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 Spencer Tracy returns from the bathroom to find tough guy Lee Marvin waiting in his hotel room in "Bad Day at Black Rock," the 1955 MGM suspense classic that Joanne thinks is one of the worst movies she's ever seen. Hey, everybody's entitled to an opinion, right? Even if Tracy was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance, nominations also went to director John Sturges and screenwriter Millard Kaufman and the film wound up on most 10 Best Lists that year. |
What if you don't like your
beau's favorite movie?
By JOANNE ENGELHARDT
of TheColumnists.com
After nearly 35
years, the last episode of “At the Movies” (originally
called “Sneak Previews” and then “Siskel and Ebert
and the Movies”) aired in mid-August. Its longevity--despite
numerous hosting replacements and a gargantuan change in the
way moviegoers see films--is really quite remarkable.
When I first saw one of those Gene Siskel/Roger Ebert shows,
I thought I had mistakenly run across a grudge match between
two angry (sometimes arrogant) white men.
They talked over each other….they taunted each other….why,
sometimes they just weren’t very civil to each other. That
bothered me for awhile, but eventually I came to accept their
raucous banter because they had so many thought-provoking things
to say about the movies they were reviewing.
Over the years I watched the show on an occasional basis, usually
when I was in the kitchen working on Sunday dinner (it came on
just before “60 Minutes”). I didn’t actually GO
to the movies very often, but I sure enjoyed learning more about
them and finding out which ones were considered best bets.
After Gene Siskel’s untimely death in 1999, Roger Ebert
continued the show with a series of guest critics, and he eventually
named Richard Roeper as his new permanent co-host. I liked Roeper
because he was younger, good-looking and brought a more ‘average
Joe’ mentality to the program. That’s the way I see
myself: Movie-wise I’m just an average Jo-anne.
In 2002, Roger Ebert was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, underwent
radiation treatments, yet continued on the program as much as
he was able. That worked for awhile, but sometime in 2006 he
gave up the program entirely due to his difficulty speaking.
Roeper was now the senior reviewer and he went through a slew
of guest critics until he, too, left the show in 2008.
Things didn’t go well for the next set of reviewers (Ben
Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz), whose short tenure ended due to low
ratings. The final critical duo was A.O. Scott, film critic of
The New York Times, and Michael Phillips, who had the
same job at the Chicago Tribune. These two were thoughtful,
mostly considerate of each other--and not nearly lively enough
for today’s television viewers.
There’s now an interesting new twist to all the drama surrounding
the demise of “At the Movies.” Just after the program
was cancelled, none other than Roger Ebert announced he wants
to produce a new movie review program called, naturally, “Roger
Ebert presents At the Movies.” Will it happen? Who knows!
I experienced my own version of a Siskel-Ebert knock-down, drag-out
“disagreement” recently when my guy Bill told me he
had recorded one of his favorite old-time movies. (By my unofficial
count he has about 500 “favorite” old-time movies).
A week or so later we sat down together to watch “Bad Day
at Black Rock," a John Sturges-directed film released in
1955 starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin, Dean Jagger
and a slew of other talented Hollywood actors. If you’ve
seen the film, it’s likely you already have formed an opinion
about it; if you haven’t seen it, here’s my personal
(some might say prejudiced) one-sentence recap:
A one-armed stranger gets off the train in a teeny-weeny town
that collectively has been harboring a terrible secret which
they don’t want known, so they’ll stop at nothing--not
even murder--to keep it that way.
When the film ended, my guy said, “What did you think?"
Now, if I had actually THOUGHT before I spoke, I suppose I wouldn’t
have said, “It was one of the worst movies I’ve ever
seen.”
That was followed by complete silence. I went downstairs and
decided to read the newspaper for awhile. When my stunned cohabitant
came downstairs he said to me rather icily, “That movie
is considered by many people to be a classic. How could you think
it was awful?”
Naturally I took the bait and told him why the film left me utterly
devoid of any emotion other than wondering why I wasted 90 minutes
of my time watching it. I’m not sure I ever saw Bill so
upset with me. It was nominated for several Academy Awards, he
declared, assuming that would change my mind (it didn’t).
So he tried, “It was one of JFK’s favorite movies.”
I still wasn’t moved.
Finally he resorted to all-out war: “Anyone who doesn’t
appreciate this film noir classic is a…is a…is an idiot!”
That did it. I manned the torpedoes and did a thorough search
of the film both on the Internet Movie Data Base ( www.imdb.com)
as well as in one of Bill’s own books, “The Greatest
Movies Ever Made.”
Admittedly there are a number of film critics who think “Black
Rock” is a riveting suspense thriller that pits pure good
against relentless evil. The film book calls it a ‘sleeper.’
(I know this isn’t what was meant but since I fell asleep
watching it, I’d call it a sleeper, too.)
But for every positive review, I found there were a number of
others who, like me, found this classic to be wanting. One wrote,
“As craft goes, this is an excellent movie. Great acting,
characters, direction, cinematography, etc. But the story SUCKED!
What's the point in making a movie if the story is so awful?
A waste of talent. Like making a recording with the Beatles,
Rolling Stones, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Elvis Presley, and
Frank Sinatra, but they’re singing the song 'Pants on the
Ground'.”
My point in disclosing all this? Just that, like Siskel, Ebert,
Roeper and so many others who review movies in print or on the
air, a film critique is, by, nature, a very personal opinion.
Bill hated “The Hangover,” while I thought it
was funny in a gross-out sort of way. Neither one of us found
“Dinner for Schmucks” nearly as hilarious as
the reviews we read would have us believe.
So my feeling is: “You say tomAtoes; I say toMAtoes.”
But, hey! Let’s not call the whole thing off!
©2010 by Joanne Engelhardt. The Joanne caricature is ©2010 by Jim Hummel. The photo is courtesy of MGM, Turner Entertainment and WB Home Video. This column first posted Sept. 6, 2010.
TO ACCESS JOANNE ENGELHARDT'S ARCHIVE OF COLUMNS ON THIS SITE, CLICK HERE: ENGELHARDT ARCHIVE
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