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Book: Pictures At A Revolution, by Mark Harris (2008)

Harris’s book is an essential read for any serious film fan. Which surprises me, because I had doubts about its premise. Subtitled Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, it follows the quintet of titles nominated for Best Picture of 1967, from development to awards glory. As if the Oscars are any indication of quality.

But Harris, an Entertainment Weekly contributor, knows his show biz and merely uses the awards as a framework for a larger story. 1967 was a transformative year in the movie industry. The old guard was still in power, but a new cinematic culture driven by European filmmakers was beginning to take hold. The five movies that ended up in the Oscar derby reflect that tension, and Harris meticulously researches their histories. The nominees are:

Bonnie & Clyde. Easily the contender that has held up the best. My favorite tidbit: 16 year old Texan Patsy McClenny served as Bonnie’s double because Faye Dunaway couldn’t drive a stick. A few years later, Patsy went to Hollywood and became Morgan Fairchild.

Doctor Doolittle. The only one of the five I haven’t seen. A critical and commercial flop, it’s widely seen as having bought its nomination. Harris recounts the campaign in detail.

The Graduate. I saw this week I graduated from college and didn’t get it. Perhaps it captured a moment so perfectly it was lost on those of us who weren’t there. Or maybe it was me. Director Mike Nichols tells a great, sad tale about meeting Ava Gardner – at Ms. Gardner’s insistence – for the role of Mrs. Robinson.

Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. Harris won me over with his treatment of this Stanley Kramer movie. Yes, it was square at the time, a middlebrow take on race relations that stacked the deck completely. But, Harris asks, why shouldn’t films that speak to middlebrow audiences get a little love? Sadly, Kramer felt he was being overshadowed by the young turks. The section in which he embarks on an ill-fated college tour to talk to “the young people” is one of the best in the book.

In the Heat of the Night. Spoiler alert: it takes home the prize. Truman Capote, fuming that the adaptation of his book In Cold Blood wasn’t in the running although many expected it to be, called Heat “a good bad picture.” It’s also the one I’ve seen the most. It was a fairly important movie for me growing up, because it was the first time I became aware that the crime genre could be used to address other issues. I still like it. I plan on watching it again. Harris has me ready to watch them all – except for Doolittle. Nothing’s getting me anywhere near that train wreck.

I can think of five other 1967 movies I would rather see nominated for Best Picture. Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Two by Stanley Donen, the comedy Bedazzled and the romantic drama Two For The Road. And a pair with Lee Marvin, The Dirty Dozen and my personal choice, Point Blank. Your picks?

And now I present, in its entirety, my favorite story from Harris’s book. Mike Nichols is in pre-production on The Graduate.

With nobody yet cast, Nichols returned to Broadway and spent the fall of 1966 at the Shubert Theatre, directing Alan Alda, Barbara Harris, and Larry Blyden in THE APPLE TREE. Nichols brought in Herbert Ross to help stage the numbers and could at least take comfort in the fact that somebody else’s movie was in bigger trouble than his own: After six months, Ross was still working on DOCTOR DOOLITTLE for Arthur Jacobs and was increasingly grim about the ordeal. “He was dividing his time,” says Nichols. “He’d come to New York and he’d work, say, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and half of Monday, and then he’d go back to Los Angeles and the movie. One week he flew off, and we were rehearsing the next day, and suddenly he comes strolling back across the stage. I said, ‘Herbert, what happened?’ And he said, ‘We’re postponed for three days. The giraffe stepped on his cock.’”

G’night, everybody!

Labels: Books, Movies

posted by Vince # 1:31 AM

4 Comments:

At 9:42 AM #

Paul said:

I'd definitely agree with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, though I much prefer Once Upon A Time in the West but that's not at stake here, as well as Point Blank a film that pistol whipped Mel Gibson's remake so bad it needed reconstructive surgery.

Also from that year there's Belle Du Jour and Blow Up. I only recently saw Belle and I was impressed by it even if the whole thing just seems some dirty old man's fantasy. Blow Up I saw a long time ago on BBC 2 and for a while I thought it was one of the coolest, in all sorts of meanings, things that I'd seen.

Which sort of leads on to the one film that I haven't seen from that year and would really like to Le Samouraï. For what ever reason you can't get this on DVD in England but I've heard all sorts of good things about it, particularly how cool Delon's hat is.

At 12:39 AM #

Vince said:

A man of impeccable taste as always, Paul.

Blowup -- which I also think was cool -- was considered a 1966 movie, and received nominations for both direction and screenplay the previous year. According to Harris's book the movie's success baffled Katherine Hepburn. During publicity for Guess Who, she said, "We play tennis with the ball." They were mimes, Kate. Give 'em a break.

I've seen Le Samourai. Delon's hat is truly awesome.

At 11:04 AM #

Ray said:

Definitely Le Samourai and I may have to do what I did with Point Blank and buy it from the US.

And I have a huge old soft spot for Cool Hand Luke, mostly because it's got that Southern sleaze touch that'll carry right through to some of my favourite movies of the seventies.

In The Heat Of The Night - watched that again very recently and I was surprised at how well it held up, especially the performances, which are decidedly "less" than I remembered them, especially Steiger, who I may have mixed up with the fat sheriff from Live And Let Die.

Hey, it happens.

At 11:56 AM #

Vince said:

There's a great line about Steiger in the book from Sidney Lumet, who directed him to an Oscar nod in 1965's The Pawnbroker. He quoted a friend of his on a New York newspaper columnist: "For a nickel, he gives you too much."

Wednesday, March 19, 2008