All-Time Greatest Movie Poll and Horror Fest 2022 on Monday Morning Diary (September 19)

 

by Sam Juliano

Over the past two weeks I have been writing new capsule reviews for my Top 100 presentation on FB.  I post several spots a day in the strictly arbitrary order, meaning it depends on what mood I am in to decide which ones I will post for any given day.  Anyone planning to submit a Top 100 (or less than that if you feel 100 is too many) can do so on any post, including this MMD.  I will include some of my short reviews on this very post.

Jim Clark published another terrific review in his ongoing Ingmar Bergman series, this time on his early-career PORT OF CALL.

And the writing, tweaking, proper ordering, additions, subtraction etc., continue for Irish Jesus in Fairview.  My progress this past week slowed up a bit, because of the film project, but I am on target to getting it completed soon.

I spoke this past week online with Jamie Uhler.  He is readying to roll again with the 2022 edition of his annual HORROR FEST.  Stay tuned!

Some FB reviews:

My Top 100 Films of All-Time (Spot #79) Presented in arbitrary order.

The Searchers (John Ford) USA, 1956

Buddy Holly immortalized the most famous line in John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS, in his song, “That’ll Be the Day,” but even if he didn’t, that line is still the most famous in any western film. Speaking of that essentially American genre (yes I have heard of the spaghetti westerns, and several by Sergio Leone are huge faves of mine!) THE SEARCHERS is my all-time favorite, though I also adore RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, HIGH NOON, STAGECOACH, SHANE, MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, JOHNNY GUITAR, HUD, SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, and a host of others, including some genre hybrids. Yes, THE SEARCHERS is also the favorite western by most movie fans, but what am supposed to do? Like it less, because everyone else happens to love it? I love it because of its artistry, gripping story, spectacular color cinematography by Winton S. Hoch that negotiates blue skies and golden sunsets magnificently, one of Max Steiner’s greatest scores in a famously prolific career, a mournful one that features an unforgettable theme, and of course, John Wayne. I do not buy into the positions of some that he is “playing himself.” So what? Whether he is or not is beside the point. To be sure he plays a racist, misogynist bully who one senses is using this mission as an excuse to vent some fury left over from the Civil War defeat he has failed to accept. He also plays one of the great existential screen characters in all of the cinema, and his larger than life portrayal is the greatest of his career. He anchors this brutal, sometimes sadistic film, and in the end is doomed to wander, as is symbolically captured by the darkened doorways. One could muster up sympathy for him seeing his eldest niece, who was raped and killed by the Comanche. There is pent up bitterness and regret in Wayne’s elegiac turn as the iconic Ethan Edwards. Ward Bond is superb as the Capt. Reverend Samuel Clayton, even if Natalie Wood and the sometimes annoying Jeffrey Hunter are just props for Edwards.

THE SEARCHERS is one of the greatest of American films, and (again) if I ranked this presentation, this would be holding an extremely high position. For me it is the western of westerns. Now, as I continue to tweak my list daily, I need to determine what other westerns will make this Top 100, if any.

NOTE: This is the second John Ford film to make this Top 100. Previously, HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY made it. There will be one more Ford to come, meaning 3 of his films will be included.

My Top 100 Films of All-Time (Spot #65) Presented in arbitrary order.

All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone) USA, 1930

My favorite war film of all-time (though, for me, both LA GRANDE ILLUSION and PATHS OF GLORY are just about as great) is, like the two films I mentioned as being in its hallowed league, an anti-war film. My preference is certainly not unique, as the vast majority of cinephiles and casual movie fans have expressed the same feelings. Some might also assert that ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is the first true masterpiece of the talking cinema, and I am totally with those observers. But even more here. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is also one of the greatest Oscar winners for Best Picture in the history of AMPAS. Rather than listing a bunch of other war-themed films that I consider masterful from the earlier decades when THE BIG PARADE was a silent masterwork, and the later years when APOCALYPSE NOW, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, PLATOON and THE THIN RED LINE made their marks, I’d just like to focus here on this classic work, that nine decades later continues to showcase the horror of war’s causalities, and for this WW1 picture, the sitting duck brutality of trench warfare. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is as intimate as it is epic, and its initial flag-waving euphoria is replaced by rightful disillusionment and cynicism. It is probably the ONLY American film to painfully document the futility of war, and as a faithful rendering of the great Erich Maria Remarque novel it was based on, it is a an exceedingly successful example of book-to-film adaptation.

A group of German soldiers, goaded on by their wildly patriotic schoolmaster, head off from their small German town to fight for their country. Inevitably, their numbers dwindle and their initial bravado is replaced by extreme depression and the realization that war is a no-win proposition for all participants. For me the most emotionally overwhelming scene in war film cinema is the one where the film’s main character, Paul Baumer (played poignantly by Lew Ayres) is forced to kill a French soldier in a trench. After dispatching him, Baumer exclaims in an utterly wrenching monologue that will move you to the core of your being “I didn’t want to kill you. You are just a man like me and I killed you. Oh God, why did they do this to us? We only wanted to live, you and I.” Baumer then cries, “Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.” It is a bearing of the soul rarely rendered with such guilt-ridden urgency in the cinema from any country, and later when the rascally war-seasoned Katczinsky dies on Baumer’s shoulders, and then when Baumer reaches for a fatal butterfly, the horror of the theme comes full circle. There can be no escape, no chance at redemption, no release from the war’s license to kill.

This shattering masterpiece is a definite TOP 10 of All-Time for me, but for the purposes of this presentation, it is tied with the other 99 films I am showcasing. Ayres and Lewis Wolheim (as the aforementioned Katczinsky) are superlative, and the photography, special effects, and art direction are beyond miraculous. They have not been matched to this present day, especially for the staccato gunfire which projects a finality as lives are erased indiscriminately, much as war promises. Beyond all the superlatives I have included, I’d add that the film challenges for greatest American film of the 1930’s with a few others I have already presented. The film is also the absolute masterpiece of Milestone, who also directed some other fine films.

NOTE: The re-make has me simultaneously excited and apprehensive. Either way, I am more than certain it will not threaten this defining 1930 masterpiece in any sense.