesize about.  Is it that guy with the trigger or maybe it’s that kid or that woman?  Most of these people do not even speak.  Their glazed, war torn and dusty expressions say so little while the powerful machine guns held by the Americans will not do much to prevent a horrifying possibility.

The extensive footage of explosions is very impressive.  I read that Bigelow wanted to display what a real detonation would look like, and not with Hollywood fireball extravagance.  Accompanied with Oscar winning sound editing and mixing, the bombs in this movie lift the dirt and dust particles off the ground, building and automobile surfaces and then plume into mushroom clouds that expand beyond the limits of city blocks. The Bravo Company men even predict how the blasts will take off and where exactly the shrapnel and debris will reach and descend. They think they have this down to a science. This material is entirely different than what other action or war pictures typically show.  

Sniper fire comes at unexpected moments.  An open desert plain actually has an enemy concealed somewhere and quick pierces of sound drops a someone who you might think controls the scene. Then the next someone. The shock of how quickly it’s edited together plays with your senses. Bob Murawski and Chris Innis are the award-winning film editors of this piece. They complete their job to the fullest. This all looks so real and not a product of art.

The Hurt Locker is term to describe where a militant solder will go to when living with internal pain and conflict.  The soldier goes to his hurt locker. This war puts each of these three guys in their own kind of hurt locker, but perhaps they force their situations upon themselves and each other. Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow’s film do not just devote time to the three characters who are most at play, but also to devices of war and destruction that drastically change these men.

The Hurt Locker is one of Kathryn Bigelow’s best films.

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

By Marc S. Sanders

Not one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films are alike.  In each picture, the characters speak differently.  They specialize in areas completely separate from anything else.  The porn industry is a far cry from oil drilling for example, and neither has any commonality with that of independent American revolutionaries, as featured in One Battle After Another.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Pat Calhoun, a determined underling of a revolutionary band known as the French 75. Their will is to free illegal immigrants from a California fenced lock up, or plant mild explosives in government buildings or rob banks as modern day Robin Hoods.  It’s all one battle after another. Each mission seems to be executed more for the excitement and thrill, rather than any kind of just cause.

Together with Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor, and yes, that is the character’s name, Perfidia Beverly Hills) he bears a daughter named Charlene (Chase Infinity).  Though Pat wants to assume a new identity and settle down, Perfidia opts to continue with her purpose.  When she is apprehended, she is persuaded to disclose the whereabouts of her fellow comrades.  In exchange, Perfidia is granted witness protection. Exactly, who and what did the figurehead of one Perfidia Beverly Hills stand for?

One Battle After Another carries a long prologue that sets up all of these characters.  Once they go in different directions, Anderson’s film jumps forward sixteen years later when Charlene is an optimistic teenager yearning to be a regular student at public school.  The school dance is on her mind. Her father Pat is paranoid of her being out and does not take kindly to the kids she’s hanging with. Despite the weird makeup and piercings, there’s really nothing wrong with them. At least Charlene is not so apt to take any of her dad’s paranoia seriously.

Colonel Stephen J Lockjaw (a great character name for an antagonist), played by Sean Penn, carries an intimidating, militant focus.  He leads the charge against the French 75.  He ensures capture or death in the field to halt their activities.  His vice, though, is specifically his obsession with Perfidia.  Yet, the tryst he shared with her can never be revealed if he is to pass the recruitment test for entry into the very exclusive, white supremacist organization known as The Christmas Adventurers Club.  

Pat has trained his daughter to respond to certain codes, and to be alert if a pocket device should ever light up as an emergency.  Ironically, Pat, now known as Bob, can’t even remember all of the code speak.  Too much pot smoking and laziness has numbed his senses.  Lockjaw has zeroed in on Pat, and particularly Charlene who actually may be his daughter.  It’s important he locate her because her skin color could compromise his reputation and his chances of joining the Club.

I was eager to see One Battle After Another when it was first released in theaters.  It had been getting very good word of mouth, and other than a few exceptions, I’ve been a big admirer of Anderson’s work.  Regrettably, in a comfortable Dolby theatre with the best sound system available, I could not help but fall asleep.  When I watched the film on HBO MAX, a few months later though I was exhilarated.

The film seems to start in the middle of an already long-winded story.  The prologue hops around from one mission of the French 75 to another and there is minimal character development.  None of the dialogue is special either. On a first viewing I think it’s challenging to piece together who is who, what they stand for, what they mean to one another, and what becomes of them.

When the script jumps sixteen years later, the picture serves like a straight out chase story with a callously cold “Javert” seeking out his “Jean Valjean” who hides with his adopted “Cosette.” The last two thirds of One Battle After Another seem to start an entirely new movie.  

A common tactic of Anderson is to rapidly swing his camera with a kinetic and urgent pace; minimal cuts.  This especially drives his film as the pursuit is depicted with fear, desperation and unintended comedy.  Poor Pat, or “Bob” cannot recall how to accurately reply to the code speak on the other end of a telephone line.  He’s separated from Charlene, and Lockjaw is figuring everything out beginning with discovering underground tunnels located in the rendezvous town that many former members of the French 75 have taken up shelter. Benicio Del Toro, as a karate instructor, is one of the people. He’s a mentor for young Charlene.

I’m not sure if Paul Thomas Anderson is trying to deliver any kind of thought-provoking message.  Though he associates Sean Penn’s character with white supremacists, I cannot naturally accept that Anderson is saying this gang of powerful, tuxedoed men of a wealthy one percent adhere to any political party or agenda.  As well, Anderson does not seem to be applauding the actions of Perfidia, Pat, or the French 75, whose mantra especially falls apart when an innocent casualty is killed by one member’s hand.  

One Battle After Another could simply be a blender mix of ideas with blind missionary work from all of these different sects.  None of these soldiers serve a greater good.  Their arguments only work to hammer back at whoever has disdain for the other.  No one is inspiring anything that will promise a better future for America.

As I write this review, it occurs to me that perhaps Paul Thomas Anderson demonstrates that whatever action people like Pat and Perfidia or Lockjaw commit, it’s all but defeatist. Eventually, the cause wisps away, but the battle must persist. The battle is all these people have and live to serve, not a resolution or even a conquest. Fight, accomplish, and now what’s next?

One Battle After Another is not Paul Thomas Anderson’s best work, though it is exciting to watch with outstanding editing as a car chase arrives near the end of the story. I cannot say I was taken with any of the performances. Penn and DiCaprio are living up to the demands of their characters but there’s nothing outwardly sensational in what they are doing here. I’m also perplexed by the raves that Del Toro is getting for this film. It’s a small role with little to do. I do not recall one moment of acting greatness, nor a memorable line from his part.

Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti deliver breakout performances, however. Infiniti, in the role of the daughter, shows vulnerability, and later strength, when the story calls for it. Watch the fear and drive when she reunites with DiCaprio’s character on a barren road in the desert. She’s got a real intensity in her eyes and expressions. Taylor seems like she’s a heroine yanked from a Tarantino picture. A really impactful performance whose biggest contribution is in the beginning of the film. Sean Penn is a good scene partner for her.

Released in 2025, One Battle After Another seems like it would be ripped from the everyday headlines of ICE activities, government protests, and the revolts against those missions. I feel like Anderson’s film only gives a small glimpse into these very complex worlds, though. Other pictures like Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Phantom Thread are much more expansive with their universes of unusual industries like pornography, Hollywood social stature and the demands of dress making artistry.

I guess I’m saying I really didn’t learn much from One Battle After Another. So, forgive for saying that I’m underwhelmed.

GET OUT

By Marc S. Sanders

Consider this for a second.  You’re an African American thirty year old who has recently begun a promising relationship with an affectionate, loving Caucasian woman.  As she attempts to ease your apprehension about meeting her parents for the first time she tells you her dad would have voted for Obama if he could have run for a third term.  When you arrive at their upstate home, one of the first things dad tells you is that if he could, he would have voted for Obama for a third time.  Exactly why is that so important to say?  From her?  And later from him?  Why is it necessary for an audience to hear the statement twice within a span of less than fifteen minutes? While it should sound assuring, it feels anything but trusting.  That’s how smart Jordan Peele’s debut horror/thriller is.  He has a way of delivering two different perspectives with one simple statement.

In Get Out, Daniel Kaluuya is Chris.  His girlfriend is Rose played by Allison Williams.  These actors are a perfect pair on screen but that’s about all I want to share with you considering their relationship.  

Chris is meeting Allison’s family at their home for their weekend.  It’s a beautiful, quaint estate off the beaten path from any intrusive neighbors.  Burrowed within the woods, this is a place to escape the stresses of city life.  Just like with any horror film though, the characters do not know they are operating inside a horror film.  The audience always does, and the best filmmakers find those frequent moments to get their viewers to squirm in their seat, tuck their knees under their chin, clench the butt cheeks maybe and say, “Don’t do that!,” “Don’t go in there,!” or maybe they’ll urge you to “GET OUT!!!!”

Nevertheless, the storyteller finds it important to bring up Barack Obama on more than one occasion???? 

Before they even get out of the car, the landscaper, a black gentleman, seems curious to Chris.  Friendly handshakes and welcoming hugs on the porch segue into the furnished home and there’s the maid, a black woman, who is as intriguing as the first black person to be seen.  Wouldn’t you know it but over lunch, you learn that tomorrow there’s the annual party gathering of friends.  Oh my gosh, was that this weekend?  

Jordan Peele doesn’t turn on the creepy music you may expect.  He relies on his visuals and while you are being as observant as Chris, you just might be alarmed and less sensible than he is.  That credit goes to Kaluuya, giving a reserved, contained performance.  This guy does not look like a hero in the least because he has instincts but seems to never look for a fight or a debate or the need to set an example.  An unexpected stop on the drive over demonstrates where Chris stands in a topsy turvy world of political divides in the twenty first century.  He just wants to make life easy.  So, he also will not make waves when that groundskeeper runs directly at him in the middle of the night.  This is just too freaky, but Chris tells us to just get through the weekend.

Rose’s brother seems like a weirdo from a Judd Apatow comedy, but he’s not being a clown.  Dad (Bradley Whitford) is a successful surgeon always ready with a relaxing tone and an open hug.  Mom (Catherine Keener) has done well as a psychiatrist performing hypnosis on her patients.  Yet, a late-night encounter with her leaves Chris feeling uneasy. Visually, it’s disturbing when he reflects on what he thinks he experienced with her.  However, he tries to give the family the benefit of the doubt especially when he shares his concerns with Rose.  Allison Williams is quite good with being convincingly dismissive.  I trust her, and I like her too. 

Then there’s the party the next day.  All the guests, primarily white, arrive exactly at the same time in a convoy of tinted black sedans and SUVs.  Chris doesn’t hide himself despite feeling awkward, and he doesn’t initiate the odd conversations with these middle age WASPs, but he politely keeps engaged with them.  Ironically, the strangest conversation he experiences is when he approaches a fellow black guest who is oddly dressed inconsistently compared to everyone else while his demeanor looks like he’s in a trance.

For comedic effect, Jordan Peele incorporates a best friend for Chris to confide in with opportune cell phone calls.  Lil Rey Howery is Rod and I can say, unequivocally, he is the best endorsement for the TSA. I do not recall seeing Howery in other films of late, but this actor deserves a long career for making a big splash in Peele’s busy picture.  Get Out would never be as inventive if Howery’s role is edited out.  Rod is the only other guy who, from a distance, can tell something is not right, here.

Get Out closes on an airtight ending.  Explanations for everything that is questionable is provided.  Yet, on both occasions that I’ve watched the movie, I think about it long after it’s over.  It takes some of the best elements you might uncover from The Twilight Zone, plus what you might have seen in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and builds new ideas off of those circumstances.  

It is especially fun to read the IMDb trivia about the film to uncover a wealth of appropriate symbolism that does not jump directly at you.   You’ll appreciate how clever Jordan Peele is as a writer.  Froot Loops without milk in a bowl says much about a character.  Another character is engorged with the antler of a taxidermic deer head.  One character scrapes cotton stuffing out of an armchair.  Jordan Peele approaches his scary fiction with an educated eye.  

This movie is inventive.  Its horror does not seem redundant and thankfully the monsters are not vampires and zombies all over again.  There are new tactics at play.  There are fresh approaches to victimize the heroes, and there are creative ways to surprise the audience.  

Get Out is amazing the first time you watch the film.  On a second viewing, Jordan Peele’s story works like a class experiment in social standards while it still has fun by keeping you in triggering suspense.

THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA (1937)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: William Dieterle
CAST: Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut, Gloria Holden
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 92% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Prolific novelist and muckraker Emile Zola becomes involved in fighting the injustice of the infamous Dreyfus affair.


If you want to get me angry at the movies, you can do one of two things (besides leaving your phone on): Make a really terrible movie that makes me sorry I’ll never get those two hours back…or make a really good movie about some kind of social injustice, where those in power are so empirically wrong that any fool can see it, except those in power.  Matewan (1987) comes to mind, as do I, Daniel Blake (2016) and Do the Right Thing (1989).  William Dieterle’s The Life of Emile Zola falls neatly into that category, as well.

I’m tempted to give a play-by-play summary, but that would take too long.  In short, novelist and muckraking author Emile Zola is approached by the wife of Alfred Dreyfus, a French officer wrongly convicted of espionage and sentenced to Devil’s Island.  Mme. Dreyfus convinces Zola of her husband’s innocence, and Zola pens the famous J’Accuse…! article, an open letter published in the paper accusing the French military of antisemitism (Dreyfus was Jewish) and conspiracy.  The last act of the film covers Zola’s trial for libel.

The scenes that really made me angry were the ones where French officers planted, suppressed, or burned incriminating evidence of their own treachery.  Outright lies were paraded as fact, and the actual spy was acquitted in a court-martial of his own, just so the French government could continue the façade of Dreyfus’s guilt.  When the comeuppance arrives for the parties involved, it is immensely satisfying.  No one is drawn and quartered, which is what I would have preferred, but it’s good enough.

While the actor playing Dreyfus himself (Joseph Schildkraut) won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, it seems incredible to me that Paul Muni did not win for Best Actor that same year.  It went to Spencer Tracy for Captains Courageous, and I’m sure Tracy’s performance was exceptional, but Muni as Zola is pretty amazing.  He ages convincingly with Zola, from starving artist to a well-fed member of respected Parisian society, never less than convincing while playing a man much older than himself for much of the film.  The highlight is a late courtroom monologue that runs about six minutes.  It’s not exactly subtle screenwriting, but Muni makes the most of it.

The same could be said about the film’s screenplay as a whole.  It’s not the kind of story where the two sides have equal validity, so the script doesn’t have to be coy about where its sympathies lie.  There may be a few moments that feel like the film is preaching to the choir, but it nevertheless has great power.  That might just be me, though, given my proclivity for rooting against social injustice at the movies.

On the whole, The Life of Emile Zola is the tale of a life well-lived, punctuated by an incident that made Zola’s name immortal, and contains one of the best courtroom sequences I’ve ever seen.  It’s biography at old Hollywood’s best, not 100% historically accurate (as stated in an opening title card), but capturing the emotional essence of the story in a way no history textbook ever could.

THE EXORCIST (1973)

By Marc S. Sanders

Perhaps it is my Jewish upbringing or the fact that I’m not a spiritual person anymore, but what many consider to be the scariest movie of all time really does not alarm me that much.  William Friedkin’s The Exorcist is a superb demonstration in horror though.  Disturbing? Yes.  Unsettling? That’s an understatement.  Scary? A little bit. 

It’s not so much the threat of a random demon or the possibility of Satan on earth that chills me.  It’s this poor, sweet girl who has been unfairly taken advantage of that makes me shudder. 

William Peter Blatty adapted his best-selling novel into his Oscar winning screenplay and it succeeds so well because amidst all of the terror, there’s an education to be had.  Do any of us truly know or have witnessed someone who has been demonically possessed by an entity of pure evil?  I’ll be the first to come clean and say no.  Therefore, I’m intrigued as Friedkin’s film proceeds to observe how the decision to exorcise a demon from the shell of a pre-teen girl arrives.  Nevertheless, to me it is all fantasy.  I might just hold more faith in the Jedi practice of the Force than I do in the ideas of holy water, devilish idols or even what can befall you by flippantly using the name of Christ in vain.

Famous film star Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) is on location in Georgetown shooting her latest picture.  She resides in a furnished home with her twelve-year-old daughter Regan (Linda Blair), along with an assistant and a butler servant.  Regan is a fun-loving kid and adored by her mom.  Strange behaviors begin happening and all too quickly, the daughter is beyond control with patterns of activity that are anything but recognizable.  I can’t even describe most of the imagery.  I could never do it justice.

Doctors are quick to attribute Regan’s afflictions to a lesion resting on the cerebellum of her brain.  Yet, extreme procedures and x-rays show no medical disruption or disturbances.  I recall Friedkin’s director cut from 2000 inserted the questionable practice of dosing the girl with Prozac.  Before the supernatural is ever considered, the merits of science and medicine must be explored.  

Nevertheless, it is unbelievably bold how this personification puppeteers young Regan with vile actions of vomiting, uttering the ugliest vocabulary and committing terrible bodily harm and atrocities with a crucifix.  Blatty could have drawn the line with the slaps and punches Regan delivers to the doctors and her own mother.  The point would have been clear.  Yet only something that has to be tangibly real with no question of a joke or side humor, has to go this far.  It’s often sickening and demoralizing to the worst degree, but reality never compromises.  The drivers of this fiction wish to move this as far away from what’s not valid. It’s evident how convincing all the footage is within the film.

Following the mysterious death of Chris’ film director, along with an unheard-of recommendation from a physician, the idea of committing an exorcism to release whatever’s possessing the girl is suggested.  The problem is there is no expert on the subject of exorcism.  It seems absurd, and the Catholic Church is never quick to endorse the procession.  

During the first hour of the picture, a second story covers the personal conflict of Father Karras (Jason Miller).  One of his first scenes shows him arriving home to his ailing mother and removing his collar.  It’s a visual sign that the minister is questioning his own faith as he undoes his garb.  Karras may be a priest, but he also specializes in the study of psychology for his parishioners.  As he encounters Regan in her bedroom, he’s gradually assured that he is speaking with the demon who knows too much about himself.

A third story, which actually opens Friedkin’s film, occurs in Iraq where Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) is excavating through an archeological dig.  He doesn’t have much to say but his stoic expression tells us that his discovery of a medallion buried in the rubble, along with particular statue, spell dread.  It’s no accident that Friedkin places this scene often against the backdrop of a sun sparked, blood red sky.  

Eventually, all three stories intersect within the coven of Regan’s upstairs bedroom, where this demon taunts, cackles, teases and defies the power of the Bible and the Catholic faith.  This third act is impossible to take your eyes off.  Every second of imagery builds upon the power of the supernatural from moving furniture that charges forward like monsters on the attack, to ceilings and doors that split open.  The bed rumbles.  Demonic imagery appears out of the cold darkness.  It’s such a well-crafted sequence of events that is completely atmospheric.  

On what I believe is only my second viewing of the film, there are few things I noticed.  Chris is not a religious character.  So, when she evokes frustration, first at her ex-husband over the phone, and then at doctors and priests who lack explanations, she’s apt to shout “For Christ’s sake,” or “Jesus Christ.”  Variations of the word fuck is also adjacent to this dialogue.  Chris’ language could be a close second to the abhorrent verbiage coming from her monstrous daughter.  Blatty and Friedkin seem to imply how the son of God and the potential of Satan are so easily taken for granted.  Chris may be corrupted, but it is the innocent, young Regan who is trifled with.  There is nary a thing more disturbing in film than watching a child in peril.

Friedkin’s direction with Father Karras is consistently interesting as well.  Often, he positions his camera on a ground floor or at least pointed up to a level above to witness Karras’ ascents.  His faith is clearly shaken.  So, all he can do is rise and rise again, closer to a heaven that may still be welcoming.  Karras climbs flights of stairs or walks up sidewalk hills, to approach a vile intruder seeking to disrupt the purity of angelic youth.  

Only after I watched the film did I read that Linda Blair’s unforgettable performance was not the only contributing factor to Regan’s demonic possession.  Oscar winner Mercedes McCambridge who originally was not credited, supplied the scratchy, tormented and taunting voice of the demon.  It’s an unbelievable embodiment of a powerful villain.  Linda Blair was Oscar nominated for this role, but because she did not entirely own the performance, she likely lost to another child actor, Tatum O’Neil (Paper Moon).  The craft of Blair’s makeup all the way to her changes in eyes is a gut punch to the psyche.  Regardless, this is one of the most uncompromising and effective child performances I’ve ever seen in a film.

Max von Sydow donned aging makeup on his youthful forty-four-year-old complexion, and he looks straight out of another famous role from later in his career (Minority Report).  Richard Pryor and Saturday Night Live did a hilarious spoof on The Exorcist and for this nonbeliever I related to Pryor’s antics.  Yet, Max von Sydow takes what could have looked like utter silliness and convinces me that the ritual of exorcism is incredibly trying and exhaustively repetitive accompanied with the robes he dons to the holy scripture he reads from.  Merrin specifically instructs Karras not to directly respond to the demon.  Don’t even talk to it.  Merrin sticks to that practice.  Karras, the younger and less experienced sidekick, is drawn into the monster’s personal jibes.

Despite my position on religion and faith, I do not frown on what others value.  People find solace in their perceptions of God, the biblical stories, and the figures who teach. Religion often bestows a fulfilling life cycle.  Religion offers comforts through pain, loss, love and hope.  That’s okay. Everyone must follow their own path towards salvation. I tend to turn towards my personal psyche which I speak to daily.  

I watched The Exorcist off of a 4K streaming print found on HBO MAX, and the picture is positively striking.  Aside from dated fashions and cars of the early 1970s, the picture looks incredibly modern.  The themes of the film remain strong.  Hardly anything has ever matched the horror of The Exorcist.

I value everything in The Exorcist that Father Karras and Father Merrin heed to.  I believe in this story wholeheartedly.  Friedkin and Blatty, plus the cast enhance the authentication of demonic possession and how it operates.  This work of fiction, which Blatty claims to have been inspired by from an account of possession of a young boy during the 1940s, is a thousand percent genuine.  Within the moment and inside the confines of this picture this demon lives by overtaking young Regan.

How much did I believe it? Before bed last night, I made sure my little night light was on and I never walked into a dark room.   Every single light in the whole house was practically turned on.  

It’s not about the fear of God or the Devil.  It’s the fear I had for young Regan.

SINNERS

By Marc S. Sanders

Ryan Coogler is one of the most inventive writer/directors working today.  This is a filmmaker who will assemble a hundred different ideas into one body of work. All of it makes sense when blended together.  A movie musical sourced in blues and grassroots instruments like banjo, piano, harmonica, foot stomping and guitar stitched together on to a horror film?  Once the wheels get turning, Coogler can’t see it any other way and so he lands upon October 15, 1932, one day and one very long night in Clarksdale, Mississippi where Sinners takes place. 

The smokestack twins – Smoke and his brother Stack – return from working with Al Capone in Chicago.  They’ve got lots of money and big plans to open up the Juke Joint when the sun sets.  Michael B Jordan plays the charming gentlemen. Smoke is donned in blue accents, while his brother Stack is identified primarily in red.  Jordan is such a skilled and aggressive actor in everything he does. I truly did not realize he was playing both roles until about a third of the way through the picture.  His performances are so tantalizingly unique and memorable that Jordan has to be a contender for an Oscar nomination.

The boys circumvent the Clarksdale area. First they purchase a barn and the land it dwells upon.  With their pistols at the ready, their purchasing agreement is that the seller’s Klan associates do not come around here.  They go to the train station to recruit Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) for the piano and harmonica.  Smoke visits Ruthie (Andrene Ward-Hammond) to prepare the most delicious crawfish and shrimp.  Ruthie is also the mother of Smoke’s deceased infant child and they need to catch up on some history that was not tied off.  Stack needs to contend with Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), his sultry lover from the past who was also left behind unexpectedly. 

Most impressive is a debut performance from Miles Caton as Sammie Moore, the local preacher’s son, and the kid who can strum a mean guitar in the back seat of a car or down at the joint.  Sammie looks up to the twins. They will show him how to carry himself.  There’s a history to everyone the men encounter.  Sometimes they are welcome.  Sometimes they’re not, like the Klan, and sometimes they’d rather avoid who they come across as they continue to spread the word about the Juke Joint celebration that’s too come with all the liquor, food, and music they can imagine. 

Michael B Jordan and Miles Caton are definitely Oscar worthy; two very hot properties.  Caton can do it all.  He can sing and act.  He’s as big a surprise as Mikey Madison was with Anora.  You can’t take your eyes off of him and if the guy goes on tour, I’m buying a ticket to see him. 

A prologue narration followed by a disturbing, eye-opening epilogue scene within a town church opens Sinners.  Something unfathomable must have happened at the Juke Joint on this particular night. 

I went into this film having not seen a trailer, a commercial or even reading an article about it.  I was not aware of the blazing bluegrass root music that populates this film, nor of the surprise monster fest that eventually takes overtakes the story.  It was a better viewing experience for me than I imagine had I known some of the details of Coogler’s film.  This gorgeous film accompanied by magnificent sound and visual details with award caliber editing and direction steers into so many different curveball surprises and genres.  Sinners is a film that you go see in the movie theater.  The Juke Joint alone is worth the price of admission.  As memorable a setting as Rick’s Place in Casablanca, the Cantina in Star Wars or Jack Rabbit Slim’s in Pulp Fiction. 

You read it here first!  The Juke Joint is sure to be a haunted house at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights.  I promise you.

That being said, my love for the two-and-a-half-hour film dwindled during its last third when the monsters are revealed and the picture spirals into a blood fest battle between heroes and villains with spurting blood, fiery Molotov cocktails, guns and screaming and wrestling and chases upstairs and out the doors and off the balconies.  I’ve seen all of this a hundred times before and as well constructed as a film this is, nothing was surprising me anymore.  Nothing was giving me jump scares. 

For such an imaginative picture, the inventions went into neutral.  The dialogue starts to drain in lieu of schlock gore and the intelligence of this abundance of characters checks out at the door.  Some of what you see looks like material that could have been in Friday The 13th Part 14.  And, well, a lot of the material is a rehash of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s very proud B movie From Dusk Til Dawn.

Until the final act of Sinners, Ryan Coogler incorporates so much researched and genuine attention into this Jim Crow era film.  I read that while he was making the Creed and Black Panther films, he was feeling withdrawn after a favorite uncle passed away.  This uncle told stories of this Mississippi area, complete with a small immigration of Chinese populace.  Coogler capitalized on that idea and a well-drawn couple named Bo and Lisa Chow (Yao, Helena Hu) are weaved into this story to supply food and drink for the party that’s to come.  No one would ever question if these two were not part of this cast.  They could have been two black actors or even a pair of whites, but Coogler ensures additional flavors are worked into the film with the authenticity to back it.  These are not even walk on roles.  They own two different mercantile stores within the heart of town. 

The best idea to Sinners is when the music is most entertaining at the Juke.  Ryan Coogler has fun with the clay he infinitely molds.  A long Steadicam shot is the centerpiece of the film as it travels through the whole barn that has been transformed into the Joint.  Coogler seamlessly goes for an ethereal or maybe spiritual feel as the sweaty, sexy and rhythmic performers and their music blends into all kinds of jazz, rap and soul found within the future generations of this community.  A turntable scratcher is positioned next to an acoustic guitar player or a banjo, and as deliberately anachronistic as this seems for 1932, it all belongs together within this seasoned stew.

Outside the Juke Joint are the monsters priming for their own celebration to come with Celtic harmonies, clogging and river dancing to get their appetites drooling, literally drooling.  Two communities will clash and it will be for more than just than standard prejudices found along the cotton fields of Jim Crow Mississippi.

This was not an easy review to write.  I do not want to disclose the surprises and turns that Sinners takes.  As well, my experience with the film is a mixed bag.  There is so much new and fresh material found in Ryan Coogler’s picture, but there’s also a lot of staple work that’s all too familiar as well.  What I recognize is not the least bit surprising and it is frankly uninteresting to me.  Sinners needed the creation of a new kind of cinematic monster to uphold its inventions. 

Especially considering that the body horror film The Substance and Jordan Peele’s terrifyingly smart Get Out earned tons of accolades recently, it will not be a surprise if Sinners earns a lot of end-of-the-year nominations as well.  The direction, editing, art design and costume design are equally worthy of large appreciation.  Sinners has likely clinched a spot for Best Picture nomination.  Only the wrap up will deny itself of the trophy though. 

I must end with a long overdue BRAVO to horror.  Often the genre does not get deserved recognition, because so much of it runs on cheap gross out junk or jump scares with no sensible reasoning behind any of it.  Guys like Coogler and Peele are finally working on the braininess which can be found in this area of storytelling and craftmanship.  They know there are scarier things to imagine than a foreboding hockey mask. 

SINNERS (2025)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Ryan Coogler
CAST: Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton, Delroy Lindo, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Jack O’Connell
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 98% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that even greater troubles are waiting to welcome them back home.


“You keep dancin’ with the devil…one day he’s gonna follow you home.” – Jedidiah in Sinners

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners pulls one of the best head-fakes I’ve seen in a long time.  The initial trailers would have had you believe the film was basically a character study (albeit an intense one) of identical twin brothers trying to run an illegal business in 1932 Mississippi.  Since both brothers are being played by the excellent Michael B. Jordan, aided by a stellar supporting cast, I got the impression it would be a hybrid of Heat, The Cotton Club, and Michael Mann’s Public Enemies.

Sinners does cover much of that fertile ground…for its first half.  Read no further if you’ve been lucky enough not to have seen what the main attraction is, plot-wise, for the film.

We first get a prologue depicting a bloodied young black man bursting into a Sunday church service while holding the top half of a broken guitar neck.  This is Sammie Moore, played by Miles Caton in his film debut.  The rest of the film is a flashback to the previous day.

The Smokestack brothers have returned home.  Smoke and Stack are identical twins, although one of them (Smoke, I think?) has some visible gold in his smile, so that helps distinguish them from each other.  They are both sharply dressed, having returned from Chicago after working for Al Capone for a spell.  They plan to open a juke joint in a building they purchased from a smarmy character named Hogwood, a white man who grins and assures them they won’t have any trouble from the Klan ‘round here.

This whole first half of the movie is masterfully told.  We are presented with fully drawn characters, not generic placeholders to be shuffled randomly later on.  We find out that Sammie is cousin to Smoke and Stack.  We meet Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), a mixed-race woman who was left high and dry romantically when Smoke left for Chicago.  There’s Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), a nearly-ancient man who plays a mean blues harmonica, whom the brothers want to hire to play in their new joint.  There are the Asian owners of a grocery store, hired to cater their grand opening.

And then there’s actress Wunmi Mosaku, who gives a luminous, heartbreaking performance as Annie, a woman who bore Smoke a child that died as an infant.  One of the highlights of the film shows Smoke reconnecting with Annie in a scene that at first invites some crude jokes, but which later provides a deep emotional resonance in the movie’s closing passages.  I only remember Mosaku as a sizable presence in the one-and-done HBO series Lovecraft Country (2020), but she was also apparently in Deadpool and Wolverine (2024), so now I gotta go back and watch THAT again.  Twist my arm.

The movie plays more like a really good Stephen King novel than any other movie I can think of since Pan’s Labyrinth (2006).  The film’s canvas is painted beautifully and crisply, moving smartly without rushing.  I would hope Sinners gets nominated for its film editing (provided by Michael P. Shawver), not because of the thrilling later sections, but because of how economically the first half of the film provides us with the perfect amount of information to understand everyone’s motivations when the second half arrives, when all hell breaks loose.

I must also mention the film’s, I guess, “mystical” content when it comes to African American history.  Early on, Annie, who is a “hoodoo” practitioner (I don’t think “witch” is the right word here), tells a lovely story about how, every once in a while, a musician comes along who can play so beautifully that their music “pierces the veil” between past, present, and future, inviting the spirits of all three to come together and enjoy the music as one.  There is a magnificent sequence where we get a visual representation of exactly that when Sammie starts to play the blues in the juke joint.  Trying to describe it in print is a fool’s errand, but it is one of the film’s many visual highlights.  Trust me.  You’ll know it when you see it.  It’s as elegant a representation of Black history as I’ve ever seen, and I don’t know how anyone will be able to top it in the future.

All of that, though, is just prologue for the main event: the vampires.  If you’ve read this long and didn’t know that was coming, I’m sorry I spoiled that for you, but you were warned.

The whole second half of Sinners flirts with becoming a straight-up genre picture, which is not a bad thing in itself, but which would have been almost disappointing when stacked against what came before.  However, because we have been given such a thorough grounding in all the characters beforehand, there are real stakes involved in trying to predict who will live and who will die.  Some deaths are almost foregone conclusions, but even those are more affecting than they would have been in other similar films.

Traditional vampire lore is very much at play, especially the bit about having to be invited into a house.  But the filmmakers did add one new bit, which I thought was EXTREMELY effective.  As a vampire is about to feed (or thinks it’s about to), it begins to drool…a thick, gooey saliva that drips from its mouth like ectoplasm.  This is a cool touch, and it makes perfect sense, a Pavlovian response to an imminent meal.  Don’t be surprised if another vampire film in the future steals that from Sinners.  I’d steal it.  Wouldn’t think twice about it.

Sinners undoubtedly has some deeper meanings that I am not qualified to unpack, and I leave it to you to find them.  This is one of the best films I’ve seen this year, and it is deservedly making bank at the box office.  (Over $200 million globally as of May 3rd, 2025.)  It is surprising, it is dramatic, it is thrilling, and it is worth seeing on the big screen.  Trust me.

AMERICAN BEAUTY

By Marc S. Sanders

Lester Burnham declares in less than a year he’ll be dead.  When we meet him, he’s masturbating in the shower, sleeping in the back of the family vehicle on the way to work, and declaring that his wife Carolyn used to be lovely.  Heck, he’s acting like he’s dead already.  His life has nothing new or exciting to pursue.  His daughter, Jane, doesn’t give him the time of day.  He’s threatened with being laid off from his magazine call center job that he’s held on to for nearly twenty-five years.  What’s to live for anymore? 

I guess what’s complimentary about poor Lester is that at least he’s honest with himself.  All the other neighbors, except for the gay couple known as Jim & Jim, are just as unhappy it seems and might as well be dead too.  A common theme running through the suburban landscape of American Beauty centers on a sense of mental awakening. Who revives sad, lost folks like Lester and Carolyn?  Perhaps it’s the generation sneaking up behind them, who are on the cusp of taking their place in young adulthood. 

Lester is played by Kevin Spacey, in his second Oscar winning performance.  Carolyn is portrayed by Annette Bening who is way overdue for a trophy.  Jane the daughter is played by Thora Birch.  The headliners of this cast are outstanding in how different and disagreeable they portray a broken family that is forced to live in an unstimulating home while trudging through a lifeless marriage.  Look at the set designs within this film.  There’s an endless amount of blank walls within the interiors of the homes.  Almost no artwork or pictures are to be found. 

Lester pines and fantasizes about Jane’s best friend Angela (Mena Suvari) getting rained on with red rose petals while she lies naked in a pure white bathtub.  Carolyn, the real estate agent who can’t make a sale, sidles up to the dashing Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher), her competition. Next door is Chris Cooper in a hospital cornered role as retired Marine Colonel Frank Fitts, with his near comatose wife Barbara played by Allison Janey, and their eighteen-year-old resourceful drug dealing son, Ricky (Wes Bentley). He takes advantage of his camcorder at any opportunity to collect the beautiful images found within the world he occupies and observes.  That could mean he’s capturing Jane in her bedroom window which faces his own.  Later, he’ll show you the freedom of a plastic shopping bag dancing within an autumn breeze.  An old shopping bag has more life among a breeze and brown leaves than Lester, Carolyn, Frank or Barbara.

There is a mystery to American Beauty that seems quite odd.  We know that Lester will die soon, but how and why? Maybe there’s a twist, because that outcome seems more and more impossible as we see Lester discover a spirited mindset to go after what he wants, when he wants and declare that he’s not going to allow himself to take shit from anyone particularly in his boring dead end job or from his unaffectionate wife.  Ricky, the kid with tons of money and electronics equipment, has nothing to lose because he’s not committed to anything at age eighteen and he can just quit an ordinary table-waiting job at any given moment.  Why didn’t Lester have the gumption to ever be like Ricky?   It seems so simple.

There’s a blink and miss it sign hidden in plain sight.  Pinned to the wall of Lester’s work cubicle is the message “Look Closer.”  Director Sam Mendes and writer Alan Ball gives the audience a subtle wink to dig within the cracks of suburban life sidewalks.  These homes may appear perfect on the outside, with neighborly neighbors, but if you watch with a more critical eye you’ll find an emptiness that has been unfilled for too long.  The filmmakers make it easy for you to uncover what eats away at the upper middle-class way of living.  Dinner with Lawrence Welk playing in the background is anything but uplifting.  It’s imprisoning.

When one member of this community opts to seize his moment, no matter if he’s motivated by a kid’s rebelliousness and the drugs he buys off of him, or the fact that he thinks a beautiful teenage blonde has the hots for him, he sets out to change.  He exercises and builds up his body, buys the dream sports car he’s always wanted, quits his job and grows to not caring how this may disturb his unloving wife. 

American Beauty seems to remind us how alive we can be when we are younger and not as restrained by the commitments it takes to live like adults with debts and parenthood and jobs and marriage.  Look closer though because couldn’t we live as well or more aggressively when middle age arrives?

The irony of Alan Ball’s script is that a boring guy like Lester Burnham discovers exciting things about himself just as the end of his life is approaching.  All he needed was stimulation.  He never saw his death coming, and you might forget he told you he will soon be dead, but American Beauty works to show how necessary it is to live each day to the fullest. 

I sound hokey.  I know.  Yet, that’s the direction of this film’s trajectory.  On the side, you observe those people who do not pursue what will fulfill their own lives and desperately need a modification.  Lester was limited to branch out. So is Colonel Fitts and his very sad wife.  So is Carolyn, and Jane and Angela, and maybe so is Ricky.  All of these people uphold facades about themselves to preserve a happiness on the outside when they really feel worse within. 

Sam Mendes is brilliant at drawing upon the subtle messages and insecurities of Alan Ball’s neighborhood characters.   About the only people that Sam and Alan do not dig deeper with is the gay couple.  I guess since they are happily out of the closet, what is left for them to conceal?

I could not help but compare Mendes’ Oscar winning film to Robert Redford’s.  American Beauty is more forthright than Ordinary People. Redford’s film draws out the ugly honesty of the family nucleus when an unexpected tragedy interferes.  Then it takes the entire film before the spouses take off their masks and truly declare how they regard each other.  It’s crushing to realize a sad truth. 

American Beauty rips off the layer right at the beginning, though.  A tragedy does not awaken these people to the natures that embarrass them.  Simply a hellbent, fed up mindset gets one guy going, and if that one member opens his eyes, then so will others because a simple disruption in ordinary life is next to impossible to live with.  Both films are so wise in how they criticize the very people these films were likely catered for.

What do these two Oscar winners say?  They tell the middle class, middle age American to simply look closer.

M*A*S*H

By Marc S. Sanders

Forgive me.  I’m not sure my position on Robert Altman’s film will be fair.  All my life, I think I deliberately eluded seeing the motion picture of M*A*S*H as I have been so accustomed to the classic television show that ran for eleven seasons on CBS.  As I expected the two properties couldn’t be further apart from one another.

Altman’s movie still carries a zippy kind of perspective to the horrors of war.  With their hands and surgical scrubs in the thick of gory, blood red surgery, the characters are so much more apathetic to the turnaround of wounded that arrive at the 4077th American mobile army hospital, located three miles from the explosive front lines of the bloody Korean War.  The well-known characters were first given live action roles here following the published novel by Richard Hooker.  

Most surprising is near the end of the film when two doctors realize they are being sent home. One surgeon who is in the midst of operating on a head injury actually instructs a colleague to take over.  This guy has his hands covered in brains and blood and chooses not to finish saving his patient’s life.  Alan Alda of the television show, as a writer, director or while portraying Hawkeye Pierce, would never respond in such a manner. Yet, this is the approach that Robert Altman chose to follow, having infamously always despised the TV series that eclipsed his film in popularity.

Altman’s movie is a slap in the face to the famed oxymoron called “military intelligence.” In 1970, we say bravo for finally saying something frank and honest while a Vietnam War has carried on far too long for not necessarily any of the right reasons.  It’s not so simple to declare war is hell.  It’s much more complicated and horrifying than that.

The film’s opening bylines are quotes by celebrated military leaders of the time, like MacArthur and Eisenhower.  However, these championed commanders are lampooned as we watch shlubby Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland) arriving in Korea.  He heads directly towards a General’s jeep and steals it, plain as day.  From there on, M*A*S*H operates like a precursor to Animal House with a series of hijinks and a lack of care for military leadership or the U.S.’s purpose in this conflict.  

About the only time, there is any care or forthright anger from anyone is when the jerky Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) chastises an underling.  Trapper (Elliot Gould) and Hawkeye punch his lights out and the schmuck ends up in a straightjacket.  Nonetheless, these guys could care less about criticizing and exposing the truth about the institution they have been drafted to serve.  Their purpose is not to make an ironic statement like a Doonesbury comic strip.  They just punch the commanding officer in the face and drink.  The TV show was at its strongest when it relied on the wit and delivery.  Trapper and Hawkeye never use irony or intelligence to belittle a buffoon.  They punch, or they embarrass an authority who’s taking a shower. Regretfully, it’s the dialogue that’s lacking. Robert Altman encouraged much improv on the set and overlayered conversations within his scenes. He found nothing organized or neat and pretty about war, including daily functioning. Chaos did not only reign on a battlefield.

The pace of M*A*S*H moves episodically, and it is likely what led to the idea of a half hour TV show that dominated the airwaves for the better part of eleven years.  A character called Painless contemplates suicide and so a Last Supper reenactment before he sends himself off is inserted. It’s a funny caption from these halfwits, but a storyline focused on deliberately ending a life does not connect with me in a humorous way here. Burt Reynolds, the dark comedy Heathers, and even more recently Tom Hanks toed the line of humor to be found in death by suicide. I think it worked better in those examples. With the somber, well known theme song of “Suicide Is Painless” that is forever linked with M*A*S*H, I just could not muster the laughs for this bit.

There’s also time to build comedy against another regular army brat like Major “Hot Lips” Houlihan (Sally Kellerman, also the best and most memorable of the cast).  The iterations of shower hijinks has been duplicated so often since the release of this picture. Therefore, this gag is dried up. It does not hold its impact fifty years later after dozens Porky’s movies. As well, there’s golfing off the helicopter pad, heavy drinking and a long, drawn-out final act of an overstayed football competition which leads to one of the first times the F-word was used in a mainstream American film.  

In 1970, Robert Altman delivered a bold, risky and daring film to counteract against a losing Vietnam War and the heroism of John Wayne’s bravado in war pictures.  The chutzpah to lash out against American politics likely felt relatable to many who saw different and more realistic images when they understood their young sons and daughters were not coming home and were thus forever changed.  Richard Hooker’s properties and stories lent an understanding to the animosity of those who forced the war on America’s children and loved ones.  War has never been consistent with the short film propaganda asking you to buy war bonds. M*A*S*H negated the heroism of Hollywood sensationalism found in machine gun fare and overtaking a hill while draped in green fatigues with shiny bronze ammunition hanging off their shoulders. These soldiers of war deserve our country’s utmost respect, but they did so much more than what John Wayne demonstrated. They offered up parts of themselves they would never get back.

M*A*S*H deliberately left out the heroes.  However, seeing the film for the first time, over fifty years later, I wish that at least we could follow the escapades of doctors who also directed a bed side manner to the pawns who were dying while upholding their leaders’ cause.  The doctors of Robert Altman’s interpretation hardly emulate a reason to care. 

The film interpretation of M*A*S*H is outdated of its time of release and the period in which it takes place.  I like to think we live more humanely than not just how our military leaders functioned.  I wished these physicians used their scalpels with a much less obtuse absence of empathy.  Hate the puppet masters, yes. Yet would it kill these guys to still care about the puppets? 

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT

By Marc S. Sanders

If you want to stay on top of how the world of American cinema evolved over the last hundred years, within all its categories, you must find time to watch the one film that paved the way for the romantic comedy, as well as the travel comedy.  Frank Capra’s Oscar winning picture, It Happened One Night, is the first of three films to win Oscars for every major category: Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor and Actress. Nearly a hundred years later, the accolades still feel worthy.

Claudette Colbert is wealthy heiress Ellie Andrews who dives off and swims away from the captivity of her father’s yacht and buses from Miami to New York to reunite with her new husband, King Westly (Jameson Thomas).  Her father, Alexander Andrews (Walter Connolly), never approved of this marriage and insists his spoiled daughter get it annulled once she is found.  A ten-thousand-dollar reward is up for grabs to the person who finds her.

Along the way, a rogue reporter, Peter Warne (Clark Gable) ends up next to this young lady on the bus.  Complications ensue where their money gets lost, bags are stolen, buses are missed, and buses get stuck.  Then this trip becomes a walking experience.  Ellie has agreed to stay by Peter’s side though.  He promises to get her to New York as long as he gets to write about her story firsthand amid the constant headlines that recount Alexander’s desperation to get his daughter back.

It’d be easy enough if only Peter and Ellie were not falling for one another.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  Any Nora Ephron script has the elements of It Happened One Night.  Screwball comedies with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn seemed to follow a similar blueprint.  To the best of my knowledge, Frank Capra’s film was first though.  

A famous scene has Colbert and Gable on the side of the road trying to hitch a ride.  Colbert’s bare leg does the trick that Gable’s outstretched thumb could not.  Eventually, this scene for the ages evolved into Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal daring to fake an orgasm effectively while dining at Katz’s Delicatessen.

When Harry Met Sally… is what easily comes to mind while watching It Happened One Night.  Peter will tease this spoiled rich girl. Yet, he will also be gentlemanly enough to put up a blanket to divide a cabin room he shares with Ellie, allowing for some privacy.  In the middle of the night though, the two will stay up chatting from either side of their blanket wall, as both acknowledge sad voids within their personal lives.  It’s parallel to how Harry and Sally would chat on the phone from their respective apartment bedrooms while discussing their newly evolving friendship with Casablanca on TV.  

Ellie and Peter become relaxed as their sojourn continues.  They could be left in the middle of nowhere with no money or food, but Gable and Colbert’s chemistry show an easy comfort to each other.  That is what’s expected of any troubled travel film.  At first Ellie does not want to share a rear bench on the bus with Peter.  She’s married to King and the purpose of this runaway trip is to be back in her new husband’s arms.  Plus, this odd fellow on the bus feels unseemly.  His charm is overbearing to the socialite’s proper petiteness.  He’ll resort to munching on a carrot he finds in a patch. She can’t find the appetite for it. Time together breaks down barriers though, just as movies in later decades eventually accomplished with films like Midnight Run and Planes, Trains & Automobiles.  This kind of formula, with ongoing new settings and circumstances, is almost guaranteed to end in positivity once the mutual antagonism is behind the pair.  

For 1934, It Happened One Night was bold in its content, ahead of an eventual ratings system intent on upholding an acceptable level of conservatism.  Colbert’s leg is the most unforgettable.  Later, Peter feels it necessary to spank Ellie.  Then there is the fact that the two share a room together.  Comedic circumstances and shock lend to the humor of this scenario.  Plus, there’s Claudette Colbert undressing down to her slip while a bare-chested Clark Gable is only one side of a blanket away from her.  

Would It Happened One Night endure an endless admiration if moments like these were contained? I doubt it.  Frank Capra’s film hinges on sexual appeal that feels naughty and rebellious.  

The dialogue remains witty.  Clark Gable’s introduction in the film while on the phone with his editor is a precursor to what an outlandish Bill Murray might have done with the script. The material is sometimes quite brash, and the ending, which has been duplicated hundreds of times since, is a perfect example of romantic escapism.  

Over ninety years have passed but unexpected romance is what remains treasured.  When two people with nothing in common begin an unwelcome journey together, it’s still easy to hope they find a way to like each other.  They have to like one another first before they can even concern themselves with falling in love.  The progress of this east coast bus ride allows for the stages to develop naturally.  Frank Capra, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert were the first to give it a shot and it works brilliantly and beautifully.