Foster on Film

With his no-nonsense, man’s man persona and natural style, Spencer Tracy was successful in both dramas and comedies. Although he was an alcoholic, he was known for his professionalism. It was with that understanding of addiction that he helped a broken Montgomery Clift give his great performance in Judgment at Nuremberg.

Tracy often worked with director Stanley Kramer, mostly on the powerful, political/ethical films that Kramer was known for. He frequently co-stared with Katherine Hepburn (their semi-secret affair lasted nearly thirty years), making nine films together.

Before mentioning the good, I’d feel lax if I didn’t give a dishonorable mention to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), where his poor performance matched the films confused sexuality and drab dialog.

An Honorable mention goes to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1963), which is more important than good, and to It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), which is fun if not terribly good, and to Boys Town (1938), which works for a family film provided you have a couple kids under ten watching.

Now the eight best:

8 – Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) — A wartime propaganda film that is both exciting and supposedly accurate, at least militarily.

7 – Pat and Mike (1952) — The second Hepburn/Tracy film, it tries to wave a feminist flag, but in 2017, it feels like it does the opposite. Still, it has some funny moments. [Also on the Katherine Hepburn list]

6 – Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) — A strange noir/western hybrid set in 1945. It’s tense, showing the worst of humanity—including a nod at racism—in a nowhere town of miserable people. It’s a little too nihilistic to be fun, but it’s interesting.

5 – Adam’s Rib (1949) — Another Hepburn/Tracy film, this one setting them as competing lawyers. The best bits come from a young Judy Holliday as the defendant who shoots her unfaithful husband. [Also on the Katherine Hepburn list]

4 – Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) — The first of two Stanley Kramer films on this list (of four if you count the Honorable mentions). This one deals with a trial of Nazi war criminals and has lost none of its relevancy.

3 – Desk Set (1957) — A romantic comedy with middle-aged characters for a change. It’s Hepburn and Tracy again. This time she’s a genius and he’s an eccentric tech guru. It’s a Christmas movie and delightful. [Also on the Katherine Hepburn list]

2 – Libeled Lady (1936) — A four-way romantic comedy with Tracy, Jean Harlow, William Powell, and Myrna Loy. Powell is hired by Tracy to stop Loy from suing a newspaper for libel, any way he can. [Also on both the William Powell list and the Myrna Loy list]

1 – Inherit the Wind (1960) – The second Stanley Kramer film on this list. A fictitious take on the Monkey Trial, with amazing work by Tracy and Fredric Marsh in the greatest court battle ever on screen.

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Edward G. Robinson was one of the kings of early gangster cinema (along with Jimmy Cagney, George Raft, and their second banana, Humphrey Bogart).Things changed in a decade, with old-style crime movies fading, replaced by war movies and Film Noir, and elevating Bogart over the other three. But most of Robinson’s best films came after his biggest fame. His gangster roles quickly became clichés and many of his early performances barely varied from the impersonator’s over-the-top imitations. By the end of the ’30s Robinson was using his persona in comedies or to give a meta meaning to his parts, and that worked. Of his top 8 films, only 1 is a straight ’30s gangster film.

I expect big fans of Robinson (and I wonder how many of those are reading this) will be displeased with my top 8 as it doesn’t include either of the Fritz Lang Noirs, The Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street. Both have great casts, good dialog, interesting characters, meaningful themes, and generally good plots. But both are unsatisfying due to poor (and in the case of the first, horrible) endings. The production code-sanctified ending for Scarlet Street saps the strength from the film. And the ending for The Woman in the Window… It takes effort to so efficiently destroy a film in only a few minutes.

An honorable mention for his cameo in Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)—good enough to make the list, but I require more than a few seconds of screen time.

8 – The Sea Wolf (1941) – As 8th favorite I’d go with Brother Orchid, but The Sea Wolf is a more weighty film, that takes Jack London’s philosophical work and uses it as metaphor for the fascism taking over Europe.

7 – Little Caesar (1931) – A good film, but it is so over the top, so over-acted, that it is impossible for me to take seriously. Still, it is a must-see as one of THE gangster movies of the 1930s.

6 – The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) – Robinson stars with Bogart with a script by John Huston in a light comedy that has Robinson playing a scientist who wants to study crime, so becomes a crime lord.

5 – Larceny, Inc. (1942) – The second crime comedy on this list, but this one is less crime, more comedy. Robinson and his gang take over a luggage store in order to tunnel into the bank next door and turn out way more successful than planned at selling luggage.

4 – Key Largo (1948) – A movie given extra power from its casting. Robinson plays a washed up gangster, trying to return. Bogart is a man broken by life and Lauren Bacall is the young, clever beauty who could give him a reason to live. It’s incredibly meta. The best performance goes to Claire Tevor as the aging, alcoholic moll. [Also on the Humphrey Bogart List]

3 – The Ten Commandments (1956) – It is all loud and colorful, and for that you need actors who are louder and more colorful than life. Robinson fits that. He’s 5th or 6th banana in a cast of loud, colorful stars and it’s all good. Sometimes you want subtlety. Sometimes you don’t. This is bluster as art. [Also on both the Vincent Price List and the Charlton Heston list]

2 – Double Indemnity (1944) – A masterpiece. One of the top Film Noirs and a strangely comedic bit of pure cynicism. Fred MacMurry and Barbara Stanwyck are the stars, but Robinson is superb as the closest thing the world of Double Indemnity has to a good man. (Full review) [Also on the Barbara Stanwyck list]

1 – Soylent Green (1973) – A film where the ending has eclipsed the fame of the movie in general, and that’s sad as there’s so much good in Soylent Green. The relationship between Charlton Heston’s Thorn and Robinson’s Sol is the heart of the film, and gives us both actors’ finest performances. This is one of the great science fiction films that doesn’t get the credit it deserves. [Also on the Charlton Heston list]

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The second of the Big Three horror icons (Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr.), Boris Karloff found stardom with Frankenstein after struggling in silent films. He was grateful for his success and never minded being typecast, and typecast he was. If he wasn’t a monster, a monstrous servant, or a crazed killer, he was a mad doctor. His résumé includes dozens of roles that had “Dr” as part of the name.

As he has so many films that are worth seeing, but not absolutely essential, I have a greater number of honorable mentions than usual. One goes to the enjoyable The Raven (1963), and another to the incredible set design for The Black Cat (1934), and yet another to The Ghoul (1933), the first British horror film; it’s a solid old dark house film and Karloff is excellent. Also an honorable mention to Scarface (1932), which is an important film, but flawed—and Karloff is poor in it. And one more for The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), which has multiple problems, but Karloff and Myrna Loy are amazing, and if “best” meant “favorite,” it would be on the list below. And a final mention for Five Star Final (1931), a look at the evils of yellow journalism starring Edward G. Robinson. Karloff plays a drunken and particularly sleazy agent of the paper who dresses as a priest to get information, which makes him not only the best supporting actor for that year (from #2 below), but also the second best.

A list of Karloff’s best performances would include his marvelous narration for How the Grinch Stole Christmas, a film which would take third on the list below, but I’m keeping it off the list for entirely arbitrary reasons. Karloff’s best list is solid all the way through, but it is top heavy.

His top films, starting at #8:

8 – Isle of the Dead (1945) – One of three collaborations with Val Lewton. A complicated character piece with a simple plot: a plague sweeping an island.

7 – The Old Dark House (1932) – A quirky film—part horror, part comedy, but not a horror comedy, directed by James Whale. A group of odd characters are stranded in a mysterious house. (My review)

6 – The Mummy (1932) – A retread of Dracula—a bit slow, but Karloff is wonderful as his second great monster. The first few minutes make it all worthwhile. (My review)

5 – Tower of London (1931) – A horror-tinged version of the story of Richard III. Karloff plays Mord,the executioner, who is Richard’s right hand man. and is essentially Richard’s darker aspect taken human form. It is another fantastic performance by Karloff, as well as star Basil Rathbone and a young Vincent Price. (My Review) [Also on the Vincent Price List]

4 – The Body Snatcher (1945) – There are more Victorian body snatcher movies than there were Victorian body snatchers, and this is the best. Karloff rules the film, with Bela Lugosi in a lesser part as a servant. [Also on the Bela Lugosi List]

3 – Son of Frankenstein (1939) – A surprisingly good third entry in the franchise. It is seeped in German expressionism. Karloff gets a reduced role; Basil Rathbone is the lead, but Lugosi steals the film as Ygor. (My review) [Also on the Bela Lugosi List]

2 – Frankenstein (1931) – Does Frankenstein need an explanation? (My Review)

1 – Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – Arguably the greatest horror film of all time, and the greatest sequel of all time. It is (without argument) Karloff’s best performance. (My review)

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When I was a child in the ‘60s, Stanwyck was known primarily as a television Western star. But time is not kind to TV shows in general and particularly not to Westerns, so that work is fading from cultural memory, which is for the best in this case as she should be remembered first as a film actress.

Stanwyck rarely played the damsel or proper doting wife. Her roles were of tough women, often from harsh backgrounds, making their own way. They could be heroes, but were often morally complex, and she had her share of steely villains.

An honorable mention goes to Meet John Doe (1941). It is certainly the best of Frank Capra’s social/political morality trilogy (the others being Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) and Stanwyck is excellent in it, but like its two cousins, it is too preachy and far too saccharine.

My top 8 films of Barbara Stanwyck:

#8 – The Mad Miss Manton (1938) — The first of her three films with Henry Fonda and one of two on this list, it puts Stanwyck in one of her rare silver spoon roles. She’s a rich young woman who comes upon a murder and no one believes her. She’s stared in moves that took this same premise seriously years later.

#7 – Baby Face (1933) — I’m not sure this movie would be as much fun if made now as it is the taboo nature of it that’s such a riot. The story is of a woman, sold as a prostitute by her father since she was 14, sleeping her way to the top. It was way ahead of its time on racial and gender issues. It loses a bit from a tacked on ending—and I’m only talking about the pre-release version. This is one of the films that got the production code going and the theatrical version is a mess, with most of the sex gone and changes to the philosophy. Luckily, the pre-release version is available now.

#6 – Ball of Fire (1941) — A screwball comedy normally in the shadow of her more famous one (coming further up the list), this one stars Cary Cooper as a hopelessly naïve professor researching slang and Stanwyck as a showgirl in need of a place to hide.

#5 – Remember the Night (1940) — A romance, and perhaps even a weepie, with some comic touches, filmed like a Noir, and set at Christmas, this is an unusual film. Stanwyck is a shoplifter and Fred MacMurray is the prosecutor who takes her home for the holiday.

#4 – The Lady Eve (1941) — Her best known comedy, Stanwyck is a conwoman and Henry Fonda is her hopelessly naïve target.

#3 – The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) — A Film Noir with a good dose of the gothic, it has Stanwyck at her most steely. If you are looking for the worst in humanity, here’s the place to look. It was Kirk Douglas’s first role and he’s as good as she is, and she’s fantastic. (Full Review)

#2 – Christmas in Connecticut (1945) — A delight in every way (and as far from the two films surrounding it on this list as you can get), this film has been an Xmas tradition for me for fifty years. Romantic, funny and joyful.

#1 – Double Indemnity (1944) — The quintessential Film Noir. In a meaningless world, two jaded people, one a sleazy insurance salesman (Fred MacMurray), the other a sociopathic trophy wife, decide to commit murder. It’s brilliant. (Full Review) [Also on the Edward G. Robinson list]

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I’ve written before that Humphrey Bogart is the greatest film star of all time. That makes Cary Grant the second greatest. This ultimate romantic leading-man doesn’t have the insane number of masterpieces under his belt that Bogart does, but he has multiple. And as far as generally good films go, he’s got more than Bogart, and probably more than any leading-actor. Grant being in a film is a good indicator that it will be enjoyable. Yes, there were a few true duds, but for every Night and Day, there were a few like My Favorite Wife, The Awful Truth, Gunga Din, and I Was a Male War Bride that you should watch. It would be easy to fill in a much longer list of “must see” Grant films, but the challenge is to choose only eight, so I’ve stuck to that for him.

Honorable mentions go to films that would make it on other actors’ lists (and did, with several of these already on best lists I made for other actors), but can’t fit on Grant’s because he has so many good films: Bringing Up Baby (1938) [on the Katherine Hepburn list], The Bishop’s Wife (1947), The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), and Topper (1937).

8 – Charade (1963) – Audrey Hepburn is the window of a murdered man mixed up in a very Hitchockian mystery. There’s plenty of romance, humor, thievery, and killing. Grant may be a crook, may be a murderer, or may be a hero. [Also on the Audrey Hepburn list and the Walter Matthau list]

7 – To Catch a Thief (1955) – This is a light Hitchcock thriller and perfect as part of a double feature with Charade. Grant is an ex-jewel thief who needs to clear his name. Grace Kelly is the daughter of a woman with a lot of jewels.

6 – Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) – Another great one for Halloween. Grant plays a theater critic who discovers that his family is filled with psychopaths. The play is wonderful and this is an excellent rendition.

5 – Holiday (1938) – Often overlooked, this Grant & Katherine Hepburn romantic comedy has always been a favorite of mine. Grant plays a vunderkin whose set to marry the good sister of a high society family, but he wants more than money which doesn’t go over well with the family, except for black sheep Hepburn. This is where you go if you want depth and philosophy with your comedy. [Also on the Katherine Hepburn list]

4 – His Girl Friday (1940) – Who’d have thought gender-swapping one of the leads in a dramady newspaper play would produce this brilliant work. It has all the meaning and fun of the original, and extra layers of romance and feminism. It is extremely fast paced and very funny.

3 – North by Northwest (1959) – Grant in one of the greatest action thrillers, and the second of three Hitchcock films on this list. I suspect anyone reading this already knows this film. If not, go see it now.

2 – Notorious (1946) – A darker Grant and a darker thriller, once again directed by Hitchcock. It’s spies and cruelty and self-loathing and love and it is remarkably moving. Co-stars Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains.

1 – The Philadelphia Story (1940) – Just as it topped Katherine Hepburn’s list, so it tops this one. This is the essential romcom, and was the perfect vehicle for its three leads, Grant, Katherine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart. None of them ever had a role that more completely played to their strengths. This is as witty as film gets. [Also on the Katherine Hepburn list and the James Stewart list]

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An elfin beauty that arose at the close of the golden age of Hollywood, Hepburn had aspects of both royalty and innocence. Her fame came from romantic comedies, where those qualities, and her nearly supernatural charisma could shine. Those attributes were muted in dramas, which made it harder for her to rise over the material, and much of her dramatic material left much to be desired: A Nun’s Story is poorly written and A Children’s Hour misses the point of the play. Then there is the romantic drama Green Mansions, which I do recommend as a film to watch while muttering “What the Hell.” (Really, it’s nuts.)

I have two honorable mentions, The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and Laughter in Paradise (1951). both of which would have made the list but her parts are so brief in both. The Lavender Hill Mob is one of the great British comedies and is an absolutely must see film. And I’ll add a semi-honorable mention for Wait Until Dark, a very ’70s house invasion thriller which left me cold but has a following among those who was like their horror depressing and non-supernatural.

Now for the best:

8 – My Fair Lady (1964) – Hepburn is lovely. Rex Harrison is fun. And the music is wonderful. It suffers from dubbing (there’s no question that Marni Nixon is a better singer, but dubbing sapped the emotion from the numbers) and the same flaw as the Broadway musical–the tacked on and in every way wrong “happy ending” that differed from the original play.

7 – Love in the Afternoon (1957) – A bit silly, but it’s directed by Billy Wilder so it’s worth a look. It’s thought of as his homage to Ernst Lubitsch (like much of Lubitsch’s work, it’s light and fluffy, set in France, involves adultery, and includes Maurice Chevalier; it also stars Gary Cooper who was the lead in one of Lubitsch’s best, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife, which Wilder wrote). Hepburn is lovely and the story is fun, but it is weakened by the questionable casting of Chevalier (he’s an acquired taste) and the terrible casting of Cooper; he was not too old, as some say, but rather unable to pull off the entrancing playboy role. Cary Grant, who was about the same age and turned down the part, could have managed it easily.

6 – Charade (1963) – Hepburn as a window of a murdered man mixed up in a very Hitchockian mystery. There’s plenty of romance, humor, thievery, and killing. Co-stars Cary Grant,  and James Coburn. [Also on the Walter Matthau list]

5 – Roman Holiday (1953) – Probably my most controversial placement as many people would place it higher, but while I like the film, and absolutely love her breakout performance, it is a bit too sedate. Still, a very good film.

4 – How to Steal a Million (1966) – Hepburn must enlist burglar Peter O’Toole to steal a statue she owns to keep her forger father from being revealed, except O’Toole isn’t actually a crook. The dialog is sparkling and O’Toole has nearly enough charisma to keep up with Hepburn.

3 – Robin and Marian (1976) – This brilliant, tragic, and sometimes funny film tells the end of the Robin Hood legend. It is about loss and mortality, and of never being able to live up to legends, and more than anything else, it is about age. Co-stars Sean Connery and Nicol Williamson. (My review)

2 – Sabrina (1954) – Sabrina (Hepburn), the chauffeur’s daughter, has a crush on David (William Holden), the playboy of the house. When time abroad turns her into a suitable target for his shallow affections, older brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) sees trouble and tries to break things up. Hepburn is an obvious choice for a romantic comedy, but Bogart? But it works. [Also on the Humphrey Bogart List] [Also on the Great Directors List for Billy Wilder]

1 – Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) – If it wasn’t going to be Roman Holiday on top, than it had to be this. Hepburn is radiant as a complicated, troubled, lovable party girl who seems to control everyone and everything, while really trying to make herself into something she can bear. The term “bittersweet” has never been more appropriate. If you want to dig into the human soul, and still enjoy the experience, this is the film. It isn’t helped by an obnoxious racist portrayal by Mickey Rooney of the Japanese neighbor. (My Review)