My Top Ten Part II

Chinatown-1974-Director: Roman Polanski

I first saw it at the old Granada theater in Santa Barbara in 1975, a full year after it opened - it was on the second half of a double bill with a now forgotten private-eye flick called Peeper with Micheal Caine and Natalie Wood. Well, Chinatown really twisted my head around. I didn't know film noir from any other type of film - all I knew was: It was a mystery, private eye Bogart-Maltese Falcon type of thing. Boy was I wrong. As good as Maltese Falcon is, this movie leaves it in the dust. The plot twists, the dialogue, the characters, the deception and darkness that permeated this film is astounding. It may be my favorite movie of all-time. It was also the first movie I ever bought when I owned my first VCR - waaaaaay back in 1979.

Jack Nicholson has never been better, and that's saying something when one looks at his filmography. The man is in every scene and we see - no, experience - the film through his eyes. We don't know anymore about the mystery of Chinatown than he does. Faye Dunaway, all tics and twitches, is marvelous, if not quite the perfect femme fatale. John Huston is the embodiment of evil, with that voice that drips honey crossed with smoke. Many great scenes from the "nosy fellow kitty cat," scene to "my sister, my daughter," to "forget it Jake, it's Chinatown," the film is absolutely essential viewing for anyone, whether they are a film maniac like me, or a casual viewer like most. And just one spoiler here about the end: Screenwriter Robert Towne didn't want Dunaway's character to die at the end. But Polanski, who knows a thing or two about the human [or inhuman] condition insisted that she must die. That ending fits perfectly in the universe of noir. Noir is French for black, and that means no happy endings, not even a hint of one. This is the one thing that separates it from another worthy noir, the much later L.A Confidential, which opted for a somewhat uplifting finish, the only thing that mars (though doesn't ruin) that 1997 film.

Chinatown is a metaphor for the mysteries of life,when we try to do everything in our power to right the wrongs, only to see evil triumph in the end. Chinatown is the dark soul of film noir.

A Hard Day's Night-1964- Director: Richard Lester

Well, what can I say? The Beatles right? This movie set the personas which to this day somewhat cling to them. John the witty smart-ass, Paul the cute one, George somewhat serious and caustic, and Ringo loveable and vulnerable. As Andrew Sarris said, this is the Citizen Kane of Rock N Roll movies. With great songs, style, sass, and youthful enery to burn, this film showed the world that the Fab Four could do more than shake their heads and sing yeah-yeah-yeah. Some critics compared them to the Marx Bros [why? Because there were four of them?]. The Can't Buy Me Love sequence is like something out of a silent film comedy, or a kind of new wave Busby Berkeley dance spectacular.

I think I first saw it at a drive-in in Santa Paula with my sister and parents. My dad and sister being big Beatles fans certainly influenced my liking them. Which one did I like the best [we all had our faves]? To my young mind, I liked John best at the time. He was the funniest one and a young boy is always drawn to humor. As time has gone by I can certainly appreciate them all as individuals, something that wasn't so easy in the early days of 1964-65. I always thought it would be so cool to be a Beatle. No one was more hip, no one more talented than these four Liverpool lads who made England and the world swing like it never did before. And to have all those girls screaming for you! What boy doesn't have fantasies of girls going bonkers over you? They screamed and twisted and shouted like never before and I dare say since. If I ever need to cheer up this movie does it. Every time. A raucous, wonderful, nostalgia-filled time capsule.

It's A Wonderful Life- 1946 - Director: Frank Capra

An accidental discovery. One evening on New Year's Eve in 1976 about eleven at night I was looking for something to watch on tv. In those days the channels ran from 2 to 13 with channel 8 the Spanish station with bullfights and channel 10 the PBS station that this 17 year old boy never cared much about. But on this night, alone at home, I found Jimmy Stewart serenading Donna Reed and wondered what land I had stumbled into. So I watched and watched. I didn't know what this movie was. It wasn't the Christmas tradition it has become. It's A Wonderful Life was a somewhat lost, neglected film at the time. A public domain orphan that no one wanted. But I wanted it.

I loved this movie the first time I wandered into it way back in 1976 [or was it 1975?]. This movie is mania - with all the highs, lows, optimism and suicide that real life can sometimes bring. I related to Stewart's character George Bailey like I have all the male leads in this top ten. But somehow George Bailey cut deeper for me. Somehow I knew I would never get to do what I really wanted to do with my life. How did George know? More to the point how did Frank Capra know? How could a movie made in 1946 reflect a life I had not even lived yet?

I know this may sound silly or mad even. But my life and George Bailey's is somewhat inner-connected. You see, George Bailey is a dreamer. He wants to leave the small town and see the big city and live the big adventures he has read about. He wants to have affairs with beautiful, dangerous women and help build big cities and see the world. And he never does. He falls in love. He takes over the family business. He raises a family. And all the time the bitterness of not living his dream eats at him. He is responsible when he would rather be devil may care. He helps people, but feels he has failed in life. Then with money missing that should have been deposited by his uncle, he takes responsibility again. On the brink of bankruptcy he goes home and takes it out on the people he most loves. His family. Leaving home, fearing he has lost them, he contemplates ending it all. Suicide.

Of course he doesn't succeed; this being a movie, he is saved by his "Guardian Angel," Clarence, who shows him what his life would be like if he had never been born. Pretty heavy stuff.

It still resonates with me to this day. I have lost a business. I have had to declare bankruptcy. I got divorced and thought I would lose my family. I have despaired and wanted to never have been born. All these things run through me whenever I watch this movie, it strikes a nerve as perhaps no other movie does. My kids won't watch this with me because I spew tears like Niagara Falls every time I watch it.

Nowadays It's A Wonderful Life is a big Christmas tradition. But it's not a holiday movie at all. This film can be seen and enjoyed at anytime of year, during any season, because the lessons it teaches us and the themes it touches on are timeless and immortal: No one is a failure who has friends, and, I may add, family.