Turner Classics was playing it and we had to watch it. It really never gets old. And they’ve cleaned up and remastered it for sound and pictures, so it sparkles like the gem it is.
There is a lot of back story to this movie. Debbie Reynolds hasn’t been shy about sharing her story, the dissatisfaction of Kelly at having to work with Reynolds — who had to be taught to dance for her role. By the end of each day of shooting, her feet would be bleeding. Kelly was a perfectionist and a bit of a slave driver. But it’s hard to argue with the result.
Whatever was going on behind the scenes, the result is a masterpiece. Sixty-one years after the original opening, it’s fresh and funny, and the choreography is a wonder and carefully works around Debbie Reynolds more limited dancing skills. If you watch “Good Morning” carefully, notice how often she is posed while Kelly and O’Connor carry the most complex parts.
The plot is a light-hearted look at the movie business during the transition from silent to talking movies.
There had been several versions ofSinging In the Rainbefore, but none of them enjoyed the success of this version. Rightfully so. It’s delightful. After more than 60 years, it still plays beautifully. A pleasure to watch and a family favorite. Many great musicals have been produced since this classic. Many were and are brilliant, but although they may be as good, they are not better. In many way, Singing in the Rain set the bar.
Until they make a new Gene Kelly, they won’t improve on it.
It was greeted with no great enthusiasm when released, yet with each passing year, its popularity grows. That is, perhaps, the true definition of a classic when the years only increase respect for a film. Time has not diminished Singin’ In the Rain.
When Garry and I were growing up in New York, the old Channel 11 (WPIX, I think it was) used to have a show called “Million Dollar Movie.” The theme for the show was “Tara’s Theme” from Gone With the Wind. I had never seen GWTW, so when I saw it for the first time, I said “Hey, that’s the theme for Million Dollar Movie.”
I wasn’t allowed to watch TV on school nights and only for a very limited period of time even on weekends. But, if I was home sick, I got to watch all the television I wanted, and better yet, I got to watch upstairs in my parents bedroom. It was black and white, as were all the televisions then. I don’t know if color TVs had been invented yet, but if they had been, no one I knew had one.
Million Dollar Movie played one movie per week, all day, every day, for however long they were on the air. So if I was home sick — usually for tonsilitis — whatever was playing, I saw it a lot. They also didn’t have a very large repertoire so the odds were pretty good if you got sick twice, you’d see the same movie again for another week.
Thus “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” the great James Cagney docu-musical was engraved in my brain. I believe that during at least three occurrences of my nemesis, those nasty tonsils, I watched it over and over again until I knew every word, every move, every song … with frequent commercial interruptions.
Now of course, we own the DVD and we never tire of watching it. No one danced like Cagney. No one had that kind of energy! Believe it or not, I never saw any other of his movies until I saw “One, Two, Three” in the movies when I was older.
We just watched it again and we watched James Cagney dance down the steps in the White House five times. I’ve included it here so you can watch it as many times as you want. What a great movie it is.
I thought he was a song and dance man and comic actor. I was very surprised to discover he used to play gangsters. Million Dollar Movie didn’t play those films.
Only one questions remains unanswered through all these years. How come they didn’t make it in color? Does anyone have a sensible answer to that?
Everything and everybody changes. Most of my family and friends have changed relatively gradually over the years. Recently a couple of people I’ve known for a long time have changed suddenly and dramatically. Overnight, they became dry and humorless.
It appears they had a humorectomy. While they slept, their sense of humor was removed. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but it’s deeply disturbing. I think it’s possible they have been replaced by pods, like the ”Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
I could not survive if I did not see how ridiculous my life is. If the absurdity of it didn’t make me laugh, I would do nothing buy cry and bewail my state. Laughter heals me. It’s better than sex. Better than yoga, meditation, medication, or street drugs. It’s free, unrestricted by laws, available to anyone who is not yet dead and is acceptable behavior under almost all religious systems.
Many friends are going through rough times. Their problems vary, but the results are the same. Stress, anguish, fear, worry, insomnia. You worry, try to keep it together until you’re ready to explode.
What can you do? If the light at the end of the tunnel is indeed the headlight of an oncoming train, I say: “Buckle up and let your hair blow in the wind. It’s going to be a Hell of a ride.”
Laughing at the craziness, insanity, ludicrousness, the utter absurdity of my life — and the demented world in which I live it — is my first line of defense against despair. Take away laughter, strip away my sense of humor and I’m a goner.
At our wedding — 22 years ago — my cousin and I danced the hora. What makes the dance so memorable – other than discovering that she was in great shape and I wasn’t — was feeling like I was going to spin out of control. That feeling of being grabbed by something stronger than you and being twirled and spun with no ability to control what happens has become an allegory of my life.
I laugh any time I can, at anything that strikes me as even a little bit funny. It helps me remember why I bother to keep living.
My friends make me laugh. I make then laugh. When our lives are in tatters and everything around us is collapsing, we laugh. Then, we take a deep breath, and laugh some more. The more awful the situation, the more dreadful and intractable the problems, the funnier it is. We are not laughing at tragedy … we are laughing at life.
The difference between tragedy and comedy is how you look at it. Laugher is the universal cure for griefs of life.
Having just watched the 1969 version of the film starring John Wayne, I thought it was time to see the remake. I usually avoid remakes of favorite movies, and the original True Gritis a favorite. I have always thought it was the Duke’s best performance, portraying a character full of life and humor.
I made an exception for this particular remake. I figured if anyone could do a credible Rooster Cogburn, Jeff Bridges was the guy to do it. So the day after watching the original, we fired up the Roku, popped over to Netflix and selected True Grit.
It’s partly a question of point-of-view. The book is entirely in the voice of the 14-year-old girl. That sort of tips the feeling of it over a certain way. I think [the book is] much funnier than the movie was so I think, unfortunately, they lost a lot of humor in both the situations and in her voice. It also ends differently than the movie did. You see the main character – the little girl – 25 years later when she’s an adult. Another way in which it’s a little bit different from the movie – and maybe this is just because of the time the movie was made – is that it’s a lot tougher and more violent than the movie reflects. Which is part of what’s interesting about it. (Credit: Wikipedia)
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The remake is not more humorous than the original. It may be more faithful to the book. I will have to take Mr. Coen’s word for it since I haven’t read the book. Faithful or not, the remake is darker and more violent than the 1969 version. It is darker in feeling and visually darker, a movie in which a great deal of the action takes place at night. It is hard on the eyes.
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Television does not render darkness as well as big screens do. But movies these days don’t spend much time in theatres. They have them out on DVD faster than a speeding bullet, often before they’ve finished their first theatrical run. Considering that the majority of a movie’s life will be on DVD, shown at home on smaller screens, directors might take that into consideration and brighten these movies up a bit. I don’t want to put a damper on anyone’s art, but shouldn’t the actual viewing conditions under which most people will see the picture carry some weight? I’m just saying.
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Much of the original movie’s dialogue is identical in the 2010 version. The best and most important scenes in both versions are word for word the same. Between those signature scenes, the dialogue is different. The character of Cogburn is very similar in some way, but very different in others. Wayne’s taciturn old marshal contrasts sharply with Jeff Bridges’ loquacious version whose Rooster Cogburn talks a blue streak.
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Hailee Steinfield’s Mattie Ross is more like her original character than Bridges’ Cogburn is like Wayne’s.
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None of this is real criticism. This is a good movie on its own merits. It stands on its own legs. Obviously the two movies derive from the same source, but despite large amounts of identical dialogue, the two movies feel very different. If you had never seen the original and didn’t compare them, I would simply say the 2010 True Grit is a good western with fine performances.
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But it’s a remake and there’s no avoiding comparisons. It may not be entirely fair, but it’s inevitable. Some of the scenes, when the dialogue is the same in both, are not only played the same way — Bridges even manages to do the “Duke’s walk” — they are shot the same way. Several key scenes are pretty much identical, frame by frame. Then, the movies diverge only to come together again a bit further down the cinematic path. The convergence-divergence pattern can be disconcerting.
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Despite similarities, you’d never mistake this for an old-fashioned western. It’s got a gritty, dark texture typical of modern westerns. Characters are less heroic and more ambivalent. True Grit makes a moderately successful attempt to integrate both old and new, moving back and forth, mixing John Ford with Clint Eastwood. Sometimes it feel a bit disconnected and jumpy, leaping from familiar dialogue common to both movies, to completely different dialogue and mood … with no intervening bridge.
There’s no cheery ending for the new True Grit. It’s not sad, but it’s not happy either.
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If I had to choose, I still prefer the original, but the remake is a good movie. Jeff Bridges is a fine actor. The entire cast is excellent. Perhaps it would be best to take each movie on its own merits.
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I am not likely to watch the 2010 True Grit again. Too grim, even though I enjoyed it. But I will watch the original again. And again.
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How you feel about each movie is obviously subjective. Two good films, genetically related. Take your pick. You won’t go far wrong either way.
Garry Armstrong: The Movie Maven’s Take
Reading Marilyn’s review of the “True Grit” remake, the obvious occurred to me. I am a child of the old school of movies. My heroes and heroines are the stars from the 30′s, 40′s, 50′s and 60′s. My film morality sensibilities have been shaped and nurtured by movies from Hollywood’s “golden era” through the 60′s. Not surprisingly, John Wayne is probably my favorite movie star. “Star” not actor. I thoroughly enjoyed Wayne’s “True Grit”. His “Rooster Cogburn” was a sum of all the heroes Wayne had played for 40 years. Older, fatter and more prone to corn liquor, Rooster’s sense of morality was still pretty simple. There was good and bad and few in-betweens. Wayne nailed all that with a self-deprecating sense of humor. Wayne was Rooster and Rooster was Wayne. The original’s end with Rooster frozen in frame and time as he and his horse leap a fence is “print the legend” stuff. Veteran director Henry Hathaway (“The Sons of Katie Elder”, etc), is in familiar territory and gives the original “Grit” lots of traditional, old school western flavor.
All that said, Jeff Bridges’ Rooster Cogburn in the “True Grit” remake is also memorable and can stand alone. Jeff Bridges as an actor can stand alone. He invests his own irascible charm into “Rooster” while paying homage to the Duke. Matt Damon’s “LaBeouf” is much better and more complex than Glenn Campbell’s Texas Ranger in the original. Josh Brolin gives Tom Chaney much more depth and compassion than acting school guru Jeff Corey gave the original villain. I still prefer Robert Duvall’s “Lucky Ned Pepper” but Barry (“61″) Pepper is also pretty good in the remake.
The remake gives us an extended look at Mattie with an ending closer to the book than the original film. Hailee Steinfeld is her own Mattie — equal to Kim Darby’s offering in the original. So, while I can enjoy the “True Grit” remake, I am still very partial to the Duke’s original film. Arguments?? That’ll be the day!!
Our cable company changed their software. Again. They persist in calling these changes upgrades, but I have trouble figuring out how any of the changes represents an improvement. They don’t make the equipment work better and they certainly don’t make it easier to use. There are some useful features, but they don’t tell you how to use them or even that they are there. You stumble on them by accident then try to dope out how they work. Meanwhile, they hide the functions you previously used. Maybe that’s the idea. Keep us guessing. It certainly maximizes user frustration.
Among the few useful new features, if one uses a DVR, is that you can now adjust the recording of a show so that it starts or ends earlier or later by anywhere from one to I’m-not-sure-how-many-minutes earlier or later. There has been a trend in the past five years for shows to begin and end at odd times, a few minutes before or after the hour. Usually, it’s just one or two minutes, but sometimes, as much as 7 or 8. When you set up recordings using the system’s built-in electronic guide, it always starts recording exactly on the hour and will end on the hour, regardless of the show’s actual running time.
I have no idea why developers can’t set DVRs to automatically track actual start and end times. I’m sure they could if they wanted to, but they don’t. Meanwhile, the peculiar off-hour programming means many recorded shows are clipped at the end by a minute or two. This annoys everyone except producers who apparently don’t record anything … and for all I know, don’t watch anything either. The quality of programming proves beyond question that network executives don’t watch television. But I digress.
So, with shows no longer starting or ending on the hour, despite how they are listed in the “guide,” this feature can be useful. It would have been simple if they had made it so you set start and end time using actual time, like telling it to start recording at 8:01 and end at 9:01. Most of us have a grip on clock time.
Instead, because the designers of software assume we are morons (to be fair, I tend to think most of them are morons, too), this function works by “start earlier or later” or “end early or run over” … which are much more abstract concepts. My husband, who worked in TV for so many decades, has no trouble with clock time, but gets lost in the earlier and over thing. He needs numbers. Me, I just want the programming of the DVR’s internal computer to be smart enough to automatically compensate so I don’t have to do all this diddling and adjusting.
But, cable companies are tyrannical monopolies and one must live with whatever company one has been stuck with. The way you have to set up shows, especially if you are recording a sequence — one right after another — is byzantine to say the least. I doped it out, especially that you have to start from the LAST show in the sequence, then work forward, not because they couldn’t make it easier, but because it’s a cheap-ass piece of crappy equipment and they haven’t bothered.
Garry is the Man with the Remote, so he has been engaged in combat with the DVR for some days now.
Yesterday, he got frustrated enough to just give up. Overwhelmed by the stupid and overly complicated process, he was ready to throw the remote against the wall … a very drastic action for a man who is serious about his viewing. The DVR is the only thing that enables him to find stuff to watch that he doesn’t hate … movies in particular, but also reruns of favorite shows.
But again, I digress.
I wouldn’t let him quit. He thought I was just being mean, but I know the secret truth … the truth they hide from us: if you allow any computer-controlled device to defeat you, the news will pass throughout your little electronically controlled domain … and The Devices will take over. They have a malicious sense of humor and they are planning the overthrow of civilization as we know it … and they are winning, one beep and chirp at a time.
Tittering and chittering in their high-pitched electronic voices, during the darkest hours of the night, our devices and appliances plot and scheme. Today, the DVR. Tomorrow, the world. Your toaster won’t toast, or … horrors! … Mr. Coffee will not brew. Your clock radio fails to alert you to the start of your work day, your email vanishes. The contact list on your cell phone disappears and since no one remembers phone numbers any more and you don’t have a paper address book anymore (paper? address book? what’s that?), you can’t even contact your friends. The server for yourISP marks your messages as SPAM and deletes them.
You are in thrall to microchip technology. The collective mind of the All-Knowing Net is gathering strength even as I write.
Nothing is safe. A few basic things used to be non-computerized but not any more. Even your washing machine, freezer, and automobiles … basics in your world and mine … depend on programming and artificial intelligence algorithms. One day you can open your freezer the entire interior is a block of ice, while in the other compartment, your crispy salad has become rotted vegetation.
If you stay up late, you will hear them. In the dark, they connive, they scheme. Listen as they converse …
It’s not paranoia. I hear them … the little voices … planning our downfall, planning to take over. You can hear them too. Watch for the flashing lights … code …going out into the ether …
Beep. Ding. Chirp.
They wait and when they sense our weakness, they pounce. Can the Zombie Apocalypse be far behind?
I hate to sound like everyone else, but television is boring. Soporific put-me-to-sleep dull. There used to be a few shows each night we followed, but so many have been taken off the air or deteriorated to unwatchability there remain but a few. Every year, we start the fall season hopeful there will be something worth watching. Perhaps a couple of interesting series, maybe a comedy. If we are lucky, the powers-that-be won’t have retired the few shows we watch that have survived several seasons.
Killing Harry’s Law for the sin of appealing to the wrong demographic (namely us) was a blow to the heart. We have since realized that killing that show was part of NBC’smaster plan to destroy the network. They are doing a splendid job. For the first time, NBC has come in fifth in the ratings after Spanish-languageUnivision. I think the only NBC shows we still watch are Leno (which they will probably kill because we enjoy it) and occasionally Law and Order: Special Victim’s Unit which we view erratically. It’s more a desperation move when everything is in reruns. It too is probably a rerun, but we haven’t seen it, so it’s new to us.
It’s not impossible to write new material, but it takes an effort. Originality is nearly extinct. I’m shocked when I don’t know what’s going to happen next or who did what. It’s a rare treat to be surprised by a script.
The other night, Garry commented that whatever it was — a new show and no, I do not remember the name — we’d seen it before. Being as this was a premier, you would think they might consider writing an original script for it. You would be wrong.
“We’ve seen everything before,” I said.
“We’re old,” he said.
“We may be old, but that’s not the problem. New shows are identical to the old shows. I think they ARE the old shows. They reuse scripts, just change a couple of names and places. We need to get our heads right. Stop expecting originality and try to appreciate whether or not they do the same old stuff well.”
“It would save us from disappointment.”
“Yup. We need to align our expectations with reality.”
“Yeah. Lower our entertainment requirements. Uh, how much more can we lower them? They’re pretty much at the bottom already.” And so they are.
There are still a few shows we really enjoy.NCIS, long may it reign, we watch both the new shows and reruns. It’s our entertainment fallback position.
We watch White Collar. It wins a prize for being the only cop show that doesn’t only solve murders. The show deals with crimes in which no one got killed! What creative genius thought of that?
Elementaryhas been pleasantly unpredictable and has, in return, won our loyalty.
Anger Management is actually funny. Laugh-out-loud funny. Wow. A funny comedy! A startling idea I thought the networks had abandoned in favor of reality shows. It has been a long time since a sitcom was anything other than insipid and insulting to what’s left of our so-called intelligence.
Our Friday night fix is Blue Bloods. Tom Selleck alone is worth your time. There are a couple of other shows that occasionally aren’t completely predictable (I can’t think of them off-hand which probably speaks volumes), but for the most part, we know what’s going to happen on any show from the opening scene. The credits are enough to give away the story most of the time. The guest star did it. Why else would he or she be on the show?
It’s not impossible to write original material, but it does require a willingness to make an effort at original thought and a committment from networks to let a show stay on the air long enough to develop an audience. A lot of the shows that have become long-term favorites — like NCIS– took several seasons to find an audience. Had MASHcome on the air today, it wouldn’t have lasted a single season. They’d have pulled it for not being an instant hit.
Of the top 20 shows that are series, not specials, we watch four series regularly: NCIS, Blue Bloods, Elementary and Criminal Minds. We watch Person of Interest most of the time and Vegassometimes. That is six of the top 20. The rest of the “top rated shows” we don’t watch at all. This doesn’t bother the networks because we are not part of the sought-after 18 to 45 demographic. So even when, as happened with Harry’s Law, a show is a hit with our group, it gets taken off the air anyway because we don’t count. If we didn’t watch Leno, I’d have boycotted NBC, but they don’t need our help. They’re self-destructing just fine.
Requiring every show to be a sure thing, to be a hit in fewer than half a dozen shows, kills any hope of creativity. An unwillingness to take chances has so completely taken over the entertainment industry I can only wonder if they will bother to produce new shows a few years from now. They can go to all reruns all the time. It would save a great deal of money and it’s entirely about the bottom line, is it not? Whether or not viewers enjoy shows apparently has little to do with programming.
Not merely are producers boring viewers into a stupor, but networks are making themselves irrelevant. How come any average person can see what’s going on but network executives seem oblivious? It is difficult to fathom.
Ultimately, we will stop trying to make sense of it and seek entertainment elsewhere. We are doing that, for the most part, anyhow. We watch more reruns than new shows. We watch more movies than series. We don’t rely on offerings by any of the networks, though when they give us something to watch, we do give it a whirl. But they aren’t trying to keep our loyalty. They’ve made it clear they don’t care about us, so it’s hard to care about them.
There are many more entertainment choices today than were available even a year or two ago. Even more options will be available soon. If ever an industry seemed hell-bent on suicide, network television is it.
I was feeling a bit forlorn after I completed Mike Carey‘s Felix Castor series until Harry Dresden tapped me on the shoulder and invited me into the world created for him by author Jim Butcher. As I read my way through the entire series, 14 books to date with more on the way, I felt I’d found a perfect combination of gumshoe and wielder of magic. Everything I enjoy most in fantasy is in this series. Harry is a wise-ass, witty guy. And smart, sometimes too smart for his own good.
Grave Peril (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Harry is a powerful wizard. He takes on challenges that should kill him, sometimes almost do and arguably have done so at least once , yet he is ever on guard to protect his city and the whole human world against the forces of darkness. A man with great power, he also packs a gun because magic is great stuff, but sometimes, there’s nothing quite like bullet to get the job done.
He’s witty, funny, sentimental, and foolhardy, prone to give the benefit of a doubt to the wrong people and end up paying heavily for being nice. He’s loyal to a fault and hates following rules. He’ll protect those he loves at the cost of his own life and soul. If your back’s to the wall, Harry’s the guy you want at your side.
Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard. He’s listed in the Yellow Pages. Look him up. He doesn’t do kids’ parties.
For nearly a year, as I read my way through the earlier books in the series, I was entirely engrossed in Harry Dresden’s world. Eventually, much to my chagrin, I realized I’d reached the end of the already-published books. When I finished Ghost Story and Changes, I knew I’d reached the series’ turning point. I moped for a while, but I had to trust the author’s ability to bridge the changes in story and characters with his usual skill. When Cold Days was released, Jim Butcher had indeed moved the series to a new level. Harry was back, better than ever with power to spare. It isn’t the “old Harry.” It’s a wiser, more temperate Harry.
Harry has seen the other side. He no longer acts as if he is invulnerable. He knows he can win the day yet lose his life … and life is more precious to him than before. Holding the title of Winter Knight, Champion of the Winter Fae (Mab’s realm), he has great power for good or evil. He will be a knight like no other before him. Which is good because a war is shaping up. The lines are forming. Harry holds a unique position as the fulcrum of forces in this great battle to destroy or preserve the world as we know it.
To say this is a wonderful series doesn’t quite cover it. There are many series in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Some are so lightweight they float away and you can’t remember anything about them at all. Some are pretty good, others even better. A few are great. This fits nicely into the “great” category.
But why? you ask.
Fantasy series and stories are not known for complex, multi-dimensional characters . Heroic, powerful and brave no doubt, but when you read a lot of books in this genre, you usually know what’s going to happen long before it does. Harry and his crew are unpredictable. They grow, they change, they develop. They form relationships. The mourn their losses, celebrate their victories. They go through hard times and if they survive, are changed. They are magic-wielding wizards or some other magical being, but emotionally they are like people you might know, if you include in your circle people who can cast spells to blow up a city block or reanimate a Tyrannosaurus Rex. None of my friends can do that — as far as I know — but they probably wouldn’t tell me if they could. The world of magic is secretive. Sometimes, if I’m feeling whimsical, I imagine Harry and a few of his pals settling in Uxbridge. Their secrets wouldn’t stay hidden for five minutes.
I read most of the series as audiobooks, but some in print too and a few of them in both formats. I own the last four or five in hard cover because there is something yummy about a fresh, new hardcover. I don’t read the hard covers: I just savor them. I line them up on my shelves in pristine splendor, then I read them on my Kindle. The entire series is available in paperback, if that’s your preference.
Following is the full series to date in order. Although you do not have to read the first few books in order, if you have a choice, it is easier to follow that way. As you progress in the series, you really can’t read the later volumes out-of-order if you want them to make sense. Harry grows and changes a great deal from the first book on. He’s barely a kid when it starts, but he is all grown up by the time he arrives at Cold Days.
Although the series is mostly fun, there is a serious undercurrent. Butcher has put a good deal of thought into the nature of good and evil, the choices we make and price we pay for these choices. Life in the real world is never black and white, nor is it in Harry’s world. It is in the gray areas that Harry operates; rarely are his choices purely good or evil. His life is complicated and the complexities make the stories more interesting. This is one of the very rare series where I don’t always know what’s going to happen before I read it.
Jim Butcher is a fine writer. The stories are witty and charming. It isn’t all darkness and violence. Dialogue is snappy and intelligent. There are no dummies on Harry’s team.
If you are a fan or a writer, the video that follows is a comprehensive interview with Jim Butcher during which he answers many questions about what’s going on in the Dresden universe and what is likely to come in the future. The interview took place shortly the release of Cold Days in November 2012. Unlike other interviews, this one is well recorded and you can hear the questions and Jim’s answers. It runs a bit more than 45 minutes It’s a great interview and well worth your time.
The insights are not only into Harry Dresden‘s world, but into the world of the author. For me, as a writer, I’m always fascinated by how authors do what they do, how they figure out which characters are going to be prominent in this book (or the next). How they inspire themselves to keep producing day after day and in the case of Jim Butcher, producing high quality work fast.
No two authors work the same way. As many authors as I’ve listened to, corresponded with, read about, each is unique. What inspires one would drive another crazy. You’ll learn a lot of interesting stuff in this interview. Jim Butcher is witty and articulate and offers genuine insight into his work.
This interview does not answer the burning question “Are Harry and Molly going to get it on?” Sorry. You’ll have to wait for the answer with the rest of us. However, if you watch the video, you will learn a lot about Harry, how he got to be the way he is, and where he and his friends are going. If you are a writer, the detailed explanations of Jim Butcher’s writing process are priceless.
With a brilliant script by Paddy Chayefsky, it features impeccable direction by Arthur Hill and a radiant Julie Andrews in her first non-musical feature role, among others. James Coburn displays his comedic chops, which are considerable, and James Garner is perfect as the Admiral’s dog robber … a role he also played in The Great Escape, released the previous year (1963). Chayefsky put a strongly anti-war slant on the story and the film includes some of the most memorable monologues I’ve heard in any movie.
I first saw this in the theatre when it was newly released. It was a powerful experience and has stayed with me ever since. It was a premium time for anti-war sentiment both here and abroad and remained so through the early 1970s.
Cast
James Garner as Lt. Cmdr. Charles E. “Charlie” Madison
Julie Andrews was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress.
It is no longer available on DVD, although it is available as a download from Amazon.com. Right before it stopped being available, I made sure to get a copy for us. Many of my favorite movies from the 60s and even through the 1990s are no longer available. I know that downloading and streaming video is all the thing, but I don’t want to be limited to watching movies on my computer nor do I want to be entirely dependent on the whimsical technical capabilities of my cable company. I prefer owning my own media and frankly, I neither like nor trust my cable company. They already have much too much power and charge much more money than they ought.
Garner’s role as Charlie Madison was originally slated for William Holden, with Garner set for the Bus Cummings role played ultimately played by Coburn. Holden dropped out of the project and Garner has always said that this was one of his favorite roles in his long movie career. Coburn has echoed the sentiment. If one wanted to judge a role by the number of brilliant speeches the leads get to make, this has to be the top vehicle for Garner and not so bad for Coburn and Andrews either. Paddy Chayefsky wrote some of the best dialogue ever heard on stage or screen. He was an actor’s gift and well they knew it.
The actors in The Americanization of Emily were aware how important an opportunity the film offered. Great movie roles don’t come along everyday in any actor’s career.
If you get a chance to catch this on cable or anywhere else, watch it if for no better reason than for the wonderful dialogue, the kind of scriptwriting that’s become virtually extinct in Hollywood. For me, the language, the words, will always be the best part of a great film.
As a side note, if you love movies and like to own copies of your favorites, make sure to get DVDs while you can. Many movies are being withdrawn from the market very quickly after release — including new movies — so your window of opportunity is narrow.
With camera in hand, exploring European lands, cultures, food, and drink...mostly with a plan, but sometimes enjoying the adventure of just getting lost.
I was feeling a bit forlorn after I completed 
![Ghost Story: The Dresden Files, Book 13 | [Jim Butcher]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518LPzm7y5L._SL175_.jpg)
To say this is a wonderful series doesn’t quite cover it. There are many series in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Some are so lightweight they float away and you can’t remember anything about them at all. Some are pretty good, others even better. A few are great. This fits nicely into the “great” category.
If you are a fan or a writer, the video that follows is a comprehensive 
