My first thoughts on Oliver! are that is was one of the least deserving films to ever win Best Picture and that it was one of the least entertaining films that I can remember while working on this project. In fact, aside from about 30-45 minutes in the second and third acts, there wasn’t a lot about this film that I liked at all. The songs weren’t good. The story, while compelling was ruined by the songs. The acting was unremarkable. The art direction and production design were well done, but you can’t rely on those things to carry a film. Here’s the sad part. I had never seen this film before last weekend, and my expectations were very low. The film did not even meet my low expectations.

Oliver! is a musical, and it was the fifth musical to win Best Picture since 1958 and was the fourth musical to win in the 60’s alone. Musicals dominated the Oscars in the 1960’s in a way that they hadn’t before or since with varying degrees of quality. I generally like musicals, and I generally liked most of the musicals that won in this stretch, even if I didn’t necessarily think that they were all worthy of winning Best Picture. All of them had at least some quality that made them entertaining even if the story wasn’t as strong as it could be, and that was usually in the quality of the songs and the choreography, which was consistently top notch. However, Oliver! didn’t have much in it at all that was appealing.

This may end up being one of the shortest blogs I’ve ever written, because I’m just not that interested in rehashing this film. I spent two and a half hours watching it, and I’d rather not spend a ton of time dissecting it. I think the biggest problem with it was the songs. They’re just not that good, which is obviously going to be poison for a musical. The other problem with a lot of the numbers are either way too long, or just not entertaining. For example, Consider Yourself seems to go on forever. It’s a huge number that seems to involve the entire population of London. The choreography is fine, but it’s too long. I’m out of the story. Another number that has problems is As Long as He Needs Me. I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic when I say that it might be one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard in a musical. The tempo drags like a wet rag and there isn’t any rhythm to the song or any real direction. Nancy, who for some reason is in love with Bill Sikes, the villain of the story, drones on and on (at times I swear she’s off key) about how she’s going to keep putting up with Sikes’ abuse because she thinks he needs her. It doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t make me care about her.

The one musical number in the whole film that works for me is Oom-Pah-Pah. That number is actually entertaining and it helps progress the story. Sikes has kidnapped Oliver from the life of luxury that Mr. Brownlow is providing for him because Sikes is afraid that Oliver will reveal to the authorities all of the illegal activities in which they’ve been involved. Nancy helped him do it, but now she’s feeling regret and wants to take him back to Brownlow, but she knows that Sikes will never allow it. While they’re in their local watering hole and Sikes is busy making plans with Fagin, Nancy strikes up the band with Oom-Pah-Pah, and gets everyone singing and dancing as a way to distract Sikes and get sneak Oliver out of the bar. It almost works, and sets up the climax of the film.

There is also a stretch in the film after Sikes has kidnapped Oliver that the film actually gets pretty good. Director Carol Reed, who inexplicably also won the Oscar for Best Director, belayed the singing for the longest stretch of the film and actually crafted a nice plot with a dramatic story. It was almost as if they forgot to interrupt the story with misplaced singing and dancing and a dramatic structure unfolded. I actually found myself starting to enjoy the film and care about the characters in a way that I hadn’t to that point. But by then, we were an hour and a half into the film.

By far the biggest problem with the film is that I never really cared that much about Oliver. The people around him, the good people that is, seem to have affection for him, and characters like the Artful Dodger and Fagin were actually well crafted and well-acted characters that were entertaining to watch. Oliver, however, is a passive kid who never is proactive about anything. Everything that happens in this film happens to him, other than when he runs away from the undertaker. After that, he meets the Artful Dodger who takes him to Fagin. Dodger tries to pick Brownlow’s pocket, and Oliver gets blamed for it and taken to court. The judge is ready to sentence Oliver to hard labor when a witness miraculously shows up and says that it wasn’t Oliver at all. Having sympathy for the poor boy, Brownlow takes custody of him. Then Sikes kidnaps him and forces him to break into another house before Nancy ultimately attempts to rescue him, triggering a chase through the alleys of London where it looks like the city’s entire population is after Sikes.

I’d like to talk about that for a moment as well. The climax couldn’t have been any more anti-climactic. The entire city is chasing Sikes, and it’s obvious that there’s no way that he’s getting out of this. The only thing that would create any suspense would be the fear that he’s going to die and take Oliver with him. Except that we really don’t care what happens to Oliver at this point because he’s a totally ineffectual character. I was just really happy when “The End” finally appeared on the screen.

I apologize for the snarky tone of this post. I just found Oliver! to be one of the most, if not the most, disappointing Oscar winner to date.

Did the Academy get it right?

I’m sure that you’ve guessed by now that I’m going to say no, they did not get it right. In fact, it wasn’t even the best musical nominated in 1968. That honor should have gone to Funny Girl with Barbara Streisand and Omar Sharif. Unfortunately for Funny Girl, it was also a romantic comedy, and only courtroom dramas seem to get snubbed with more regularity than do romantic comedies. Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet was also nominated that year, and it was a true adaptation of what might be William Shakespeare’s most popular play. I don’t know if the fact that West Side Story, which was also an adaptation, although with a modern take, that won just seven years earlier worked against this more accurate adaptation, but it certainly was more worthy than was Oliver!. I have never seen Rachel, Rachel, so I cannot speak to its quality or Oscar-worthiness. I will say, though, that the film that would have received my vote, had I had one, in 1968 would have been The Lion in Winter. It starred Peter O’Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, and Timothy Dalton. That is a wonderful film with amazing acting and a story that is compelling and dramatic. It was a powerful film that was certainly much more worthy of winning Best Picture than was Oliver!

What a wonderful film In the Heat of the Night is. This is a film that has a lot of great things going on in it, from a very strong, layered story with socially significant theme to a very strong cast with actors who are at the top of their respective games playing roles that the audience cares about. This is at once a very riveting detective story as well as a story about overcoming prejudices and preconceived notions. It isn’t a perfect film, but it comes very close to being one.

Along with having one of cinema’s most iconic moments in this film (“They call me Mr. Tibbs!”), Sidney Poitier cemented himself as one of the great actors of the up and coming generation that had been making its mark over the previous decade. He played Virgil Tibbs, an African-American police officer from Philadelphia traveling through the south who is at first wrongly accused of killing a local prominent business man, and then later is asked to help and solve the crime. This was a very important film for a number of reasons. First, it was made at a time where the south was just coming out of the era of segregation and the Civil Rights Act had been passed only three years earlier, and racial tensions in the south remained very high.

With that in mind, In the Heat of the Night was certainly one of the most important films of the year since it was dealing with these types of issues. Ironically another film that came out the same year starring Sidney Poitier would deal with these issues as well, but from a slightly lighter and cheerier place. It would be nominated for Best Picture as well, so we’ll discuss it a little later.

As mentioned, this was an important film, especially for its time, but it wouldn’t be regarded as such if it hadn’t have been a good film. Any film can be self-righteous, and certainly plenty have been, however in order for a film to be important it has to stand the test of time and be able to get its message out there. No one will care about a self-righteous film, even if it has a message as important as this film, if it’s not good enough to spend two hours watching. In the Heat of the Night is a film that is worth watching, and in watching it, you get to experience its message, its themes and its conscious through the excellent acting, directing and writing.

As mentioned above, the bare bones of the story reveal this to be a detective story. The twist is that the person who ends up solving it is initially charged with it. Actually, he’s never charged, but Officer Sam Wood (Warren Oats) and Police Chief Gillespie (Rod Steiger) are both ready to convict him after Wood discovers him sitting alone in the train station after discovering the dead body in the middle of town. Only after Tibbs reveals himself as a police officer and shows Gillespie his badge, is he removed from the list of suspects. At that point an uneasy alliance is created between Tibbs and Gillespie. Tibbs is ordered by his superiors in Philadelphia to assist in solving the crime since he’s one of their best murder detectives and Gillespie, a small town sheriff, has very little experience with this sort of crime.

Some of the best character work in this film is done with Gillespie. He comes across as racist at first, but then doesn’t care at all about Tibbs’ race. He only cares if Tibbs can help him solve the crime. With that, he directs others in the town that are, shall we say uncomfortable, with Tibbs’ presence to work with him. However, Gillespie is never 100% on board with Tibbs helping out, especially when Tibbs uses some of his northern, big city practices to question people. He also is uncomfortable with Tibbs confrontational nature. However Tibbs knows that he has to be this way because deep down he wants to prove to these white supremacists that he is just as good a cop, if not better, and he’s just as smart, if not smarter than they are.

Overall there are very few weaknesses in In the Heat of the Night. One thing I probably would have liked to have seen would have been a more depth of character in Tibbs. He’s a character without flaws, and those types of characters always bug me because one of the purposes of the story is to allow the main character to grow or to learn in some way. Gillespie certainly has opportunities for character growth, and he ends the story less ignorant, less racist and more understanding of the world around him. Tibbs is able to show the other characters in the film that he’s worth just as much as a human being as they are, and he looks to get some satisfaction out of that, but I don’t know if he learned anything or became a better person because of it.

Otherwise it’s terrific. I mentioned earlier that the story is layered, and it is. On the surface it’s a detective story, but the thematic elements of overcoming racial prejudices take leading roles in the story and are not subtle, like thematic elements usually are in films. Usually when a film’s theme is so overt, it feels preachy, however In the Heat of the Night director Norman Jewison and screenwriter Sterling Silliphant took John Ball’s novel and were able to sidestep that landmine by expertly building drama in the story and by making the challenges to overcoming the racism the same as the challenges to solving the case. Tibbs couldn’t overcome one challenge without overcoming the other, so there was a legitimate dramatic purpose to the racism themes. That allowed them to be up front without the story coming off as overly preachy.

As great as the film itself is, I think it’s important to discuss a broader topic. I believe that this film and this year marked a turning point in Hollywood. There were a lot of incredible films that were released in 1967, and many of them were starting to use motifs that hadn’t been used before and were pushing the boundaries of what we could and couldn’t see. Even though they were brief, The Graduate had scenes with nudity. Films like Bonnie and Clyde and The Dirty Dozen were showing violence in a much more graphic way than had been shown to that point. Profanity was starting to be used in dialogue. Cool Hand Luke had one scene that was overtly sexual as the men on the chain gang watched lustily from a distance and a beautiful young girl washed her car. They weren’t afraid to use the N-word in In the Heat of the Night. Also advances in film making techniques like lighting and hand held cameras and sound recording devices were taking the sets out of the sound stages and into the real worlds in which these stories were taking place on a level like never before. I would contend that 1967 marked the beginning of modern film making as we would know it for the next 30-35 years.

Another thing to consider is the actors that were starring in these films. Actors like Sidney Poitier, Dustin Hoffman, Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Elizabeth Taylor, Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore, Robert Blake, and John Forstythe all starred in films in 1967 and went on to dominate in film and television for the ensuing two decades. In fact, there are moments in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner where you can practically see the torch getting passed from Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy to Sidney Poitier.

I say all of this knowing full well that a musical won again the following year. However, that would be more of a last gasp than regaining dominance. As we’ll see, starting again in 1969 and continuing throughout the seventies, the great films of the era would be much closer to In the Heat of the Night and The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde than they would be to Doctor Doolittle and The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady.

Did the Academy get it right?

Oof. Boy, am I glad I didn’t have to vote in 1967. When films like Cool Hand Luke and In Cold Blood can’t even get nominated, you know you’re in a tough year. In fact, I would include 1967 with 1939 as two of the greatest years of all time in terms of which films were nominated. Bonnie and Clyde is a great crime movie, and its influence has remained strong since its release. Just see Natural Born Killers to see how Bonnie and Clyde influenced great film makers like Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino some 30 years after it came out. Doctor Doolittle was a musical that was the one nominated film this year that looked backwards instead of forwards. It’s a great production and Rex Harrison is as great in it as he is in My Fair Lady, but as the other nominees show, society and film making were moving away from big studio productions and becoming grittier and more realistic. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner also starred Sidney Poitier, along with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, the latter passing away just weeks after shooting and before the film was released. As mentioned above, it deals with a lot of the same themes as In the Heat of the Night, but it does it in a more light-hearted, but no less serious way. Sidney Poitier falls in love with the daughter of Hepburn and Tracy, forcing them to reexamine their own progressive views against what they feel would be best for their daughter. It’s a truly amazing film and the scene where Poitier confronts his father over his feelings is one of my favorite scenes of all time. Finally, there is The Graduate. Ranked as the #17 film of all time on AFI’s most recent list of the 100 greatest movies of all time (Bonnie and Clyde was ranked #42, In the Heat of the Night was ranked #75, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was ranked #99 on the original list), The Graduate is regarded as one of the seminal films of all time. It’s a story about a man who has an affair with the middle aged wife of his father’s business partner, but then falls in love with her daughter. It’s funny, dramatic, and launched Dustin Hoffman’s career. These are all great films, and I wouldn’t criticize anyone for voting for any of them. With its powerful themes that were very fitting for the time, it’s easy to see why In the Heat of the Night took home the Oscar, and it’s completely appropriate that it would win. I loved the film, but personally would have had to flip a coin to choose whether to vote for The Graduate or Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, as those were my two favorite films of the year and I couldn’t choose between them myself. Then depending on the coin toss, I might have had to go two out of three.

I was thoroughly impressed with this film. I must admit that I knew nothing about it going in, and I had actually never even really heard about it before I started this exercise. All I knew about A Man for All Seasons going in was what I read about it on the back cover of the DVD. It is the story of Sir Thomas More, who refused to approve of Henry VIII divorcing his wife so that he could marry Ann Boleyn. It is a story of political intrigue & ambition, as well as a story about living by your conscience and sticking to your principles and what you believe in, no matter the price. It’s also about the rule of law and whether or not the highest people in the land may be above those laws or if they have the power to change them simply to suit their own needs.

A Man for All Seasons is a thinking person’s film. This film has no action sequences, no love scenes, no sex, no innuendo. There is nothing to titillate the viewer and there is also very little levity. This is a serious film that you have to pay attention to, and close attention at that. It has a complex and complicated story that you have to actively watch in order to be able to follow it. This is a film that requires effort on the part of the viewer. We don’t get many films like this one anymore.

That being said, if you’re willing to put forth that effort, you will be rewarded by enjoying a wonderful film that has a lot to offer. I wouldn’t call this an entertaining film, but it is still a highly enjoyable film, if you’re willing to put forth the effort of paying close attention to it. It is a film that will make you feel smarter after having watched it. You will see amazing performances by the actors and you will experience a wonderfully written script with dialogue that is as poetic as it is provocative. There are clear characters to root for and against and there is a dramatic situation that will illicit clear emotional responses. But you have to be prepared for the fact that you’re going to be watching a film that, while not necessarily slow, is certainly deliberate. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about My Fair Lady, and how I felt that many of the scenes were too long with dialogue that was either too repetitive or didn’t say anything important, and the movie suffered for it. A Man for All Seasons is a film that has scenes that are as long, if not longer than those in My Fair Lady, and probably could have been edited just as much in order to give the film a more efficient pace. However, the pacing works much better in this film, for the obvious reason that it has completely different subject matter and a totally different tone. However, there is a deeper reason that the more deliberate pacing works in this film and that is because we have to be able to take in all of the information that it is feeding us. Sometimes a film has to take a slower pace in order for the viewer to get the best possible experience with it, and A Man for All Seasons is the perfect example of that type of film. It’s not slow. It’s deliberate. It has to be deliberate in order to most effectively tell the story, and that’s a good thing. It’s proper and it’s unfortunate that calling a movie “slow” is more often than not a criticism, when perhaps the story was told in the appropriate way, but the viewers were too impatient. You cannot be an impatient viewer if you want to enjoy A Man for All Seasons.

There are three things that I found particularly compelling about this film, and those things are the overall story, the deep and intertwined thematic elements, and the character of Sir Thomas More, played brilliantly by Paul Scofield, who would also win Best Actor for his efforts in this film. Of course, Scofield’s performance is woven with the story and themes in a way that carries the film and makes it what it is.

On the surface, this appears to be a fairly simple story. Henry VIII wants to divorce his wife so that he can marry Ann Boleyn. He feels that he needs Sir Thomas More, England’s Roman Catholic Chancellor to give his approval, but Sir Thomas will not give approval without the approval of the Pope, who is certain not to give it. Sir Thomas remains steadfast in his denial, claiming not only his conscience, but also the rule of law. He’s not going to change his morals so that Henry VIII may feel better about his sin. Within this simple story idea, we have a bountiful amount of characters fitting certain archetypes that give the story depth and emotion. There are men of ambition in Lord Cromwell, who lusts for the blood of Sir Thomas as though he believes getting it will assure him a higher position with the King. We have Richard Rich (John Hurt), whose ambition for any type of office leads him from ultimate loyalty to Sir Thomas to ultimately betraying him on behalf of Cromwell. Then there is the Duke of Norfolk who is so loyal to Sir Thomas that he’s willing to give up their friendship “for friendship’s sake.” Sir Thomas’ daughter Margaret (Susannah York) and wife Alice (Wendy Hiller) also show their loyalty by allowing Sir Thomas to keep his silence.

Sir Thomas More was a lawyer before becoming Chancellor. He knows the law, and he knows that he cannot support Henry VIII declaring himself Head of the Church in England, and he cannot take the oath swearing support for his marriage to Ann Boleyn. He knows that his only recourse is silence. This way he avoids supporting something his conscience won’t allow him to, and he needn’t deny allegiance to the king. This trait leads to one of the great thematic elements of the film, and that is the rule of law. Sir Thomas time and again throughout the film elegantly and eloquently delivers dialogue regarding the law that could be mistaken for poetry. His back and forth with Cromwell is like a man against a boy when discussing what the law requires and what punishment is appropriate under the law. Sir Thomas also makes no bones about the difference between man’s law and God’s law, and how, in this case, following one means disobeying the other. Therein lies the drama in this film. Ultimately, A Man for All Seasons is about a man who must make a choice between an outer need and an inner need. Does he follow his conscience and live in a manner in which God prescribes and could lead to his salvation, or does he follow the secular wishes of his King and take the easy road to peace in this lifetime and risk damnation? Normally in a drama, you would have the main character struggle with that conflict. In A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas doesn’t struggle with it at all, at least internally. He makes his choice straight away, and the struggle is with Cromwell, Norfolk and the King. They demand to know his choice, but his silence keeps up the ambiguity until they have no other choice then to charge him with high treason.

On the surface, Sir Thomas More doesn’t seem like the type of man that audiences would be able to relate to. He’s sullen, pious and devout. He has more moral fiber in his little finger than most of us have in our entire bodies. However, screenwriter Robert Bolt and director Fred Zimmerman did a superb job of humanizing Sir Thomas. They gave him a wit that belies his serious tone. They made him a devoted family man who has earned the love and respect of his wife and daughter. He is a man with many friends and many more admirers. These traits allowed us to relate to Sir Thomas on a human level as equals, for whom among us doesn’t have some of these qualities? What’s unique about Sir Thomas is the very traits that make him such a good man, his pious nature, is moral clarity, his devotion to God, end up being his undoing. I’ve learned over the years in screenwriting classes and seminars, and I’ve pointed out in notes that I’ve written for others that in order to give a character depth, you need to give that character at least one negative trait if they’re a hero or one positive trait if they’re a villain. At first glance, Sir Thomas More has no negative traits. He’s a good man through and through. Bolt and Zimmerman created depth in him by making his good qualities the agent of his demise. What starts out the story in his favor turns out to cause his defeat. It’s a unique way of telling a story and developing a character that works very well for this film and allows the audience to relate to what would otherwise be a character with whom they could not otherwise relate.

Did the Academy get it right?

This is a bit of a tough one for me, but I believe that they did. I’ve never seen The Sand Pebbles, so I can’t speak to that film. The Russians Are Coming, the Russians are Coming is a fun film and a comedy, but doesn’t feel to me like the type of film that would be Best Picture-worthy. I have a similar feeling about Alfie. Michael Caine is terrific and Shelley Winters has always been one of my favorite underrated actresses. As wonderful as it is, it just doesn’t feel like a Best Picture winner. I hope I don’t come across here as anti-comedy. I love comedies, and do not think that comedies should be disqualified from Oscar consideration. It just seems to me that the best picture of the year ought to have a certain gravitas and neither of these films has it. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, however, is a film that had gravitas and deserved consideration. You want to talk about a serious movie, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is as serious as a heart attack, and you might just have one watching that movie. It’s a wonderful film that, had it come out in another year might have taken home the statue. Before seeing A Man for All Seasons, I was certain that I was going to say that Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf should have won the Oscar. However, after actually seeing A Man for All Seasons I can honestly say that the Academy did get it right, although I would have no complaints Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf taken home the award. As it was, A Man for All Seasons was a worthy recipient.

For the second year in a row, the third time in five years, and the fourth time in seven years, the Academy bestowed its highest honor on a musical. In fact, The Sound of Music would take home a total of five Oscars, including Best Director for Robert Wise, who helmed his second Best Picture winner, having also directed West Side Story in 1961. In many ways The Sound of Music is a superior film to that one, and it also succeeds on many levels where the previous year’s winner, My Fair Lady did not.

The first area where The Sound of Music is superior to My Fair Lady, as well as West Side Story is in the character development and the development if their relationships. Both of the main characters in My Fair Lady had excellent character arcs, and the blossoming relationship in West Side Story was one of the strongest aspects of that film. The Sound of Music effectively took both of those motifs and developed the characters as well as their relationships, creating a story that was as deep as it was dramatic. When we first meet Maria (Julie Andrews), we learn that she is a nun living in a convent, but is having a very hard conforming to the strict orthodoxy of the abbey. She is well-loved by the other nuns, but her free-spirited nature is in direct conflict with the conservative way in which they live. Figuring that she needs time to find herself and her true path in life, Mother Abbess sends her to the home of the Von Trapp family in order to serve as the governess to their seven children. Mrs. Von Trapp has passed away, and Captain Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) is having a hard time retaining governesses to care for his unruly and mischievous children. Maria arrives at the Von Trapp home and meets the Captain, late of the Austrian Navy, and he is a firm disciplinarian who demands discipline in his house and expects and demands certain decorum from all of its residents.

What makes these characters superior to the lovers in West Side Story is that they experience very effective character arcs. The Maria and Tony from West Side Story end that film largely the way they started it, except of course for Tony being dead. But their personalities didn’t change. They didn’t grow as characters, and I wasn’t buying the love story between them. What makes The Sound of Music so successful at this from my point of view is that both Maria and Captain Von Trapp grow and change throughout the first half of the story. Maria gains the responsibility of motherhood, and she matures without losing her fun-loving nature. She becomes a woman who knows her place in the world. Meanwhile, Captain Von Trapp goes from an emotionally closed off disciplinarian to a loving father who now clearly loves the children whom be previously seemed to barely know. What’s more is that this character growth happens for both of them slowly and deliberately as the story progresses.

What makes the relationship that these characters experience superior to what we saw in My Fair Lady is that we can actually see them falling in love with each other. Wise did a wonderful job of developing the relationship between Maria and Captain Von Trapp so that we see how they interact with each other. Then we see how they start looking at each other. Then we see that they can’t live without each other. It is a wonderful progression that we never see happen in My Fair Lady. Love just suddenly hits Eliza. Later, love just suddenly hits Professor Higgins. We don’t care about their relationship, because to that point no relationship had developed. We got to see Eliza’s character grow and change as Higgins taught her how to speak properly and how to comport herself like a lady, but I never got the sense that either one of them was falling in love with the other. However, in The Sound of Music it is totally clear what is happening and we’re able to root for Maria and Captain von Trapp to end up together.

One more thing that succeeded in The Sound of Music that did not in My Fair Lady is the level of conflict. There is barely any conflict in My Fair Lady, and many of the chances for conflict were stifled before they had a chance to get going. There is a wealth of conflict in The Sound of Music. What’s more, that conflict is created by characters that are in positions of power that can prevent our heroes from getting what they want. Be it the Baroness who is competing with Maria for von Trapp’s affections or the Nazis who are threatening to take Captain Von Trapp away and force him to serve in the German Navy. What’s also great about the conflict is that the stakes get raised throughout the film. We go from a love triangle to the seriousness of war, but each issue threatens to keep the lovers apart. The Baroness is in a position of power because she comes from wealth and is of the same social standing as Captain Von Trapp. She is also already seeing him when the story begins, but we realize as soon as we meet her that she’s not the right woman for him, nor is she right for the children. We’ve seen over the past few minutes of the film that Maria is perfect for the children, and we learn right after meeting the Baroness that it’s actually Maria who is perfect for the Captain. But just like any good antagonist, the Baroness isn’t going down without a fight, and actually convinces Maria at one point to leave the family and go back to the Abbey. It’s only after Maria gets advice from her archetypal mentor in Mother Abbess that she goes back to Captain Von Trapp, and finally gains his love.

Dealing with the Nazis is a whole other issue. Von Trapp is an Austrian nationalist and despises the Nazis and everything they stand for. But once they make it clear that he’s going to have to serve or else threaten his own life as well as the lives of Maria and the children, it’s imperative that they leave Austria all together. Wise did an outstanding job of building the tension when their initial escape is thwarted, and then they have to hide in the Abbey as members of the SS search for them in the dark, including Rolf, the love interest of Liesl, Captain Von Trapp’s 16-year old daughter. The tension is palpable and the scene is paid off brilliantly and in a way that is completely unexpected, and yet totally plausible.

There is something else that, to me, makes this movie so successful. I’ve written over 1100 words already, and haven’t yet written one word about the music. That’s because, unlike so many other musicals, the songs in The Sound of Music are used entirely to advance the story and/or develop characters. The story is what is driving this film. That’s not to say that the songs are not an important component. There is no shortage of songs in The Sound of Music, and some of the most memorable songs in the history of cinema come from this film. However, the story isn’t reserved as merely the space between songs. As I’ve mentioned many times in other posts, the stories in musicals are too often just the space to get us to the next song. That is not the case in The Sound of Music. We listen to the songs, and we love them, but only because we are so engaged with the story. There is real emotion in this story and we care about all of the characters and what happens to them, regardless of the songs they’re singing.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t talk about the songs, many of which have transcended the film and become a part of our popular culture. From the opening with Maria belting out that, “The hills are alive with the sound of music!” the nuns wondering, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” From Liesl and Rolf singing Sixteen Going on Seventeen to Maria charming the children with My Favorite Things and Do-Re-Mi, this film is filled with beloved songs that many people would probably recognize, even if they’ve never seen the film. In fact, most every song in this film is at least recognizable. You know you’ve heard Climb Ev’ry Mountain before. You know you’ve heard Edelweiss before. These are amazing songs that, while they do a remarkable job of progressing the story and developing character, stand individually on their own as wonderful songs.

Finally, I would like to say a few words about the acting. Can we please acknowledge that Julie Andrews is one of the great actresses of the 20^th Century? A year after winning Best Actress for Mary Poppins, she would be nominated for The Sound of Music. One of the things that makes Maria’s character arc so effective is the amazing performance of Julie Andrews. She knows just the right time to push just the right emotion just the right amount. Her subtle facial expressions as she’s falling in love with Von Trapp are beautiful and artistic. Her singing voice is second to none, and she’s also a very good dancer. Christopher Plummer holds his own as well, and the same thing could be said about his performance making his character arc so effective. He is just as believable as the vacant disciplinarian as he is as the loving, nurturing father. The secondary performances are also very good, especially those of the children and the nuns. These characters are believable, and that further helps us become engaged in their world.

Did the Academy get it right?

I have to admit that the only other film that I’ve seen that was nominated in 1965 was Doctor Zhivago, which is an outstanding film, but not on the same level as The Sound of Music. I have never seen Darling, Ship of Fools or A Thousand Clowns, but in a vacuum, The Sound of Music is among the most deserving films ever to win the award. It has everything that you’d want in a Best Picture winner. It is a musical that tells an engaging story. It uses the wide-screen format to accentuate the story, and not to just be eye candy. It has top-notch performances from its actors and it was meticulously crafted by its director. Personally, I feel that The Sound of Music was the clear and deserving winner of Best Picture for 1965.

I did not love this film. I know I’m in the minority here, and I actually did like it quite a bit, I just didn’t love it. Starting off, my biggest beef with it is that it’s too long, coming in at just under three hours. They could have easily cut 30-40 minutes out of this film, and I would have enjoyed it much more. It also lacks drama for the first half of the film. There is a certain amount of conflict between the main characters, but it the conflict and drama doesn’t really hit its stride until we’re more than half way through the film. The frustrating thing about that is that there are several opportunities for drama and conflict that they passed on.

I feel like I should have enjoyed it more because there is a lot of quality film making and storytelling going on in My Fair Lady. Rex Harrison is delightfully pretentious and snobbish as the phonetics professor Higgins. The dialogue written for him is unequalled and he delivers it with panache and confidence that makes him utterly believable as a character. It’s also difficult not to fall in love with Audrey Hepburn as the diamond-in-the-rough flower peddler, Eliza Doolittle, whom Professor Higgins bets he can turn into a woman who would be presentable even in as high societal a place as Buckingham Palace.

My Fair Lady is in many ways a textbook film to watch for aspiring screenwriters in that it is actually a character-driven story where the goal of Professor Higgins is to change Eliza Doolittle so that she changes for the better, and in turn changes for the better himself. Similarly to Gigi where the title character was not the hero, but in fact the love interest, My Fair Lady takes a similar tack. Professor Higgins is the hero of this story, as he drives the action and experiences the most inner growth. While Higgins spends the bulk of the story changing Eliza’s exterior, it is Higgins who is changing on the inside, and experiences the most profound character growth.

However, when looking at it through the spectrum of the Hero’s Journey, it is entirely possible to look at My Fair Lady as Eliza’s story as well. At the very least, we could have two main characters. Higgins presents Eliza with the Call to Adventure by telling Colonel Pickering that he could turn her into a lady of high society. She then returns the favor by showing up at his home to present him with the Call to Adventure by accepting his offer. Here’s where the story heads in Higgins’ direction when Higgins initially Refuses the Call by telling her that he has no interest in her. The Meeting of the Mentor occurs when Pickering makes the bet with Higgins that he can’t get Eliza to be transformed into a proper woman and offers to pay for the lessons. Just like the archetypal Mentor who gives the Hero some magical weapon or gift in order to be able to proceed with the adventure, Pickering presents Higgins with the payment and the challenge to his ego from which Higgins cannot turn away. Higgins and Eliza Cross the First Threshold together when Higgins finally accepts the challenge and tells Eliza that within six months he will take her to the Am and present her as a duchess to the King.

The Tests, Allies and Enemies section starts right after that when Eliza’s father Alfred, a scoundrel of the highest order, arrives trying to blackmail Higgins for taking a daughter that he never cared about anyway. He demands five pounds, and Higgins gives it to him after a bunch of hemming and hawing. Then, Alfred disappears and we never see him again until the third act. The tests continue through the famous The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain scene. She can’t get her A’s right, and then he tries another test to get her to pronounce her H’s correct. The servants sing about Poor Mister Higgins as his frustration mounts. Eliza shows the exhaustion that you would expect from the constant drilling. That is, until Eliza finally gets her A’s correct with The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly on the Plain. She does this after Higgins stops with the criticism and gives her heartfelt encouragement. That leads to the Approach where Higgins wants to test out the progress they’ve made by taking her to the races. Eliza then goes into the song, I Could have Danced All Night and she realizes that she’s fallen in love with Higgins. Unfortunately Higgins is a confirmed and committed bachelor. That’s where the conflict finally comes into this film, as Eliza falls deeper in love with Higgins, but he continues to blindly resist what he should be feeling.

The second act continues with the Supreme Ordeal which is when Higgins and Pickering take Eliza to the races. They sit in the box of Higgins’ mother, and this is where Eliza meets Freddy, a young man who is immediately infatuated with Eliza, and serves to be Higgins’ chief rival for Eliza’s affections. The problem at this point for Higgins is that Eliza isn’t ready. For while she uses proper pronunciation, her grammar and phraseology are completely inappropriate for the setting. In classic Hero’s Journey fashion, Eliza fails this test miserably as she loses all of her composure during the race and yells a profanity as her horse passes by Higgins’ mother then beseeches him to give up the effort, and criticizes him for playing with a live doll. The next stage in the Journey is the Reward, and that manifests itself with Freddy arriving to court Eliza. It’s also manifested in Pickering demanding that Higgins cancel the bet, but Higgins refusing to do so. She appears before them in the most elegant manner possible, and Higgins, despite his best efforts is starting to show signs of falling for Eliza as well. Act II ends with The Road Back, and in My Fair Lady, that happens when they attend the Ambassador’s Ball, and Eliza’s performance is flawless, even getting noticed by the Queen of Transylvania and dancing with the Prince. She is so flawless that after the party, Higgins and Pickering sing and boast to each other about the wonderful jobs that they did rather than giving Eliza any credit for the evening while she stews in the corner. Unable to hide her anger any longer, she demands to know from Higgins what’s to happen to her. Clueless to her feelings, Higgins allows her to leave.

The next stage starts out the third act and that’s the Resurrection. Eliza returns to the market place and sees many of the other peddlers, of which she used to be one, but is no longer. She feels like someone with no home. She doesn’t belong to high society, but she’s no longer a peddler either. She thinks that the best thing waiting for her now is marrying Freddy, which she doesn’t want at all. She finds her father, who tells her that he’s using the funds that Higgins gave him to marry his girlfriend and turn his life around. The Return With the Elixir happens after Eliza tells Higgins’ mother that the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she acts, but how she is treated and Higgins will only treat her as a flower girl. He then tells her that he treats everyone the same no matter their social standing. She finally tells him that he has her voice on his gramophone and he can listen to it whenever he wants. After Higgins angrily leaves, he has his own epiphany. He finally realizes that he misses Eliza, and that he’s also in love with her. She’s become a part of his life, and not only does he want her, but he needs her as well. As the song says, “I’ve grown accustomed to her face.” He arrives home and listens to her voice on the gramophone until she walks in and we see that they’ve finally achieved a mutual understanding.

As I see it, there are three things that are wrong with My Fair Lady. The overall movie is too long, there is no strong antagonist, and many of the individual scenes drag on for too long as well.

All in all, it’s a very nice story of growth and redemption that is mainly character driven, but it us just too darn long. They probably would have been just as well to cut the scenes with Alfred Doolittle. Even though he does have some impact on the story, it is minimal. Two of the best and most memorable songs from the film are also in his scenes. I’m referring to With a Little Bit of Luck and Get Me to the Church on Time. Those are both terrific songs that are among the most recognizable songs from the film, and they should have been cut. As mentioned earlier, there was an opportunity to make Alfred a much more effective antagonist, but director George Cukor and writer Alan Jay Lerner missed that opportunity. Since Alfred had no real role in moving the story forward, I would have cut those scenes and streamlined the story. Or they could have actually created more of an adversary in Alfred. He could have kept coming back, demanding more money and more seriously threatening to take Eliza away. Creating a stronger antagonist would have elevated the level of drama in the story and made it a lot more interesting. They also could have done that with Freddy. It’s hinted that he could be a rival for Eliza’s affections, but they never push it as far as it could go. Overall, there is a very small level of conflict in this picture, and the picture suffers because of it.

The other main problem with My Fair Lady is with the scenes. Anyone how has been following this series will note that I often point out that scenes in musicals are much like scenes in action movies. The only reason for them is to get us to the next musical number. My Fair Lady has the opposite problem. The scenes in My Fair Lady actually do an exceptional job of storytelling, but they almost all go on too long. I re-watched the film this morning after watching it the first time last night, and I found myself fast forwarding through a bunch of scenes, like the scene where Eliza shows up at Higgins’ house for the first time, and the scene where Eliza and Higgins argue at the home of Higgins’ mother because they just became insufferable. Long after the point of the scene had been made and long after it should have been resolved, the scene was still going on. So not only did the overall film need to be tightened up, several of the individual scenes could have been tightened up in order to create what would have been a much more riveting story.

The problems with the lack of a true antagonist aside, I do feel that the songs in My Fair Lady are very effective at moving the story forward, as well as revealing character. That is why many of them are remembered for being some of the most beloved songs in movie history.

My overall impression of My Fair Lady is that it’s an entertaining film that could have done more with less. The performances of Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn are wonderful and their growth as characters is top rate. The dialogue is incredibly well-written and the songs are wonderfully memorable. It is, however, a self-indulgent film that goes on for too long and would have been better if some harder story choices had been made.

Did the Academy get it right?

I am inclined to say no this time. In fact, I don’t believe that My Fair Lady was even the best musical nominated in 1964. To me that honor goes to Mary Poppins, and I definitely would have voted for the latter over the former had I had a vote in 1964. Mary Poppins has a character that goes through just as effective of a character arc in George Banks. The songs in Mary Poppins are just as iconic, if not more so, than the songs in My Fair Lady. Indeed, Chim-Chim-er-ee (Oscar-winner for Best Original Song), A Spoon Full of Sugar, Jolly Holiday, and Feed the Birds are some of the most memorable songs in the Disney cannon. Julie Andrews, who played Eliza Doolittle on Broadway, but was snubbed for the film role in favor of the more established Audrey Hepburn, turned in an Oscar winning performance in the title role of Mary Poppins. What’s more, the story is much tighter, and we’re emotionally much more engaged in Mary Poppins. It’s very emotional when George Banks has his moment of realization and turns his life around to be the father that his children need him to be. All of that said, the film that truly would have received my vote in 1964 was Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Unlike My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins, it’s not an apples to apples comparison, but selecting the best movie of the year never is. Currently rated #39 on AFI’s top 100 (My Fair Lady is not on the list), Dr. Strangelove is a timeless film, despite its Cold War setting and themes. Dr. Strangelove is a dark comedy in which the stakes could not be higher, as human civilization hangs in the balance. Yet, through it all, the laughs are plentiful and the tension is palpable. Peter Sellers plays three different roles and is so funny that there’s a point where you can see one of the actors behind him stifling a laugh. George C. Scott is amazing in one of his few comedic roles, and it’s the film that made Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick. I don’t begrudge My Fair Lady for winning, as it is an entertaining and beautiful film with wonderful performances. I just don’t believe that it was the most deserving film that year.

I did not like this movie. In fact, I really don’t have much desire to write about it because I’ve already lost 2 hours of my life that I’m never going to get back by watching it, and I don’t want to spend a bunch of time writing about it. Tom Jones just wasn’t a good movie, and I am perplexed at how it might have won Best Picture. If you were to ask me specifically what I didn’t like about it, I would simply say, “Everything.”

I take that back. Albert Finney’s performance as the roguish womanizing title character is terrific. He’s lots of fun, and his antics are the only thing that makes this film remotely interesting. However, this is a film that I would not rush to see again.

This is the winner for 1963, and around that time film makers were experimenting with more Avant garde styles of film making. Tom Jones has much of that from the editing to the camera angles to the story telling and acting to the sound design. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn’t. I did enjoy the moments where Tom breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience. However most of the time, to me, it simply looks like sloppy film making. Suffice it to say that I am not a huge fan of the style.

I found the editing especially bothersome. There were a lot of jump cuts that would have prevented this film from getting a passing grade in film school if it wasn’t so obvious that they were intentional. Going hand in hand with the editing is the cinematography, which I found to be equally distressing with its constant movement and odd angles. To this point in cinematic history, the most effective editors and cinematographers were the ones who were able to effectively use their art form to progress the story and not bring attention to themselves. Audiences enjoyed the work of these artists on an almost subconscious level. Like an offensive lineman in football, the editors and cinematographers were doing their jobs most effectively if you didn’t notice they were there. That started to change in the 1960’s when more modern film makers seemed to want to make their presence known so that they audience knew that someone had made the film they were watching, rather than just let the audience enjoy the experience of watching the film and experiencing the story. Film makers started to see themselves as auteurs and Tom Jones is a perfect example of the film maker as auteur.

If the film were merely shot in a style that I didn’t care for, I could probably still find some enjoyment in it if the story was at least decent. Unfortunately it is not. The story is little more than a romp and we spend the majority of the film following in the adventures of Tom Jones, born an illegitimate child and cared for by Squire Allworthy, much to the dismay of high society. He grows up not accepting the pious nature of the era, and has adopted the lifestyle of a rogue and a scoundrel. This leads him to fall out of favor with many of his masculine contemporaries, but he certainly has a way with the ladies. He falls in love with Sophie Western, but is forced to leave his estate after the death of his stepmother. He spends the rest of the film trying to find her, but the problem is that he can’t keep his hands off of any other woman that he comes across. It’s kind of hard to root for Tom to end up with Sophie when she is so pure and angelic and Tom is a womanizing bastard.

As the story goes along, Tom experiences a series of adventures and misadventures that seem to get him closer to Sophie, but then something will happen to show her that he’s never going to be serious about her. These misadventures escalate to the point where Tom is wrongly accused of a crime he didn’t commit and is sentenced to hang. The rescue scene involves the mother of all jump cuts and a chase that is so preposterous it needs to be seen to be believed.

Other than that, I don’t have a ton to say about this film other than I just didn’t like it. It’s forgettable, it’s dated, and it’s not entertaining. Other than Albert Finney’s performance, there is little to recommend it, and I would recommend that you not waste your time by watching it.

Did the Academy get it right?

Obviously not. There are at least three films that came out year that were more deserving than Tom Jones. How the West Was Won is an epic western starring James Stewart and John Wayne. Cleopatra is another epic the type of which the Academy usually favors, however the behind the scenes issues that went on with that film were well known, and it was probably not politically viable to name Cleopatra as Best Picture. Lilies of the Field starring Sidney Poitier is probably the film that should have won, although Poitier would become the first African American to win Best Actor for his performance in this film. It wasn’t a particularly strong year for the nominees, and the film that really should have won in 1963 had to have its release date pushed back to 1964. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was scheduled to be released in December of 1963. However it was pushed back a few months to 1964 due to the assassination of President Kennedy. Peter Sellers plays three different roles in the film, including that of President Merkin Muffley, and while he isn’t a total bumbling fool, the character certainly doesn’t add any dignity to the office of the presidency. With the country in mourning over the death of a popular president, it was decided that a little bit of time was needed before something that satirical should be released. I firmly believe that Dr. Strangelove would have been the winner for 1963 had it been released on its original release date.

Following in the tradition of Ben-Hur and The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia was a stunning and dramatic, nearly 4-hour epic shot in cinemascope. In fact, this was the second David Lean picture in 5 years to come away with the Academy’s top award, and like those films, and unlike so many others that were utilizing this still new technology, Lawrence of Arabia used the widescreen format to full effect, not just for eye candy, but to help create the mood, sell the adventure and tell the story. This is arguably one of the most visually stunning films ever shot, and that stunning cinematography is used very effectively in the crafting of this film. Lawrence of Arabia was David Lean’s follow up to The Bridge on the River Kwai, and he would show that he was truly the first master of the widescreen format.

I would like to focus on the widescreen format for a moment. As a film making practice, it had been en vogue for about six years to this point, with mixed results. Between 1956 and 1962 The Apartment was the only film that was not shot widescreen and would win Best Picture. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, some of those films were better than others, and some took advantage of the wider screen with various degrees of success. I don’t think that you can argue that Around the World in 80 Days was a beautiful film, but the widescreen did little more than show the landscapes and vistas, but did little to progress the story. Musicals like Gigi and West Side Story used the widescreen format to great effect in order to film their dance numbers and allow audiences to see the choreography in a way that they had never seen before. The Bridge on the River Kwai and Ben-Hur used the widescreen format in a similar way, but with action sequences taking the place of dance sequences. I would submit, however, that Lawrence of Arabia was the first of these films to utilize the medium as an effective way to set the tone, create the mood and tell the story, especially in the first half of the film.

In Lawrence of Arabia we have dozens of extreme long shots, especially when Lawrence is traveling through the desert. In fact, what Lean and Director of Photography F.A. Young did with these extreme long shots was put the characters in them at varying distances in order to show the vastness of the desert. There are many shots when Lawrence and the Arab Resistance are crossing the Nefud Desert, we are shown just how insignificant these men and camels are to the harsh and unforgiving environment. There are many other similar shots throughout the first half of the film that demonstrate the motif of man versus nature, which is one of the thematic elements of the film. What makes the motif so effective is the use of the widescreen format and its unique ability to show how big the world is and how small men are in it. Truly, Lawrence of Arabia set the bar for how widescreen cinema should be shot.

In fact, when one thinks of Lawrence of Arabia, one generally thinks of how grand it is in its scope and its amazing cinematography. However, one would be remiss if one didn’t appreciate how strong of a story this picture has, as well as the virtuoso performances of some of the greatest actors ever to grace the silver screen. IMDB places this film from a genre standpoint as Adventure/Biography/Drama. Obviously, it’s a biographical picture, but I would call it a drama before I would call it adventure. Yes, there is action and adventure in the film, but to me it’s much more dramatic and character driven than it is adventure driven. Just the pacing of the film lends it more to a drama. That, of course is said from today’s perspective where action films are paced much more frenetically than they would have been 50 years ago, but the tone of this film is coming from a much more dramatic place rather than an adventure place.

The reason I feel that way, is because while man vs. nature a clear motif in the first half of this film, man vs. self becomes the driving motif of the second half. What ties all of it together is a very clear Hero’s Journey for T. E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole). Taking out the prologue and looking at it from the beginning of the actual story, we see Lawrence in his Ordinary World, working at a military office in Cairo as a cartographer. He’s bored and he’s petulant, but we don’t have to wait long for his Call to Adventure. Mr. Dryden (Laude Raines) of the Arab Bureau believes that Lawrence has a unique ability to determine whether or not Prince Faisel (Alec Guinness) will be successful in his revolt against the Turks. The Refusal of the Call comes from General Murray, who doesn’t believe that Lawrence has earned the right to have such a high profile task to be assigned to him. Nevertheless, Lawrence accepts the mission and leaves Cairo for Arabia.

The Crossing of the First Threshold sees Lawrence crossing the desert with his Bedouin guide. The Meeting of the Mentor happens when they’re at a well and the Bedouin is killed by Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) for drinking from the well without permission. Rivals at this point, Sherif will prove to be an ally as well as a mentor to Lawrence as he learns how to live in the desert environment and fight like an Arab. In fact, one of the classic purposes of the Mentor is to give the Hero some sort of gift or tool that will help in on his journey. Sherif will later give Lawrence traditional Arab robes so that he can me more like one of them, and become the leader that they need him to be. The Tests, Allies and Enemies portion of the journey follows where Lawrence under minds his commanding officer and suggests that they attack the port city of Acaba by approaching from the Nefud Desert. Even the Bedouins believe that it is impossible to cross, but Lawrence convinces them that it can be done by saying that he will do it, and they’re welcome to come with him. Lawrence is tested many times during the Approach portion of the Journey, which sees him and the Bedouins crossing the desert. At one point, the Bedouin Gasim falls off his camel during the night and no one notices until they arrive at the oasis the next morning. Lawrence goes after him, ignoring the warnings of Sherif and others who tell Lawrence that it is written. Exclaiming that nothing is written, Lawrence goes back in to the desert to find Gasim. They return several hours later, and now, seeing how he risked his own life for one of them, the Bedouin will now follow Lawrence anywhere. The Approach ends when they find the Howeitat tribe leader Auda abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn) and an uneasy alliance is formed between two tribes that have a tradition of mutual hatred. Before he can lead the attack on Acaba, however, the fragile peace is threatened when a Howeitat is murdered. Lawrence is heartbroken to discover that Gasim is the murderer and the only way to keep the peace is for Lawrence to execute him, which he does. It is a very heavy scene, but not the Supreme Ordeal. That happens after victory at Acaba has been won, and Lawrence must return to Cairo to inform the generals. He crosses the Sanai with Daud and Farraj, two teenagers that begged to be his valets. It’s a perilous trip and Lawrence loses his compass when they’re lost in a sandstorm. A patch of quicksand swallows Daud, killing him, and Lawrence and Farraj can only watch helplessly as it happens. Having escaped, Lawrence and Farraj continue through the desert, emotionally and physically spent.

The second act continues with the Reward. Lawrence and Farraj arrive in Cairo and go to HQ, where Lawrence demands that Farraj be treated as an equal while he goes to speak with Dryden and General Allenby (Jack Hawkins). For his taking the initiative to attack Acaba, Lawrence is promoted to Major and he asks Hawkins straight out if the British have any designs on occupying Arabia, and the general tells him flat out that they do not. The Reward continues as Lawrence succeeds in uniting the tribes of Arabia in a guerilla war against the Turks, and he amasses almost a cult following among the Arabs. What’s more, he starts to see himself as invincible.

That happens until he gets to The Road Back when he is captured in Daraa. We enter the Third Act when Lawrence refuses the advances of the Turk Bey and strikes at him, he is mercilessly flogged. His Road Back is a literal one as he returns to Cairo and asks Allenby for another assignment. He just wants to go back to being normal. Allenby tells Lawrence that he’s making one big push to Damascus, and he needs him for that. Lawrence’s Resurrection happens when he returns to Arabia one more time to lead the Arabs to Damascus so that they get there and get embedded before the English. He believes that the Arabs will fight for him, but what they really want to fight for is money. He marches his forces ahead of Allenby’s but they come across a division of Turks who have just slaughtered civilians from a local village. Sherif tries to convince him to go around and just get to Damascus, but when a man of the village attacks, they have no choice. Lawrence himself is caught up in the blood lust of it all and only when it is done does he realize the horrible consequences of his actions. They arrive in Damascus unprepared for the running of a large city and the men who lead these provincial tribes know nothing of the city’s infrastructure and don’t care how it’s run. Despite his best intentions, Lawrence is forced to abdicate to the British officers. The Return With the Elixir occurs with Lawrence going back to Allenby and Dryden, who happen to be meeting with Prince Faisal to discuss how power will be “shared”. They promote him to colonel and order him to go back to Britain, as his usefulness to all of them has come to an end.

With this clear Hero’s Journey we not only have a strong and dramatic story, but the film makers also had the tools to create dynamic characters with depth and pathos. There are few caricatures in this film, even though there are more than a few stereotypes. The drama in the story is accentuated by the fact that we’re watching Lawrence go through a roller coaster of character development. He starts out as an impetuous, arrogant and inexperienced. He grows to heroic leader and eventually devolves into a conceded self-loather. We watch as the desert and the war cause him to change. Even without a primary antagonist, this film’s Hero struggles against the forces of nature and of himself, ultimately and tragically succumbing to his demons.

Did the Academy get it right?

Yes, they did. Lawrence of Arabia is one of the great cinematic achievements of all time, and that’s not just my opinion. It’s currently ranked #7 on AFI’s list of the top 100 movies of all time. It was nominated for 10 Oscars and won 7 of them, including Best Director for David Lean and Best Cinematography for F.A. Young. It also won 4 of the 7 Golden Globes for which it was nominated. When looking at the competition, it wasn’t the greatest of years, but there were a couple of very fine films nominated against it. To Kill a Mockingbird was the signature film for Gregory Peck, and he took home the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar over Peter O’Toole. It’s ranked #15 on AFI’s list and probably would have had a much better chance of winning had it come out in a different year, although it’s primarily a courtroom drama and it was in black and white, so it had those two things going against it. The Music Man is not on the AFI list, but is they type of musical that had won in previous years, and similar musicals will win in the future. Overall, however, Lawrence of Arabia is a top-10 all-time film, and rightly deserved to be named the Best Picture of 1962.