One could argue, I suppose, about the term "Essential" in the title of the Warner Bros. box set "Essential Classics: Dramas." After all, "Essential" means something that is absolutely necessary or indispensable. I have friends who never watch movies of any kind, or any TV for that matter, and would find all films dispensable. But as a movie fan myself, I can't imagine three more important films than the ones contained in this box: "Ben-Hur," "The Maltese Falcon," and "Citizen Kane."
William Wyler's remake of "Ben-Hur" (1959) is among the most-sweeping, most-intelligent, and most-personal big-screen epics ever made. John Huston's "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) is among the first film noirs and among the best detective movies ever made. And Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane" (1941) is simply among the best movies ever made, considered by many critics and admirers the best film of all time.
Warner Bros. have already released all three of these films separately and in special editions, but the studio has never offered them together at so attractive a price. What's more, you get the latest digital masterings, the first movie discs from each of the special editions, with plenty of extras on their own but without the additional bonus discs provided by the more-expensive sets.
For those readers interested in reading more about the special editions, you'll find my complete reviews listed individually here at DVDTOWN. For this box set, however, I have highlighted some of the most-important aspects of each disc.
BEN-HUR:
The Warner Bros. special edition came in a four-disc set, spreading the movie over two discs and including the earlier, silent-movie version of the movie and a ton of extras on the third and fourth discs. In this "Essential Classics" box, we get just the two-disc movie.
When one considers the term "epic" in relation to motion pictures, one may think of "Gone With the Wind," "The Ten Commandments," "Spartacus," "El Cid," "Lawrence of Arabia," or even the more-recent "Gladiator." But, certainly, no more epic spectacle was ever created for the screen than William Wyler's 1959 production of "Ben-Hur." At the time, it was the most expensive movie ever made, and its rewards were not only to become a box-office smash but to earn a record-breaking eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Wyler), and Best Actor (Charlton Heston).
Published as a novel in 1880 and subtitled "A Tale of the Christ," General Lew Wallace's "Ben-Hur" was at first successfully adapted to the stage and then made into a silent movie in 1925 (included in this new set) before becoming the blockbuster most of us know.
The story begins at the time of Christ's birth in Judea, a land that had been under Roman rule for nearly a century. Simultaneous with Christ's birth, another child is born, Prince Judah Ben-Hur (Heston), who would grow up to be one of the richest men in the country. The story then jumps ahead twenty-six years to the introduction of a new Judean governor and his new head of the local Roman garrison, the Tribune Messala (Stephen Boyd). Messala and Judah grew up together, like brothers, the Roman and the Jew, but they haven't seen each for years. Now, Messala wants to rise in the Roman world and asks Judah to help him by revealing the names of Jewish dissidents. Judah refuses, choosing to remain loyal to his people and thereby incurring the eternal wrath of his once-staunch friend. An accident involving a loose roofing tile from Judah's house injuring the new governor affords Messala a chance to get even with Judah for not supporting him. To show the Jews how strict he is, Messala orders his old friend sent to the galleys as a slave and Judah's mother (Martha Scott) and sister (Cathy O'Donnell) imprisoned.
Then, a strange and too-coincidental set of circumstances enable Judah to rise once again in the world. By happenstance he manages to save the life of a Roman Consul, Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), who in gratitude makes Judah his adopted son and a free man. From this point on, Judah's only desire in life is to return to Judea, free his mother and sister, and seek revenge upon the man who caused him and his family so much pain. The film ends in two climactic scenes: the famous chariot race, pitting Judah against Messala, and then the crucifixion of Christ.
Unlike so many other super-spectaculars, this one is not only a rousing adventure, at its core it has a genuine heart. Judah Ben-Hur is no mere cardboard hero (despite Heston's sometimes wooden appearance). He is a man who undergos a series of personality developments, from contentment to bitterness to hatred and finally to peace and love. It's true that this 1959 version of the story tends to downplay the standing of Christ in Judah's life much more so than the original novel, leaving it to the viewer to infer that Judah comes eventually to accept the Savior's word; but enough of the Christian message of salvation through kindness and charity comes through to merit attention yet not create discomfort for the nonbeliever.
Nor is Messala a cardboard villain. We can readily see he is a man possessed by ambition and hardened by the desire for power. As Judah points out on several occasions, Roman rule has corrupted everyone. Also in the cast are Haya Harareet as Esther, the slave girl with whom Judah falls in love; Hugh Griffith as Sheik Ilderim, an Arab who befriends and sponsors Judah in his big chariot race; and Sam Jaffe as Simonides, Judah's faithful old steward.
The film's major drawback, its extreme length, may also be for many viewers among its chief strengths. I found much of the middle portion of the film flagging, but the length enables a good deal of character growth, plus it gives extended time for the chariot race.
Ah, yes, that chariot race. Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" may also be a rousing adventure yarn, but it has nothing to equal the all-out thrills of the chariots in "Ben-Hur." The race sequence itself takes up a good quarter of an hour and is hair-raising in its excitement. Legendary stunt man Yakima Canutt was second-unit director on the film, and it was he who was responsible for staging the action and training Heston to do much of his own chariot driving.
The combination of Wyler's energetic direction, Heston's elevated hero, Canutt's stirring stunt work, and composer Miklos Rozsa's uplifting musical score make for grand entertainment, indeed. And I haven't even mentioned the overwhelmingly huge sets, the multitudinous armies, the stunning costumes, and the magnificent scenery that the film affords. As I said at the outset, "Ben-Hur" fairly defines the word "epic."
"Ben-Hur" may not be as intellectually satisfying as "Spartacus" or "Lawrence of Arabia," but it's an equally intimate portrait of an equally heroic man. 8/10
Video:
The film is epic in scope, and it's nice to see it transferred to DVD at a high bit rate for optimum video quality. Originally filmed by MGM in something called Camera 65, the theatrical screen dimensions were projected at a ratio of around 2.75:1. Warner Bros., now handling the movie, bring it to disc in a ratio that measures a little over 2.50:1 across my TV, about the widest ratio I've seen in my home. The width is required to convey the breadth and grandeur of the settings, and when you see the Roman legions marching from one end of the screen to the other, you know it's wide.
To complement the screen's vast dimensions, the color and definition are excellent. The image is vividly projected and clearly delineated, allowing one to practically reach out and feel the velvet tunics and white silk robes of the players. All in all, a great picture--not only wide but bright, sharp, and clear.
Audio:
The audio engineers provide Dolby Digital 5.1 reproduction that does justice to the film's multichannel sonics. There is a commendably wide front-stereo stage, and for a change the characters' voices can be heard moving across the sound field. There is a very small amount of background noise, but it's of little importance. Rear-channel effects are limited mainly to musical ambiance for the first three-quarters of the film, but then in the climactic crucifixion scene, the rears come to life in noises of wind and storm. In addition, the subwoofer gets a terrific outing. While the sound remains a tad on the hard side, I doubt that anyone will be disappointed with the disc's audio qualities.
Extras:
As I've said, WB spread the movie out over two DVDs, so there isn't much room left over for extras. However, the discs do contain English and French spoken languages; English, French, and Spanish subtitles; and a remarkable sixty-one scene selections. But that's not all. The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by film historian T. Gene Hatcher, author of a book on the making of "Ben-Hur," and scene-specific comments by the film's star, Charlton Heston. The lengthy Overture gives Hatcher a chance to provide us some plot overview and a history of the story and its creation. I rather enjoy these academic approaches to film commentary because they are usually more informative than typical directors' commentaries. Heston's comments were apparently recorded separately, and they are, understandably, more intimately involved with the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking. Then, for good measure, the discs also include a music-only track showcasing Miklos Rozsa's celebrated music.
THE MALTESE FALCON:
If "The Maltese Falcon" doesn't qualify as the best private-eye yarn ever filmed, I don't know what does. Hollywood had brought Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel to the screen twice before this one, but never better. John Huston, in his directorial debut in 1941, also adapted the script for this fast-paced mystery; and Humphrey Bogart practically bought the rights not only to the character of Sam Spade but to every future movie gumshoe who would ever pull a gat.
For Bogart, detective Sam Spade was a breakthrough part. Consigned mainly to play second-fiddle tough-guy roles in the thirties, Bogart had usually played heavies who died in the final reel. He did get good notices as Duke Mantee in "The Petrified Forest" (1936) and Mad Dog Earle in "High Sierra" (1941), but he was mostly getting plugged at the end of things like "Angels With Dirty Faces" (1938), "The Roaring Twenties" (1939), and "The Return of Doctor X" (1939). When he finally got his chance to play the lead in "The Maltese Falcon," he never looked back. The next year it was "Casablanca," and he had firmly etched his star into Hollywood's roster of all-time favorite actors.
As Sam Spade, the hard-boiled detective, Bogart is the quintessential antihero. He is the loner with no particularly noble ambitions or romanticized notions. He is an ironclad realistic. When somebody murders his partner, he shrugs it off as part of the job. Everybody knows the risks. And when it comes to love and women, he is equally pragmatic. Bogart may have become the world's leading actor, but he would remain the cynical tough guy throughout his career, right up to his last, wry performance some fifteen years later in "The Harder They Fall."
"The Maltese Falcon" is a story of double-dealing and double crosses in the search for a fabulous "black bird." The object of all the mischief is a fabulous, jewel-encrusted statuette of a falcon that has had people cheating, stealing, and killing to get their hands on it for over 400 years. Now, a new group of scoundrels are after it, and their trail has led them to San Francisco and the investigative agency of Spade and Archer. "Trust no one" should be the byword of everyone in the story and the caution to anyone who watches the film. Lies, treachery, deceit, and homicide are the order of the day as nearly all the characters in the movie try to stab one another in the back in their greed for the bird.
The supporting cast were so good together that WB invited many of them back to costar in later Bogart films. Mary Astor plays Brigid O'Shaughnessy (or is it Wonderly, or Leblanc?), whose lies seem to mystify even her. Peter Lorre is Joel Cairo, the weaselly, effeminate little crook who would sell out his mother for the right price. Sydney Greenstreet is the Fat Man, Kasper Gutman, the urbane heavy (really heavy) imitated in about 200 movies since. (The film's closing credits spell it "Kasper," but Hammett spelled it "Casper" in the book.) Elisha Cook, Jr., plays the young-punk gunsel, whose felt hat and twin automatics are bigger than he is. Ward Bond and Barton MacLane are the cops, the sympathetic Detective Polhaus and the hard-nosed Lt. Dundy, forever hounding Spade. Jerome Cowan plays Spade's partner, the dandy Miles Archer. Gladys George plays Archer's wife, with whom Spade has been carrying on an affair. And Lee Patrick is Effie Perine, Spade's ever-loyal secretary and assistant. The director even talked his father, actor Walter Huston, into playing a brief, unbilled bit part as Capt. Jacobi, master of the boat "La Paloma," a fellow shot in the chest and still clutching the falcon in his dying grasp. Apparently as a joke, the elder Huston required his son take hours of retakes for his moment of screen time.
The dialogue crackles in Huston's script--as it should, taken almost verbatim from the novel--and the direction is secure and taut. Critics often credit Huston and "The Maltese Falcon" with starting, or at least popularizing, the film noir style so favored by crime flicks of the later forties and fifties. The "Falcon's" city setting, frequently photographed at night, its murky shadows, and its grim, derisive attitude toward people and their motivations all influence our dark perceptions of the story.
Yet it is not a depressing motion picture despite its surplus of dark shadows, shady characters, and suspicious events. Huston doesn't allow it. The film's vitality and pacing do not permit us to ponder for long the consequences of any one scene or action. Instead, we're caught up in the pulse of the film, pretty much swept along by its deeds, not even particularly saddened or surprised by the pessimism of its ending. 10/10
Video:
Warner Bros. obtained the best copy of the film they could find to transfer and digitally restored it from original elements. A high bit rate ensures that the 1.33:1 (from 1.37:1) black-and-white contrasts show up strongly, the black tones, especially, almost always deep and solid. In fitting a tribute to the best, Warner Home Video's DVD transfer of the film is truly "the stuff that dreams are made of."
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural sound is also quite good for its age, coming up as well as we might expect. The soundtrack renders dialogue crisply, and background music, naturally restricted in frequency and dynamics, is nonetheless clear and persuasive.
Extras:
The disc contains the feature film, with an informed and informative audio commentary by Bogart biographer Eric Lax; a theatrical trailer for "The Maltese Falcon" that contains an introduction by Sydney Greenstreet; twenty-eight scene selections; English as the only spoken language; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.
In addition, the disc includes a Warner Night at the Movies, 1941: First, there's a vintage newsreel. That's followed by the Oscar-nominated Technicolor musical short "The Gay Parisian," twenty minutes of Offenbach tunes, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Then, there's a trailer for 1941's "Sergeant York." And, finally, there are two classic cartoons, "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt," in color with Bugs Bunny, and "Meet John Doughboy," in black-and-white with Porky Pig.
CITIZEN KANE:
The question isn't whether "Citizen Kane" is one of the greatest films ever made; that's a given. The question is whether it's THE greatest. The American Film Institute thinks it is, voting it to their number-one spot. Other such lists usually place it at least in the top five, usually at one, two, or three. Not bad for a movie that failed in its initial theatrical run.
My best friend, a professor of film, always thought "Citizen Kane" was overrated. Maybe. I won't argue the point. I first saw the film in the fifties when I was still in my teens, and I must confess I wasn't overly impressed. Then I watched and studied it more seriously in college in the early sixties and began to see its worth. Having owned several tape copies of it and taught it to a number of film classes over the years, I've come to agree with those critics who place it number one on their all-time-great movie lists. I certainly can't think of any film that deserves more respect or commands a more prominent spot in the history of cinema.
As most of you know, cowriter, producer, and director Orson Welles based his story on the real publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, his fictional character of Charles Foster Kane closely resembling the personal and professional life of the famous newspaperman in not altogether flattering terms. The similarity was so startling, in fact, that Hearst, who controlled a good number of the country's media outlets in 1941, tried everything he could to stop the movie from ever being seen. Heck, Hearst even tried to buy the negatives (with the help of his pal, MGM's Louis B. Mayer), and when that failed he refused to allow any of his newspapers or radio stations to run ads for it. By the time the film opened, to good reviews in non Hearst-owned outlets, the general public were either brainwashed into believing it was a loser or didn't get a chance to see it at all thanks to its limited distribution. It wouldn't be for another decade or two before the movie was reevaluated and began appearing in art houses and college classrooms as a true classic.
Obviously, books have been written on the merits of "Citizen Kane." Let me just mention in passing that while it breaks little new ground, it does bring together a number of filmmaking techniques that had been in various stages of development previously. For example, the movie refines the use of narrative point of view and flashback storytelling; emphasizes psychological lighting, light and shade (chiaroscuro), and deep-focus photography; embraces a sound track of amazingly wide dynamics for its time; provides frequent instances of overlapping and interruptive dialogue; employs complex and elaborate camera work, unique camera angles, abrupt cuts, multiple exposures, special effects, and dissolves; uses mirrors, mirroring, and mirrored scenes and imagery extensively; and incorporates numerous other examples of modern cinematography and storytelling in general. The result is a cinematic tour de force that's just as dazzling to watch today as it was over six decades ago. One can hardly dispute that it has influenced almost every filmmaker since its time.
Never mind that at age twenty-four this was Welles's first film, and that he has often been criticized for relying too much on the work of others without giving them entirely proper due. Yes, famed cinematographer Gregg Toland did the amazing camera work and perfected the deep-focus photographic style (for which in the credits Welles gave him equal billing with himself), Bernard Herrmann did the musical score, and Herman J. Mankiewicz helped write the script. But there's no denying that this was Welles's baby from start to finish; and, besides, at this stage in the game, sixty-odd years later, what difference does it make to viewers who was responsible for it. The point is that what we have is splendid, no matter who the collaborators were or how much they contributed.
But probably the movie's strongest claim to fame is that it tells a good story. Covering Kane's life from childhood to deathbed, the movie tells its story in multiple recurring flashbacks from several different people's points of view, as a newspaper reporter tries to track down an angle on Kane's dying word, "Rosebud." All of these people, we come to realize, actually know the enigmatic Kane less well than they think. Welles himself stars as Kane. Welles was an actor, writer, director, producer, magician, and pitch man who was almost as complicated as the man he was playing. Be that as it may or perhaps because of it, Welles puts in a first-rate, commanding performance as the poor boy left a fortune, who turned it into an empire the likes of which we shall probably never see again.
For his supporting cast Welles largely chose players he already knew and had worked with before, many of them stage actors from his old Mercury Theater days, like Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, and Ray Collins. For the part of Kane's mistress in the film, Welles chose Dorothy Comingore (pregnant at the time but nicely camouflaged) to play Susan Alexander, a role modeled on the real-life actress and Hearst mistress, Marion Davies. Comingore may at first appear a bit superficial in the part, but she amply conveys the emptiness of a life filled with everything and nothing at the same time.
I've read that the 1941 Academy Awards audience hissed and booed the film's nine Oscar nominations--for Best Picture, Actor, Director, Writing, Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Scoring, and Sound Recording. It managed only to win for its screenplay, mainly, I guess, because it was cowritten by Mankiewicz. The movie made Orson Welles forever a living legend, yet because of the movie's unwarranted notoriety he was also forever an outcast in Hollywood. As an aside, William Randolph Hearst III, the old man's grandson, said in 1985 that he had always enjoyed "Citizen Kane," and that Welles was invited to visit the Hearst Castle, San Simeon, anytime he pleased "on my tab." I suppose time heals all wounds. In the case of "Citizen Kane," time has also helped improve upon a good thing. 10/10
Video:
Warners' newly restored print is excellent. Indeed, it may even be better than the film stock I saw so long ago, although here memory does not serve me well. There's a not a blemish to be found in this fresh, 1.33:1 ratio transfer, which retains most of the 1.37:1 image. What's more important, the black-and-white contrasts are startlingly vivid, Toland's photography keeping both background and foreground in crystal-clear focus, with moiré effects minor and generally unnoticeable. For all I know, the film probably never looked this good when audiences originally saw it in motion-picture theaters.
Audio:
The audio, rendered via Dolby Digital monaural and apparently having undergone some noise reduction, sounds almost as clean and clear as the picture is sharp, with little discernible background hiss. The vocals are slightly pinched, and the overall volume level is a tad lower than we find in most movies today, but even cranked up the sound is quite good.
Extras:
The film is accompanied by two audio commentaries. The first is by film director and Welles biographer Peter Bogdanovich, who has spoken lovingly before on the subject of his hero and sometime mentor. The second commentary is by film critic Roger Ebert, who spares us no apologies in his unabashed affection for the movie. Both men supply knowledgeable insights, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and revealing observations on the filmmaking process. There's quite a difference between listening to an actor talking about an insignificant film and a pair of experts providing important information about one of the world's greatest films. Bogdanovich, for example, tells us that Welles told him that many of the camera angles he and Toland worked out, so discussed and admired today as symbolic and meaningful, were produced simply because they looked good to Welles. OK, so maybe the guy was just lucky; in any event, everything worked. It's hard to make a choice between the two commentaries. I'd suggest if you have the time, listen to both of them. I found myself flipping back and forth; when one fellow would pause for a moment, I'd click over to the other. That way I got to hear essentially what both men said about the same scenes. Anyway, in addition to the commentaries, there's a 1941 movie première newsreel, a gallery of storyboards, rare photos, alternate ad campaigns, studio correspondence, call sheets, and other memorabilia; thirty-one scene selections; and a theatrical trailer. English is the only spoken language available, but WB provide English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles.
Parting Thoughts:
Warner Bros. cannot be brought up on false charges: The three movies in this "Essential Classics: Dramas" set are as close to "essential classics" as one can get. They have endured the test of time and fully proved their worth.
William Wyler's remake of "Ben-Hur" (1959) is among the most-sweeping, most-intelligent, and most-personal big-screen epics ever made. John Huston's "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) is among the first film noirs and among the best detective movies ever made. And Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane" (1941) is simply among the best movies ever made, considered by many critics and admirers the best film of all time.
Warner Bros. have already released all three of these films separately and in special editions, but the studio has never offered them together at so attractive a price. What's more, you get the latest digital masterings, the first movie discs from each of the special editions, with plenty of extras on their own but without the additional bonus discs provided by the more-expensive sets.
For those readers interested in reading more about the special editions, you'll find my complete reviews listed individually here at DVDTOWN. For this box set, however, I have highlighted some of the most-important aspects of each disc.
BEN-HUR:
The Warner Bros. special edition came in a four-disc set, spreading the movie over two discs and including the earlier, silent-movie version of the movie and a ton of extras on the third and fourth discs. In this "Essential Classics" box, we get just the two-disc movie.
When one considers the term "epic" in relation to motion pictures, one may think of "Gone With the Wind," "The Ten Commandments," "Spartacus," "El Cid," "Lawrence of Arabia," or even the more-recent "Gladiator." But, certainly, no more epic spectacle was ever created for the screen than William Wyler's 1959 production of "Ben-Hur." At the time, it was the most expensive movie ever made, and its rewards were not only to become a box-office smash but to earn a record-breaking eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Wyler), and Best Actor (Charlton Heston).
Published as a novel in 1880 and subtitled "A Tale of the Christ," General Lew Wallace's "Ben-Hur" was at first successfully adapted to the stage and then made into a silent movie in 1925 (included in this new set) before becoming the blockbuster most of us know.
The story begins at the time of Christ's birth in Judea, a land that had been under Roman rule for nearly a century. Simultaneous with Christ's birth, another child is born, Prince Judah Ben-Hur (Heston), who would grow up to be one of the richest men in the country. The story then jumps ahead twenty-six years to the introduction of a new Judean governor and his new head of the local Roman garrison, the Tribune Messala (Stephen Boyd). Messala and Judah grew up together, like brothers, the Roman and the Jew, but they haven't seen each for years. Now, Messala wants to rise in the Roman world and asks Judah to help him by revealing the names of Jewish dissidents. Judah refuses, choosing to remain loyal to his people and thereby incurring the eternal wrath of his once-staunch friend. An accident involving a loose roofing tile from Judah's house injuring the new governor affords Messala a chance to get even with Judah for not supporting him. To show the Jews how strict he is, Messala orders his old friend sent to the galleys as a slave and Judah's mother (Martha Scott) and sister (Cathy O'Donnell) imprisoned.
Then, a strange and too-coincidental set of circumstances enable Judah to rise once again in the world. By happenstance he manages to save the life of a Roman Consul, Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), who in gratitude makes Judah his adopted son and a free man. From this point on, Judah's only desire in life is to return to Judea, free his mother and sister, and seek revenge upon the man who caused him and his family so much pain. The film ends in two climactic scenes: the famous chariot race, pitting Judah against Messala, and then the crucifixion of Christ.
Unlike so many other super-spectaculars, this one is not only a rousing adventure, at its core it has a genuine heart. Judah Ben-Hur is no mere cardboard hero (despite Heston's sometimes wooden appearance). He is a man who undergos a series of personality developments, from contentment to bitterness to hatred and finally to peace and love. It's true that this 1959 version of the story tends to downplay the standing of Christ in Judah's life much more so than the original novel, leaving it to the viewer to infer that Judah comes eventually to accept the Savior's word; but enough of the Christian message of salvation through kindness and charity comes through to merit attention yet not create discomfort for the nonbeliever.
Nor is Messala a cardboard villain. We can readily see he is a man possessed by ambition and hardened by the desire for power. As Judah points out on several occasions, Roman rule has corrupted everyone. Also in the cast are Haya Harareet as Esther, the slave girl with whom Judah falls in love; Hugh Griffith as Sheik Ilderim, an Arab who befriends and sponsors Judah in his big chariot race; and Sam Jaffe as Simonides, Judah's faithful old steward.
The film's major drawback, its extreme length, may also be for many viewers among its chief strengths. I found much of the middle portion of the film flagging, but the length enables a good deal of character growth, plus it gives extended time for the chariot race.
Ah, yes, that chariot race. Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" may also be a rousing adventure yarn, but it has nothing to equal the all-out thrills of the chariots in "Ben-Hur." The race sequence itself takes up a good quarter of an hour and is hair-raising in its excitement. Legendary stunt man Yakima Canutt was second-unit director on the film, and it was he who was responsible for staging the action and training Heston to do much of his own chariot driving.
The combination of Wyler's energetic direction, Heston's elevated hero, Canutt's stirring stunt work, and composer Miklos Rozsa's uplifting musical score make for grand entertainment, indeed. And I haven't even mentioned the overwhelmingly huge sets, the multitudinous armies, the stunning costumes, and the magnificent scenery that the film affords. As I said at the outset, "Ben-Hur" fairly defines the word "epic."
"Ben-Hur" may not be as intellectually satisfying as "Spartacus" or "Lawrence of Arabia," but it's an equally intimate portrait of an equally heroic man. 8/10
Video:
The film is epic in scope, and it's nice to see it transferred to DVD at a high bit rate for optimum video quality. Originally filmed by MGM in something called Camera 65, the theatrical screen dimensions were projected at a ratio of around 2.75:1. Warner Bros., now handling the movie, bring it to disc in a ratio that measures a little over 2.50:1 across my TV, about the widest ratio I've seen in my home. The width is required to convey the breadth and grandeur of the settings, and when you see the Roman legions marching from one end of the screen to the other, you know it's wide.
To complement the screen's vast dimensions, the color and definition are excellent. The image is vividly projected and clearly delineated, allowing one to practically reach out and feel the velvet tunics and white silk robes of the players. All in all, a great picture--not only wide but bright, sharp, and clear.
Audio:
The audio engineers provide Dolby Digital 5.1 reproduction that does justice to the film's multichannel sonics. There is a commendably wide front-stereo stage, and for a change the characters' voices can be heard moving across the sound field. There is a very small amount of background noise, but it's of little importance. Rear-channel effects are limited mainly to musical ambiance for the first three-quarters of the film, but then in the climactic crucifixion scene, the rears come to life in noises of wind and storm. In addition, the subwoofer gets a terrific outing. While the sound remains a tad on the hard side, I doubt that anyone will be disappointed with the disc's audio qualities.
Extras:
As I've said, WB spread the movie out over two DVDs, so there isn't much room left over for extras. However, the discs do contain English and French spoken languages; English, French, and Spanish subtitles; and a remarkable sixty-one scene selections. But that's not all. The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by film historian T. Gene Hatcher, author of a book on the making of "Ben-Hur," and scene-specific comments by the film's star, Charlton Heston. The lengthy Overture gives Hatcher a chance to provide us some plot overview and a history of the story and its creation. I rather enjoy these academic approaches to film commentary because they are usually more informative than typical directors' commentaries. Heston's comments were apparently recorded separately, and they are, understandably, more intimately involved with the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking. Then, for good measure, the discs also include a music-only track showcasing Miklos Rozsa's celebrated music.
THE MALTESE FALCON:
If "The Maltese Falcon" doesn't qualify as the best private-eye yarn ever filmed, I don't know what does. Hollywood had brought Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel to the screen twice before this one, but never better. John Huston, in his directorial debut in 1941, also adapted the script for this fast-paced mystery; and Humphrey Bogart practically bought the rights not only to the character of Sam Spade but to every future movie gumshoe who would ever pull a gat.
For Bogart, detective Sam Spade was a breakthrough part. Consigned mainly to play second-fiddle tough-guy roles in the thirties, Bogart had usually played heavies who died in the final reel. He did get good notices as Duke Mantee in "The Petrified Forest" (1936) and Mad Dog Earle in "High Sierra" (1941), but he was mostly getting plugged at the end of things like "Angels With Dirty Faces" (1938), "The Roaring Twenties" (1939), and "The Return of Doctor X" (1939). When he finally got his chance to play the lead in "The Maltese Falcon," he never looked back. The next year it was "Casablanca," and he had firmly etched his star into Hollywood's roster of all-time favorite actors.
As Sam Spade, the hard-boiled detective, Bogart is the quintessential antihero. He is the loner with no particularly noble ambitions or romanticized notions. He is an ironclad realistic. When somebody murders his partner, he shrugs it off as part of the job. Everybody knows the risks. And when it comes to love and women, he is equally pragmatic. Bogart may have become the world's leading actor, but he would remain the cynical tough guy throughout his career, right up to his last, wry performance some fifteen years later in "The Harder They Fall."
"The Maltese Falcon" is a story of double-dealing and double crosses in the search for a fabulous "black bird." The object of all the mischief is a fabulous, jewel-encrusted statuette of a falcon that has had people cheating, stealing, and killing to get their hands on it for over 400 years. Now, a new group of scoundrels are after it, and their trail has led them to San Francisco and the investigative agency of Spade and Archer. "Trust no one" should be the byword of everyone in the story and the caution to anyone who watches the film. Lies, treachery, deceit, and homicide are the order of the day as nearly all the characters in the movie try to stab one another in the back in their greed for the bird.
The supporting cast were so good together that WB invited many of them back to costar in later Bogart films. Mary Astor plays Brigid O'Shaughnessy (or is it Wonderly, or Leblanc?), whose lies seem to mystify even her. Peter Lorre is Joel Cairo, the weaselly, effeminate little crook who would sell out his mother for the right price. Sydney Greenstreet is the Fat Man, Kasper Gutman, the urbane heavy (really heavy) imitated in about 200 movies since. (The film's closing credits spell it "Kasper," but Hammett spelled it "Casper" in the book.) Elisha Cook, Jr., plays the young-punk gunsel, whose felt hat and twin automatics are bigger than he is. Ward Bond and Barton MacLane are the cops, the sympathetic Detective Polhaus and the hard-nosed Lt. Dundy, forever hounding Spade. Jerome Cowan plays Spade's partner, the dandy Miles Archer. Gladys George plays Archer's wife, with whom Spade has been carrying on an affair. And Lee Patrick is Effie Perine, Spade's ever-loyal secretary and assistant. The director even talked his father, actor Walter Huston, into playing a brief, unbilled bit part as Capt. Jacobi, master of the boat "La Paloma," a fellow shot in the chest and still clutching the falcon in his dying grasp. Apparently as a joke, the elder Huston required his son take hours of retakes for his moment of screen time.
The dialogue crackles in Huston's script--as it should, taken almost verbatim from the novel--and the direction is secure and taut. Critics often credit Huston and "The Maltese Falcon" with starting, or at least popularizing, the film noir style so favored by crime flicks of the later forties and fifties. The "Falcon's" city setting, frequently photographed at night, its murky shadows, and its grim, derisive attitude toward people and their motivations all influence our dark perceptions of the story.
Yet it is not a depressing motion picture despite its surplus of dark shadows, shady characters, and suspicious events. Huston doesn't allow it. The film's vitality and pacing do not permit us to ponder for long the consequences of any one scene or action. Instead, we're caught up in the pulse of the film, pretty much swept along by its deeds, not even particularly saddened or surprised by the pessimism of its ending. 10/10
Video:
Warner Bros. obtained the best copy of the film they could find to transfer and digitally restored it from original elements. A high bit rate ensures that the 1.33:1 (from 1.37:1) black-and-white contrasts show up strongly, the black tones, especially, almost always deep and solid. In fitting a tribute to the best, Warner Home Video's DVD transfer of the film is truly "the stuff that dreams are made of."
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural sound is also quite good for its age, coming up as well as we might expect. The soundtrack renders dialogue crisply, and background music, naturally restricted in frequency and dynamics, is nonetheless clear and persuasive.
Extras:
The disc contains the feature film, with an informed and informative audio commentary by Bogart biographer Eric Lax; a theatrical trailer for "The Maltese Falcon" that contains an introduction by Sydney Greenstreet; twenty-eight scene selections; English as the only spoken language; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.
In addition, the disc includes a Warner Night at the Movies, 1941: First, there's a vintage newsreel. That's followed by the Oscar-nominated Technicolor musical short "The Gay Parisian," twenty minutes of Offenbach tunes, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Then, there's a trailer for 1941's "Sergeant York." And, finally, there are two classic cartoons, "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt," in color with Bugs Bunny, and "Meet John Doughboy," in black-and-white with Porky Pig.
CITIZEN KANE:
The question isn't whether "Citizen Kane" is one of the greatest films ever made; that's a given. The question is whether it's THE greatest. The American Film Institute thinks it is, voting it to their number-one spot. Other such lists usually place it at least in the top five, usually at one, two, or three. Not bad for a movie that failed in its initial theatrical run.
My best friend, a professor of film, always thought "Citizen Kane" was overrated. Maybe. I won't argue the point. I first saw the film in the fifties when I was still in my teens, and I must confess I wasn't overly impressed. Then I watched and studied it more seriously in college in the early sixties and began to see its worth. Having owned several tape copies of it and taught it to a number of film classes over the years, I've come to agree with those critics who place it number one on their all-time-great movie lists. I certainly can't think of any film that deserves more respect or commands a more prominent spot in the history of cinema.
As most of you know, cowriter, producer, and director Orson Welles based his story on the real publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, his fictional character of Charles Foster Kane closely resembling the personal and professional life of the famous newspaperman in not altogether flattering terms. The similarity was so startling, in fact, that Hearst, who controlled a good number of the country's media outlets in 1941, tried everything he could to stop the movie from ever being seen. Heck, Hearst even tried to buy the negatives (with the help of his pal, MGM's Louis B. Mayer), and when that failed he refused to allow any of his newspapers or radio stations to run ads for it. By the time the film opened, to good reviews in non Hearst-owned outlets, the general public were either brainwashed into believing it was a loser or didn't get a chance to see it at all thanks to its limited distribution. It wouldn't be for another decade or two before the movie was reevaluated and began appearing in art houses and college classrooms as a true classic.
Obviously, books have been written on the merits of "Citizen Kane." Let me just mention in passing that while it breaks little new ground, it does bring together a number of filmmaking techniques that had been in various stages of development previously. For example, the movie refines the use of narrative point of view and flashback storytelling; emphasizes psychological lighting, light and shade (chiaroscuro), and deep-focus photography; embraces a sound track of amazingly wide dynamics for its time; provides frequent instances of overlapping and interruptive dialogue; employs complex and elaborate camera work, unique camera angles, abrupt cuts, multiple exposures, special effects, and dissolves; uses mirrors, mirroring, and mirrored scenes and imagery extensively; and incorporates numerous other examples of modern cinematography and storytelling in general. The result is a cinematic tour de force that's just as dazzling to watch today as it was over six decades ago. One can hardly dispute that it has influenced almost every filmmaker since its time.
Never mind that at age twenty-four this was Welles's first film, and that he has often been criticized for relying too much on the work of others without giving them entirely proper due. Yes, famed cinematographer Gregg Toland did the amazing camera work and perfected the deep-focus photographic style (for which in the credits Welles gave him equal billing with himself), Bernard Herrmann did the musical score, and Herman J. Mankiewicz helped write the script. But there's no denying that this was Welles's baby from start to finish; and, besides, at this stage in the game, sixty-odd years later, what difference does it make to viewers who was responsible for it. The point is that what we have is splendid, no matter who the collaborators were or how much they contributed.
But probably the movie's strongest claim to fame is that it tells a good story. Covering Kane's life from childhood to deathbed, the movie tells its story in multiple recurring flashbacks from several different people's points of view, as a newspaper reporter tries to track down an angle on Kane's dying word, "Rosebud." All of these people, we come to realize, actually know the enigmatic Kane less well than they think. Welles himself stars as Kane. Welles was an actor, writer, director, producer, magician, and pitch man who was almost as complicated as the man he was playing. Be that as it may or perhaps because of it, Welles puts in a first-rate, commanding performance as the poor boy left a fortune, who turned it into an empire the likes of which we shall probably never see again.
For his supporting cast Welles largely chose players he already knew and had worked with before, many of them stage actors from his old Mercury Theater days, like Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, and Ray Collins. For the part of Kane's mistress in the film, Welles chose Dorothy Comingore (pregnant at the time but nicely camouflaged) to play Susan Alexander, a role modeled on the real-life actress and Hearst mistress, Marion Davies. Comingore may at first appear a bit superficial in the part, but she amply conveys the emptiness of a life filled with everything and nothing at the same time.
I've read that the 1941 Academy Awards audience hissed and booed the film's nine Oscar nominations--for Best Picture, Actor, Director, Writing, Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Scoring, and Sound Recording. It managed only to win for its screenplay, mainly, I guess, because it was cowritten by Mankiewicz. The movie made Orson Welles forever a living legend, yet because of the movie's unwarranted notoriety he was also forever an outcast in Hollywood. As an aside, William Randolph Hearst III, the old man's grandson, said in 1985 that he had always enjoyed "Citizen Kane," and that Welles was invited to visit the Hearst Castle, San Simeon, anytime he pleased "on my tab." I suppose time heals all wounds. In the case of "Citizen Kane," time has also helped improve upon a good thing. 10/10
Video:
Warners' newly restored print is excellent. Indeed, it may even be better than the film stock I saw so long ago, although here memory does not serve me well. There's a not a blemish to be found in this fresh, 1.33:1 ratio transfer, which retains most of the 1.37:1 image. What's more important, the black-and-white contrasts are startlingly vivid, Toland's photography keeping both background and foreground in crystal-clear focus, with moiré effects minor and generally unnoticeable. For all I know, the film probably never looked this good when audiences originally saw it in motion-picture theaters.
Audio:
The audio, rendered via Dolby Digital monaural and apparently having undergone some noise reduction, sounds almost as clean and clear as the picture is sharp, with little discernible background hiss. The vocals are slightly pinched, and the overall volume level is a tad lower than we find in most movies today, but even cranked up the sound is quite good.
Extras:
The film is accompanied by two audio commentaries. The first is by film director and Welles biographer Peter Bogdanovich, who has spoken lovingly before on the subject of his hero and sometime mentor. The second commentary is by film critic Roger Ebert, who spares us no apologies in his unabashed affection for the movie. Both men supply knowledgeable insights, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and revealing observations on the filmmaking process. There's quite a difference between listening to an actor talking about an insignificant film and a pair of experts providing important information about one of the world's greatest films. Bogdanovich, for example, tells us that Welles told him that many of the camera angles he and Toland worked out, so discussed and admired today as symbolic and meaningful, were produced simply because they looked good to Welles. OK, so maybe the guy was just lucky; in any event, everything worked. It's hard to make a choice between the two commentaries. I'd suggest if you have the time, listen to both of them. I found myself flipping back and forth; when one fellow would pause for a moment, I'd click over to the other. That way I got to hear essentially what both men said about the same scenes. Anyway, in addition to the commentaries, there's a 1941 movie première newsreel, a gallery of storyboards, rare photos, alternate ad campaigns, studio correspondence, call sheets, and other memorabilia; thirty-one scene selections; and a theatrical trailer. English is the only spoken language available, but WB provide English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles.
Parting Thoughts:
Warner Bros. cannot be brought up on false charges: The three movies in this "Essential Classics: Dramas" set are as close to "essential classics" as one can get. They have endured the test of time and fully proved their worth.
One could argue, I suppose, about the term "Essential" in the title of the Warner Bros. box set "Essential Classics: Dramas." After all, "Essential" means something that is absolutely necessary or indispensable. I have friends who never watch movies of any kind, or any TV for that matter, and would find all films dispensable. But as a movie fan myself, I can't imagine three more important films than the ones contained in this box: "Ben-Hur," "The Maltese Falcon," and "Citizen Kane."
William Wyler's remake of "Ben-Hur" (1959) is among the most-sweeping, most-intelligent, and most-personal big-screen epics ever made. John Huston's "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) is among the first film noirs and among the best detective movies ever made. And Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane" (1941) is simply among the best movies ever made, considered by many critics and admirers the best film of all time.
Warner Bros. have already released all three of these films separately and in special editions, but the studio has never offered them together at so attractive a price. What's more, you get the latest digital masterings, the first movie discs from each of the special editions, with plenty of extras on their own but without the additional bonus discs provided by the more-expensive sets.
For those readers interested in reading more about the special editions, you'll find my complete reviews listed individually here at DVDTOWN. For this box set, however, I have highlighted some of the most-important aspects of each disc.
BEN-HUR:
The Warner Bros. special edition came in a four-disc set, spreading the movie over two discs and including the earlier, silent-movie version of the movie and a ton of extras on the third and fourth discs. In this "Essential Classics" box, we get just the two-disc movie.
When one considers the term "epic" in relation to motion pictures, one may think of "Gone With the Wind," "The Ten Commandments," "Spartacus," "El Cid," "Lawrence of Arabia," or even the more-recent "Gladiator." But, certainly, no more epic spectacle was ever created for the screen than William Wyler's 1959 production of "Ben-Hur." At the time, it was the most expensive movie ever made, and its rewards were not only to become a box-office smash but to earn a record-breaking eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Wyler), and Best Actor (Charlton Heston).
Published as a novel in 1880 and subtitled "A Tale of the Christ," General Lew Wallace's "Ben-Hur" was at first successfully adapted to the stage and then made into a silent movie in 1925 (included in this new set) before becoming the blockbuster most of us know.
The story begins at the time of Christ's birth in Judea, a land that had been under Roman rule for nearly a century. Simultaneous with Christ's birth, another child is born, Prince Judah Ben-Hur (Heston), who would grow up to be one of the richest men in the country. The story then jumps ahead twenty-six years to the introduction of a new Judean governor and his new head of the local Roman garrison, the Tribune Messala (Stephen Boyd). Messala and Judah grew up together, like brothers, the Roman and the Jew, but they haven't seen each for years. Now, Messala wants to rise in the Roman world and asks Judah to help him by revealing the names of Jewish dissidents. Judah refuses, choosing to remain loyal to his people and thereby incurring the eternal wrath of his once-staunch friend. An accident involving a loose roofing tile from Judah's house injuring the new governor affords Messala a chance to get even with Judah for not supporting him. To show the Jews how strict he is, Messala orders his old friend sent to the galleys as a slave and Judah's mother (Martha Scott) and sister (Cathy O'Donnell) imprisoned.
Then, a strange and too-coincidental set of circumstances enable Judah to rise once again in the world. By happenstance he manages to save the life of a Roman Consul, Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), who in gratitude makes Judah his adopted son and a free man. From this point on, Judah's only desire in life is to return to Judea, free his mother and sister, and seek revenge upon the man who caused him and his family so much pain. The film ends in two climactic scenes: the famous chariot race, pitting Judah against Messala, and then the crucifixion of Christ.
Unlike so many other super-spectaculars, this one is not only a rousing adventure, at its core it has a genuine heart. Judah Ben-Hur is no mere cardboard hero (despite Heston's sometimes wooden appearance). He is a man who undergos a series of personality developments, from contentment to bitterness to hatred and finally to peace and love. It's true that this 1959 version of the story tends to downplay the standing of Christ in Judah's life much more so than the original novel, leaving it to the viewer to infer that Judah comes eventually to accept the Savior's word; but enough of the Christian message of salvation through kindness and charity comes through to merit attention yet not create discomfort for the nonbeliever.
Nor is Messala a cardboard villain. We can readily see he is a man possessed by ambition and hardened by the desire for power. As Judah points out on several occasions, Roman rule has corrupted everyone. Also in the cast are Haya Harareet as Esther, the slave girl with whom Judah falls in love; Hugh Griffith as Sheik Ilderim, an Arab who befriends and sponsors Judah in his big chariot race; and Sam Jaffe as Simonides, Judah's faithful old steward.
The film's major drawback, its extreme length, may also be for many viewers among its chief strengths. I found much of the middle portion of the film flagging, but the length enables a good deal of character growth, plus it gives extended time for the chariot race.
Ah, yes, that chariot race. Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" may also be a rousing adventure yarn, but it has nothing to equal the all-out thrills of the chariots in "Ben-Hur." The race sequence itself takes up a good quarter of an hour and is hair-raising in its excitement. Legendary stunt man Yakima Canutt was second-unit director on the film, and it was he who was responsible for staging the action and training Heston to do much of his own chariot driving.
The combination of Wyler's energetic direction, Heston's elevated hero, Canutt's stirring stunt work, and composer Miklos Rozsa's uplifting musical score make for grand entertainment, indeed. And I haven't even mentioned the overwhelmingly huge sets, the multitudinous armies, the stunning costumes, and the magnificent scenery that the film affords. As I said at the outset, "Ben-Hur" fairly defines the word "epic."
"Ben-Hur" may not be as intellectually satisfying as "Spartacus" or "Lawrence of Arabia," but it's an equally intimate portrait of an equally heroic man. 8/10
Video:
The film is epic in scope, and it's nice to see it transferred to DVD at a high bit rate for optimum video quality. Originally filmed by MGM in something called Camera 65, the theatrical screen dimensions were projected at a ratio of around 2.75:1. Warner Bros., now handling the movie, bring it to disc in a ratio that measures a little over 2.50:1 across my TV, about the widest ratio I've seen in my home. The width is required to convey the breadth and grandeur of the settings, and when you see the Roman legions marching from one end of the screen to the other, you know it's wide.
To complement the screen's vast dimensions, the color and definition are excellent. The image is vividly projected and clearly delineated, allowing one to practically reach out and feel the velvet tunics and white silk robes of the players. All in all, a great picture--not only wide but bright, sharp, and clear.
Audio:
The audio engineers provide Dolby Digital 5.1 reproduction that does justice to the film's multichannel sonics. There is a commendably wide front-stereo stage, and for a change the characters' voices can be heard moving across the sound field. There is a very small amount of background noise, but it's of little importance. Rear-channel effects are limited mainly to musical ambiance for the first three-quarters of the film, but then in the climactic crucifixion scene, the rears come to life in noises of wind and storm. In addition, the subwoofer gets a terrific outing. While the sound remains a tad on the hard side, I doubt that anyone will be disappointed with the disc's audio qualities.
Extras:
As I've said, WB spread the movie out over two DVDs, so there isn't much room left over for extras. However, the discs do contain English and French spoken languages; English, French, and Spanish subtitles; and a remarkable sixty-one scene selections. But that's not all. The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by film historian T. Gene Hatcher, author of a book on the making of "Ben-Hur," and scene-specific comments by the film's star, Charlton Heston. The lengthy Overture gives Hatcher a chance to provide us some plot overview and a history of the story and its creation. I rather enjoy these academic approaches to film commentary because they are usually more informative than typical directors' commentaries. Heston's comments were apparently recorded separately, and they are, understandably, more intimately involved with the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking. Then, for good measure, the discs also include a music-only track showcasing Miklos Rozsa's celebrated music.
THE MALTESE FALCON:
If "The Maltese Falcon" doesn't qualify as the best private-eye yarn ever filmed, I don't know what does. Hollywood had brought Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel to the screen twice before this one, but never better. John Huston, in his directorial debut in 1941, also adapted the script for this fast-paced mystery; and Humphrey Bogart practically bought the rights not only to the character of Sam Spade but to every future movie gumshoe who would ever pull a gat.
For Bogart, detective Sam Spade was a breakthrough part. Consigned mainly to play second-fiddle tough-guy roles in the thirties, Bogart had usually played heavies who died in the final reel. He did get good notices as Duke Mantee in "The Petrified Forest" (1936) and Mad Dog Earle in "High Sierra" (1941), but he was mostly getting plugged at the end of things like "Angels With Dirty Faces" (1938), "The Roaring Twenties" (1939), and "The Return of Doctor X" (1939). When he finally got his chance to play the lead in "The Maltese Falcon," he never looked back. The next year it was "Casablanca," and he had firmly etched his star into Hollywood's roster of all-time favorite actors.
As Sam Spade, the hard-boiled detective, Bogart is the quintessential antihero. He is the loner with no particularly noble ambitions or romanticized notions. He is an ironclad realistic. When somebody murders his partner, he shrugs it off as part of the job. Everybody knows the risks. And when it comes to love and women, he is equally pragmatic. Bogart may have become the world's leading actor, but he would remain the cynical tough guy throughout his career, right up to his last, wry performance some fifteen years later in "The Harder They Fall."
"The Maltese Falcon" is a story of double-dealing and double crosses in the search for a fabulous "black bird." The object of all the mischief is a fabulous, jewel-encrusted statuette of a falcon that has had people cheating, stealing, and killing to get their hands on it for over 400 years. Now, a new group of scoundrels are after it, and their trail has led them to San Francisco and the investigative agency of Spade and Archer. "Trust no one" should be the byword of everyone in the story and the caution to anyone who watches the film. Lies, treachery, deceit, and homicide are the order of the day as nearly all the characters in the movie try to stab one another in the back in their greed for the bird.
The supporting cast were so good together that WB invited many of them back to costar in later Bogart films. Mary Astor plays Brigid O'Shaughnessy (or is it Wonderly, or Leblanc?), whose lies seem to mystify even her. Peter Lorre is Joel Cairo, the weaselly, effeminate little crook who would sell out his mother for the right price. Sydney Greenstreet is the Fat Man, Kasper Gutman, the urbane heavy (really heavy) imitated in about 200 movies since. (The film's closing credits spell it "Kasper," but Hammett spelled it "Casper" in the book.) Elisha Cook, Jr., plays the young-punk gunsel, whose felt hat and twin automatics are bigger than he is. Ward Bond and Barton MacLane are the cops, the sympathetic Detective Polhaus and the hard-nosed Lt. Dundy, forever hounding Spade. Jerome Cowan plays Spade's partner, the dandy Miles Archer. Gladys George plays Archer's wife, with whom Spade has been carrying on an affair. And Lee Patrick is Effie Perine, Spade's ever-loyal secretary and assistant. The director even talked his father, actor Walter Huston, into playing a brief, unbilled bit part as Capt. Jacobi, master of the boat "La Paloma," a fellow shot in the chest and still clutching the falcon in his dying grasp. Apparently as a joke, the elder Huston required his son take hours of retakes for his moment of screen time.
The dialogue crackles in Huston's script--as it should, taken almost verbatim from the novel--and the direction is secure and taut. Critics often credit Huston and "The Maltese Falcon" with starting, or at least popularizing, the film noir style so favored by crime flicks of the later forties and fifties. The "Falcon's" city setting, frequently photographed at night, its murky shadows, and its grim, derisive attitude toward people and their motivations all influence our dark perceptions of the story.
Yet it is not a depressing motion picture despite its surplus of dark shadows, shady characters, and suspicious events. Huston doesn't allow it. The film's vitality and pacing do not permit us to ponder for long the consequences of any one scene or action. Instead, we're caught up in the pulse of the film, pretty much swept along by its deeds, not even particularly saddened or surprised by the pessimism of its ending. 10/10
Video:
Warner Bros. obtained the best copy of the film they could find to transfer and digitally restored it from original elements. A high bit rate ensures that the 1.33:1 (from 1.37:1) black-and-white contrasts show up strongly, the black tones, especially, almost always deep and solid. In fitting a tribute to the best, Warner Home Video's DVD transfer of the film is truly "the stuff that dreams are made of."
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural sound is also quite good for its age, coming up as well as we might expect. The soundtrack renders dialogue crisply, and background music, naturally restricted in frequency and dynamics, is nonetheless clear and persuasive.
Extras:
The disc contains the feature film, with an informed and informative audio commentary by Bogart biographer Eric Lax; a theatrical trailer for "The Maltese Falcon" that contains an introduction by Sydney Greenstreet; twenty-eight scene selections; English as the only spoken language; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.
In addition, the disc includes a Warner Night at the Movies, 1941: First, there's a vintage newsreel. That's followed by the Oscar-nominated Technicolor musical short "The Gay Parisian," twenty minutes of Offenbach tunes, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Then, there's a trailer for 1941's "Sergeant York." And, finally, there are two classic cartoons, "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt," in color with Bugs Bunny, and "Meet John Doughboy," in black-and-white with Porky Pig.
CITIZEN KANE:
The question isn't whether "Citizen Kane" is one of the greatest films ever made; that's a given. The question is whether it's THE greatest. The American Film Institute thinks it is, voting it to their number-one spot. Other such lists usually place it at least in the top five, usually at one, two, or three. Not bad for a movie that failed in its initial theatrical run.
My best friend, a professor of film, always thought "Citizen Kane" was overrated. Maybe. I won't argue the point. I first saw the film in the fifties when I was still in my teens, and I must confess I wasn't overly impressed. Then I watched and studied it more seriously in college in the early sixties and began to see its worth. Having owned several tape copies of it and taught it to a number of film classes over the years, I've come to agree with those critics who place it number one on their all-time-great movie lists. I certainly can't think of any film that deserves more respect or commands a more prominent spot in the history of cinema.
As most of you know, cowriter, producer, and director Orson Welles based his story on the real publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, his fictional character of Charles Foster Kane closely resembling the personal and professional life of the famous newspaperman in not altogether flattering terms. The similarity was so startling, in fact, that Hearst, who controlled a good number of the country's media outlets in 1941, tried everything he could to stop the movie from ever being seen. Heck, Hearst even tried to buy the negatives (with the help of his pal, MGM's Louis B. Mayer), and when that failed he refused to allow any of his newspapers or radio stations to run ads for it. By the time the film opened, to good reviews in non Hearst-owned outlets, the general public were either brainwashed into believing it was a loser or didn't get a chance to see it at all thanks to its limited distribution. It wouldn't be for another decade or two before the movie was reevaluated and began appearing in art houses and college classrooms as a true classic.
Obviously, books have been written on the merits of "Citizen Kane." Let me just mention in passing that while it breaks little new ground, it does bring together a number of filmmaking techniques that had been in various stages of development previously. For example, the movie refines the use of narrative point of view and flashback storytelling; emphasizes psychological lighting, light and shade (chiaroscuro), and deep-focus photography; embraces a sound track of amazingly wide dynamics for its time; provides frequent instances of overlapping and interruptive dialogue; employs complex and elaborate camera work, unique camera angles, abrupt cuts, multiple exposures, special effects, and dissolves; uses mirrors, mirroring, and mirrored scenes and imagery extensively; and incorporates numerous other examples of modern cinematography and storytelling in general. The result is a cinematic tour de force that's just as dazzling to watch today as it was over six decades ago. One can hardly dispute that it has influenced almost every filmmaker since its time.
Never mind that at age twenty-four this was Welles's first film, and that he has often been criticized for relying too much on the work of others without giving them entirely proper due. Yes, famed cinematographer Gregg Toland did the amazing camera work and perfected the deep-focus photographic style (for which in the credits Welles gave him equal billing with himself), Bernard Herrmann did the musical score, and Herman J. Mankiewicz helped write the script. But there's no denying that this was Welles's baby from start to finish; and, besides, at this stage in the game, sixty-odd years later, what difference does it make to viewers who was responsible for it. The point is that what we have is splendid, no matter who the collaborators were or how much they contributed.
But probably the movie's strongest claim to fame is that it tells a good story. Covering Kane's life from childhood to deathbed, the movie tells its story in multiple recurring flashbacks from several different people's points of view, as a newspaper reporter tries to track down an angle on Kane's dying word, "Rosebud." All of these people, we come to realize, actually know the enigmatic Kane less well than they think. Welles himself stars as Kane. Welles was an actor, writer, director, producer, magician, and pitch man who was almost as complicated as the man he was playing. Be that as it may or perhaps because of it, Welles puts in a first-rate, commanding performance as the poor boy left a fortune, who turned it into an empire the likes of which we shall probably never see again.
For his supporting cast Welles largely chose players he already knew and had worked with before, many of them stage actors from his old Mercury Theater days, like Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, and Ray Collins. For the part of Kane's mistress in the film, Welles chose Dorothy Comingore (pregnant at the time but nicely camouflaged) to play Susan Alexander, a role modeled on the real-life actress and Hearst mistress, Marion Davies. Comingore may at first appear a bit superficial in the part, but she amply conveys the emptiness of a life filled with everything and nothing at the same time.
I've read that the 1941 Academy Awards audience hissed and booed the film's nine Oscar nominations--for Best Picture, Actor, Director, Writing, Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Scoring, and Sound Recording. It managed only to win for its screenplay, mainly, I guess, because it was cowritten by Mankiewicz. The movie made Orson Welles forever a living legend, yet because of the movie's unwarranted notoriety he was also forever an outcast in Hollywood. As an aside, William Randolph Hearst III, the old man's grandson, said in 1985 that he had always enjoyed "Citizen Kane," and that Welles was invited to visit the Hearst Castle, San Simeon, anytime he pleased "on my tab." I suppose time heals all wounds. In the case of "Citizen Kane," time has also helped improve upon a good thing. 10/10
Video:
Warners' newly restored print is excellent. Indeed, it may even be better than the film stock I saw so long ago, although here memory does not serve me well. There's a not a blemish to be found in this fresh, 1.33:1 ratio transfer, which retains most of the 1.37:1 image. What's more important, the black-and-white contrasts are startlingly vivid, Toland's photography keeping both background and foreground in crystal-clear focus, with moiré effects minor and generally unnoticeable. For all I know, the film probably never looked this good when audiences originally saw it in motion-picture theaters.
Audio:
The audio, rendered via Dolby Digital monaural and apparently having undergone some noise reduction, sounds almost as clean and clear as the picture is sharp, with little discernible background hiss. The vocals are slightly pinched, and the overall volume level is a tad lower than we find in most movies today, but even cranked up the sound is quite good.
Extras:
The film is accompanied by two audio commentaries. The first is by film director and Welles biographer Peter Bogdanovich, who has spoken lovingly before on the subject of his hero and sometime mentor. The second commentary is by film critic Roger Ebert, who spares us no apologies in his unabashed affection for the movie. Both men supply knowledgeable insights, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and revealing observations on the filmmaking process. There's quite a difference between listening to an actor talking about an insignificant film and a pair of experts providing important information about one of the world's greatest films. Bogdanovich, for example, tells us that Welles told him that many of the camera angles he and Toland worked out, so discussed and admired today as symbolic and meaningful, were produced simply because they looked good to Welles. OK, so maybe the guy was just lucky; in any event, everything worked. It's hard to make a choice between the two commentaries. I'd suggest if you have the time, listen to both of them. I found myself flipping back and forth; when one fellow would pause for a moment, I'd click over to the other. That way I got to hear essentially what both men said about the same scenes. Anyway, in addition to the commentaries, there's a 1941 movie première newsreel, a gallery of storyboards, rare photos, alternate ad campaigns, studio correspondence, call sheets, and other memorabilia; thirty-one scene selections; and a theatrical trailer. English is the only spoken language available, but WB provide English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles.
Parting Thoughts:
Warner Bros. cannot be brought up on false charges: The three movies in this "Essential Classics: Dramas" set are as close to "essential classics" as one can get. They have endured the test of time and fully proved their worth.
William Wyler's remake of "Ben-Hur" (1959) is among the most-sweeping, most-intelligent, and most-personal big-screen epics ever made. John Huston's "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) is among the first film noirs and among the best detective movies ever made. And Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane" (1941) is simply among the best movies ever made, considered by many critics and admirers the best film of all time.
Warner Bros. have already released all three of these films separately and in special editions, but the studio has never offered them together at so attractive a price. What's more, you get the latest digital masterings, the first movie discs from each of the special editions, with plenty of extras on their own but without the additional bonus discs provided by the more-expensive sets.
For those readers interested in reading more about the special editions, you'll find my complete reviews listed individually here at DVDTOWN. For this box set, however, I have highlighted some of the most-important aspects of each disc.
BEN-HUR:
The Warner Bros. special edition came in a four-disc set, spreading the movie over two discs and including the earlier, silent-movie version of the movie and a ton of extras on the third and fourth discs. In this "Essential Classics" box, we get just the two-disc movie.
When one considers the term "epic" in relation to motion pictures, one may think of "Gone With the Wind," "The Ten Commandments," "Spartacus," "El Cid," "Lawrence of Arabia," or even the more-recent "Gladiator." But, certainly, no more epic spectacle was ever created for the screen than William Wyler's 1959 production of "Ben-Hur." At the time, it was the most expensive movie ever made, and its rewards were not only to become a box-office smash but to earn a record-breaking eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Wyler), and Best Actor (Charlton Heston).
Published as a novel in 1880 and subtitled "A Tale of the Christ," General Lew Wallace's "Ben-Hur" was at first successfully adapted to the stage and then made into a silent movie in 1925 (included in this new set) before becoming the blockbuster most of us know.
The story begins at the time of Christ's birth in Judea, a land that had been under Roman rule for nearly a century. Simultaneous with Christ's birth, another child is born, Prince Judah Ben-Hur (Heston), who would grow up to be one of the richest men in the country. The story then jumps ahead twenty-six years to the introduction of a new Judean governor and his new head of the local Roman garrison, the Tribune Messala (Stephen Boyd). Messala and Judah grew up together, like brothers, the Roman and the Jew, but they haven't seen each for years. Now, Messala wants to rise in the Roman world and asks Judah to help him by revealing the names of Jewish dissidents. Judah refuses, choosing to remain loyal to his people and thereby incurring the eternal wrath of his once-staunch friend. An accident involving a loose roofing tile from Judah's house injuring the new governor affords Messala a chance to get even with Judah for not supporting him. To show the Jews how strict he is, Messala orders his old friend sent to the galleys as a slave and Judah's mother (Martha Scott) and sister (Cathy O'Donnell) imprisoned.
Then, a strange and too-coincidental set of circumstances enable Judah to rise once again in the world. By happenstance he manages to save the life of a Roman Consul, Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), who in gratitude makes Judah his adopted son and a free man. From this point on, Judah's only desire in life is to return to Judea, free his mother and sister, and seek revenge upon the man who caused him and his family so much pain. The film ends in two climactic scenes: the famous chariot race, pitting Judah against Messala, and then the crucifixion of Christ.
Unlike so many other super-spectaculars, this one is not only a rousing adventure, at its core it has a genuine heart. Judah Ben-Hur is no mere cardboard hero (despite Heston's sometimes wooden appearance). He is a man who undergos a series of personality developments, from contentment to bitterness to hatred and finally to peace and love. It's true that this 1959 version of the story tends to downplay the standing of Christ in Judah's life much more so than the original novel, leaving it to the viewer to infer that Judah comes eventually to accept the Savior's word; but enough of the Christian message of salvation through kindness and charity comes through to merit attention yet not create discomfort for the nonbeliever.
Nor is Messala a cardboard villain. We can readily see he is a man possessed by ambition and hardened by the desire for power. As Judah points out on several occasions, Roman rule has corrupted everyone. Also in the cast are Haya Harareet as Esther, the slave girl with whom Judah falls in love; Hugh Griffith as Sheik Ilderim, an Arab who befriends and sponsors Judah in his big chariot race; and Sam Jaffe as Simonides, Judah's faithful old steward.
The film's major drawback, its extreme length, may also be for many viewers among its chief strengths. I found much of the middle portion of the film flagging, but the length enables a good deal of character growth, plus it gives extended time for the chariot race.
Ah, yes, that chariot race. Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" may also be a rousing adventure yarn, but it has nothing to equal the all-out thrills of the chariots in "Ben-Hur." The race sequence itself takes up a good quarter of an hour and is hair-raising in its excitement. Legendary stunt man Yakima Canutt was second-unit director on the film, and it was he who was responsible for staging the action and training Heston to do much of his own chariot driving.
The combination of Wyler's energetic direction, Heston's elevated hero, Canutt's stirring stunt work, and composer Miklos Rozsa's uplifting musical score make for grand entertainment, indeed. And I haven't even mentioned the overwhelmingly huge sets, the multitudinous armies, the stunning costumes, and the magnificent scenery that the film affords. As I said at the outset, "Ben-Hur" fairly defines the word "epic."
"Ben-Hur" may not be as intellectually satisfying as "Spartacus" or "Lawrence of Arabia," but it's an equally intimate portrait of an equally heroic man. 8/10
Video:
The film is epic in scope, and it's nice to see it transferred to DVD at a high bit rate for optimum video quality. Originally filmed by MGM in something called Camera 65, the theatrical screen dimensions were projected at a ratio of around 2.75:1. Warner Bros., now handling the movie, bring it to disc in a ratio that measures a little over 2.50:1 across my TV, about the widest ratio I've seen in my home. The width is required to convey the breadth and grandeur of the settings, and when you see the Roman legions marching from one end of the screen to the other, you know it's wide.
To complement the screen's vast dimensions, the color and definition are excellent. The image is vividly projected and clearly delineated, allowing one to practically reach out and feel the velvet tunics and white silk robes of the players. All in all, a great picture--not only wide but bright, sharp, and clear.
Audio:
The audio engineers provide Dolby Digital 5.1 reproduction that does justice to the film's multichannel sonics. There is a commendably wide front-stereo stage, and for a change the characters' voices can be heard moving across the sound field. There is a very small amount of background noise, but it's of little importance. Rear-channel effects are limited mainly to musical ambiance for the first three-quarters of the film, but then in the climactic crucifixion scene, the rears come to life in noises of wind and storm. In addition, the subwoofer gets a terrific outing. While the sound remains a tad on the hard side, I doubt that anyone will be disappointed with the disc's audio qualities.
Extras:
As I've said, WB spread the movie out over two DVDs, so there isn't much room left over for extras. However, the discs do contain English and French spoken languages; English, French, and Spanish subtitles; and a remarkable sixty-one scene selections. But that's not all. The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by film historian T. Gene Hatcher, author of a book on the making of "Ben-Hur," and scene-specific comments by the film's star, Charlton Heston. The lengthy Overture gives Hatcher a chance to provide us some plot overview and a history of the story and its creation. I rather enjoy these academic approaches to film commentary because they are usually more informative than typical directors' commentaries. Heston's comments were apparently recorded separately, and they are, understandably, more intimately involved with the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking. Then, for good measure, the discs also include a music-only track showcasing Miklos Rozsa's celebrated music.
THE MALTESE FALCON:
If "The Maltese Falcon" doesn't qualify as the best private-eye yarn ever filmed, I don't know what does. Hollywood had brought Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel to the screen twice before this one, but never better. John Huston, in his directorial debut in 1941, also adapted the script for this fast-paced mystery; and Humphrey Bogart practically bought the rights not only to the character of Sam Spade but to every future movie gumshoe who would ever pull a gat.
For Bogart, detective Sam Spade was a breakthrough part. Consigned mainly to play second-fiddle tough-guy roles in the thirties, Bogart had usually played heavies who died in the final reel. He did get good notices as Duke Mantee in "The Petrified Forest" (1936) and Mad Dog Earle in "High Sierra" (1941), but he was mostly getting plugged at the end of things like "Angels With Dirty Faces" (1938), "The Roaring Twenties" (1939), and "The Return of Doctor X" (1939). When he finally got his chance to play the lead in "The Maltese Falcon," he never looked back. The next year it was "Casablanca," and he had firmly etched his star into Hollywood's roster of all-time favorite actors.
As Sam Spade, the hard-boiled detective, Bogart is the quintessential antihero. He is the loner with no particularly noble ambitions or romanticized notions. He is an ironclad realistic. When somebody murders his partner, he shrugs it off as part of the job. Everybody knows the risks. And when it comes to love and women, he is equally pragmatic. Bogart may have become the world's leading actor, but he would remain the cynical tough guy throughout his career, right up to his last, wry performance some fifteen years later in "The Harder They Fall."
"The Maltese Falcon" is a story of double-dealing and double crosses in the search for a fabulous "black bird." The object of all the mischief is a fabulous, jewel-encrusted statuette of a falcon that has had people cheating, stealing, and killing to get their hands on it for over 400 years. Now, a new group of scoundrels are after it, and their trail has led them to San Francisco and the investigative agency of Spade and Archer. "Trust no one" should be the byword of everyone in the story and the caution to anyone who watches the film. Lies, treachery, deceit, and homicide are the order of the day as nearly all the characters in the movie try to stab one another in the back in their greed for the bird.
The supporting cast were so good together that WB invited many of them back to costar in later Bogart films. Mary Astor plays Brigid O'Shaughnessy (or is it Wonderly, or Leblanc?), whose lies seem to mystify even her. Peter Lorre is Joel Cairo, the weaselly, effeminate little crook who would sell out his mother for the right price. Sydney Greenstreet is the Fat Man, Kasper Gutman, the urbane heavy (really heavy) imitated in about 200 movies since. (The film's closing credits spell it "Kasper," but Hammett spelled it "Casper" in the book.) Elisha Cook, Jr., plays the young-punk gunsel, whose felt hat and twin automatics are bigger than he is. Ward Bond and Barton MacLane are the cops, the sympathetic Detective Polhaus and the hard-nosed Lt. Dundy, forever hounding Spade. Jerome Cowan plays Spade's partner, the dandy Miles Archer. Gladys George plays Archer's wife, with whom Spade has been carrying on an affair. And Lee Patrick is Effie Perine, Spade's ever-loyal secretary and assistant. The director even talked his father, actor Walter Huston, into playing a brief, unbilled bit part as Capt. Jacobi, master of the boat "La Paloma," a fellow shot in the chest and still clutching the falcon in his dying grasp. Apparently as a joke, the elder Huston required his son take hours of retakes for his moment of screen time.
The dialogue crackles in Huston's script--as it should, taken almost verbatim from the novel--and the direction is secure and taut. Critics often credit Huston and "The Maltese Falcon" with starting, or at least popularizing, the film noir style so favored by crime flicks of the later forties and fifties. The "Falcon's" city setting, frequently photographed at night, its murky shadows, and its grim, derisive attitude toward people and their motivations all influence our dark perceptions of the story.
Yet it is not a depressing motion picture despite its surplus of dark shadows, shady characters, and suspicious events. Huston doesn't allow it. The film's vitality and pacing do not permit us to ponder for long the consequences of any one scene or action. Instead, we're caught up in the pulse of the film, pretty much swept along by its deeds, not even particularly saddened or surprised by the pessimism of its ending. 10/10
Video:
Warner Bros. obtained the best copy of the film they could find to transfer and digitally restored it from original elements. A high bit rate ensures that the 1.33:1 (from 1.37:1) black-and-white contrasts show up strongly, the black tones, especially, almost always deep and solid. In fitting a tribute to the best, Warner Home Video's DVD transfer of the film is truly "the stuff that dreams are made of."
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural sound is also quite good for its age, coming up as well as we might expect. The soundtrack renders dialogue crisply, and background music, naturally restricted in frequency and dynamics, is nonetheless clear and persuasive.
Extras:
The disc contains the feature film, with an informed and informative audio commentary by Bogart biographer Eric Lax; a theatrical trailer for "The Maltese Falcon" that contains an introduction by Sydney Greenstreet; twenty-eight scene selections; English as the only spoken language; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.
In addition, the disc includes a Warner Night at the Movies, 1941: First, there's a vintage newsreel. That's followed by the Oscar-nominated Technicolor musical short "The Gay Parisian," twenty minutes of Offenbach tunes, performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Then, there's a trailer for 1941's "Sergeant York." And, finally, there are two classic cartoons, "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt," in color with Bugs Bunny, and "Meet John Doughboy," in black-and-white with Porky Pig.
CITIZEN KANE:
The question isn't whether "Citizen Kane" is one of the greatest films ever made; that's a given. The question is whether it's THE greatest. The American Film Institute thinks it is, voting it to their number-one spot. Other such lists usually place it at least in the top five, usually at one, two, or three. Not bad for a movie that failed in its initial theatrical run.
My best friend, a professor of film, always thought "Citizen Kane" was overrated. Maybe. I won't argue the point. I first saw the film in the fifties when I was still in my teens, and I must confess I wasn't overly impressed. Then I watched and studied it more seriously in college in the early sixties and began to see its worth. Having owned several tape copies of it and taught it to a number of film classes over the years, I've come to agree with those critics who place it number one on their all-time-great movie lists. I certainly can't think of any film that deserves more respect or commands a more prominent spot in the history of cinema.
As most of you know, cowriter, producer, and director Orson Welles based his story on the real publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, his fictional character of Charles Foster Kane closely resembling the personal and professional life of the famous newspaperman in not altogether flattering terms. The similarity was so startling, in fact, that Hearst, who controlled a good number of the country's media outlets in 1941, tried everything he could to stop the movie from ever being seen. Heck, Hearst even tried to buy the negatives (with the help of his pal, MGM's Louis B. Mayer), and when that failed he refused to allow any of his newspapers or radio stations to run ads for it. By the time the film opened, to good reviews in non Hearst-owned outlets, the general public were either brainwashed into believing it was a loser or didn't get a chance to see it at all thanks to its limited distribution. It wouldn't be for another decade or two before the movie was reevaluated and began appearing in art houses and college classrooms as a true classic.
Obviously, books have been written on the merits of "Citizen Kane." Let me just mention in passing that while it breaks little new ground, it does bring together a number of filmmaking techniques that had been in various stages of development previously. For example, the movie refines the use of narrative point of view and flashback storytelling; emphasizes psychological lighting, light and shade (chiaroscuro), and deep-focus photography; embraces a sound track of amazingly wide dynamics for its time; provides frequent instances of overlapping and interruptive dialogue; employs complex and elaborate camera work, unique camera angles, abrupt cuts, multiple exposures, special effects, and dissolves; uses mirrors, mirroring, and mirrored scenes and imagery extensively; and incorporates numerous other examples of modern cinematography and storytelling in general. The result is a cinematic tour de force that's just as dazzling to watch today as it was over six decades ago. One can hardly dispute that it has influenced almost every filmmaker since its time.
Never mind that at age twenty-four this was Welles's first film, and that he has often been criticized for relying too much on the work of others without giving them entirely proper due. Yes, famed cinematographer Gregg Toland did the amazing camera work and perfected the deep-focus photographic style (for which in the credits Welles gave him equal billing with himself), Bernard Herrmann did the musical score, and Herman J. Mankiewicz helped write the script. But there's no denying that this was Welles's baby from start to finish; and, besides, at this stage in the game, sixty-odd years later, what difference does it make to viewers who was responsible for it. The point is that what we have is splendid, no matter who the collaborators were or how much they contributed.
But probably the movie's strongest claim to fame is that it tells a good story. Covering Kane's life from childhood to deathbed, the movie tells its story in multiple recurring flashbacks from several different people's points of view, as a newspaper reporter tries to track down an angle on Kane's dying word, "Rosebud." All of these people, we come to realize, actually know the enigmatic Kane less well than they think. Welles himself stars as Kane. Welles was an actor, writer, director, producer, magician, and pitch man who was almost as complicated as the man he was playing. Be that as it may or perhaps because of it, Welles puts in a first-rate, commanding performance as the poor boy left a fortune, who turned it into an empire the likes of which we shall probably never see again.
For his supporting cast Welles largely chose players he already knew and had worked with before, many of them stage actors from his old Mercury Theater days, like Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, and Ray Collins. For the part of Kane's mistress in the film, Welles chose Dorothy Comingore (pregnant at the time but nicely camouflaged) to play Susan Alexander, a role modeled on the real-life actress and Hearst mistress, Marion Davies. Comingore may at first appear a bit superficial in the part, but she amply conveys the emptiness of a life filled with everything and nothing at the same time.
I've read that the 1941 Academy Awards audience hissed and booed the film's nine Oscar nominations--for Best Picture, Actor, Director, Writing, Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Scoring, and Sound Recording. It managed only to win for its screenplay, mainly, I guess, because it was cowritten by Mankiewicz. The movie made Orson Welles forever a living legend, yet because of the movie's unwarranted notoriety he was also forever an outcast in Hollywood. As an aside, William Randolph Hearst III, the old man's grandson, said in 1985 that he had always enjoyed "Citizen Kane," and that Welles was invited to visit the Hearst Castle, San Simeon, anytime he pleased "on my tab." I suppose time heals all wounds. In the case of "Citizen Kane," time has also helped improve upon a good thing. 10/10
Video:
Warners' newly restored print is excellent. Indeed, it may even be better than the film stock I saw so long ago, although here memory does not serve me well. There's a not a blemish to be found in this fresh, 1.33:1 ratio transfer, which retains most of the 1.37:1 image. What's more important, the black-and-white contrasts are startlingly vivid, Toland's photography keeping both background and foreground in crystal-clear focus, with moiré effects minor and generally unnoticeable. For all I know, the film probably never looked this good when audiences originally saw it in motion-picture theaters.
Audio:
The audio, rendered via Dolby Digital monaural and apparently having undergone some noise reduction, sounds almost as clean and clear as the picture is sharp, with little discernible background hiss. The vocals are slightly pinched, and the overall volume level is a tad lower than we find in most movies today, but even cranked up the sound is quite good.
Extras:
The film is accompanied by two audio commentaries. The first is by film director and Welles biographer Peter Bogdanovich, who has spoken lovingly before on the subject of his hero and sometime mentor. The second commentary is by film critic Roger Ebert, who spares us no apologies in his unabashed affection for the movie. Both men supply knowledgeable insights, behind-the-scenes anecdotes, and revealing observations on the filmmaking process. There's quite a difference between listening to an actor talking about an insignificant film and a pair of experts providing important information about one of the world's greatest films. Bogdanovich, for example, tells us that Welles told him that many of the camera angles he and Toland worked out, so discussed and admired today as symbolic and meaningful, were produced simply because they looked good to Welles. OK, so maybe the guy was just lucky; in any event, everything worked. It's hard to make a choice between the two commentaries. I'd suggest if you have the time, listen to both of them. I found myself flipping back and forth; when one fellow would pause for a moment, I'd click over to the other. That way I got to hear essentially what both men said about the same scenes. Anyway, in addition to the commentaries, there's a 1941 movie première newsreel, a gallery of storyboards, rare photos, alternate ad campaigns, studio correspondence, call sheets, and other memorabilia; thirty-one scene selections; and a theatrical trailer. English is the only spoken language available, but WB provide English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles.
Parting Thoughts:
Warner Bros. cannot be brought up on false charges: The three movies in this "Essential Classics: Dramas" set are as close to "essential classics" as one can get. They have endured the test of time and fully proved their worth.
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