One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest (1975)

 

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUKOO’S NEST (1975)

By Ralph Santini – ****

Milos Forman’s fantastic masterpiece “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest” is considered by many to be one of Hollywood’s most influential films ever made. And rightly so because I love this movie very much as many of the reviewers and those who’ve seen it, even if Siskel and Ebert whom despite neither of them disliking the film, did have some occasional reservations in spite of their overall recommendation. Based on Ken Kesey’s novel published 13 years earlier, its grippingly wonderful story is about 38 year old Randall Patrick MacMurphy who is being committed to a mental institution from a work farm so that the psychiatrists can test the young man whether he is actually faking his being mentally insane or otherwise.

The socially maladjusted anti-hero is magnificently portrayed by Jack Nicholson in which the characterization not only earned him a deserving Oscar® win, but it also turned him into a sensational movie star. In fact, after being nominated five times by the Academy this was his first win of not only another award for As Good As It Gets in 1997 but also another one as Best Supporting Actor in Terms Of Endearment in 1983. On top of that, I think it’s also one of Nicholson finest performances he has ever given in his long career.

After MacMurphy is been committed to the institution, things don’t seem to go well for him because he is absolutely displeased by the presence of a vicious Nurse named Ratched (an equally sensational performance by Louise Fletcher in which she also won an Oscar for best actress in the film). I mean Ratched is so despicable she can ruin the happiness of many of the patients, such as ignoring MacMurphy’s request of watching the World Series in the institution and, most notoriously, rationing their cigarettes in which especially Cheswick (another wonderful performance given by Sidney Lassick) hysterically protests against it.

Now MacMurphy is not the only patient in the institution who is faking his being insane but also a huge Indian Chief (6’5) in his late 30s-early 40s named  Chief Bromden (another fine performance even by Will Samspson) who pretends to be deaf mute and it turns out has not spoken for 12 years after discovering MacMurphy not being crazy. Their chemistry is so brilliant they share a fantastic and subtle scene where MacMurphy is teaching the chief to play basketball during the volunteers’ first recreation time in the film. 

Now here’s what I’d like to say about the rest of patients in this film. There is a great character of a guy who has a strong speech impediment named Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif) and has a sexual obsession with women, like when Candy (the cute, attractive Mews Small) and a friend of hers trespass to the institution and MacMurphy tries to play cupid on Billy and Candy.  The other patients are Cheswick the Man Child, Taber the bipolar (played by an early and excellent 36 year old Christopher Lloyd), Martini the schizophrenic (an equally early Danny DeVito), Dale Harding the paranoid (William Redfield), Jim Sefelt the epileptic (William Duell) among others.

These topics are what make this film a masterpiece because, I think, it has a great screenplay and if I may say so, this one by Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman, is among one of the finest ever written. Miloš Forman directs this film very competently with a subtle touch of superior melodrama. I also find him altogether responsible for the film’s artistic take on mental illness and I think that’s subtle originality. Also I think his supervision of this gem helped Haskell Wexler and Bill Butler’s cinematography make this film look a great novel and I think this film might help encourage film buffs become literature buffs. In fact I love how literate this drama can be.

This film is without a doubt one of the finest films ever made not because of the fact that it won an Oscar® for best picture, but also because of its influential nature that helped the 1970s represent New Hollywood as Hollywood’s own Silver Age. This is truly one of the great films that truly demands multiple viewings from one to another. It is filled with a cast of brilliant characters and Bravura performances from most of the cast.

No Name On The Bullet (1959)

NO NAME ON THE BULLET (1959)

 By Ralph Santini - ***

“No Name On The Bullet” was Jack Arnold’s third period Western and quite possibly his best of that genre. It stars real-life WWII veteran Audie Murphy, brilliantly cast against type as vicious gunman John Gant who’s on his way to kill someone in Lordsburg, New Mexico. The only catch with that is whom is he going to kill? Well, you might find out, but I won’t tell because I’d consider it a huge spoiler. What I can tell that might thrill you in this review is that it causes severe paranoia in Lordsburg on John Gant’s account. It ranges from a nervous hotel owner, Henry Reeger (Simon Scott, well cast and fabulous), corrupt businessman Earl Stricker (Karl Swenson, the voice Merlin the Magician in Disney’s Sword in the Stone), his arrogant clerk (Warren Stevens, excellent), Stricker’s own Union-leading enemy Chaffee (John Alderson) among many others. In fact not even the town’s own Sherriff, Buck Hastings (a terrific performance by Willis Bouchey), can be able to stop the vicious young killer Gant.
                However, Gant befriends a brave physician, Dr. Luke Canfield (Winchester ‘73’s Charles Drake) who even intents playing with him a game of Chess. Unlike most of Lordsburg’s citizens Dr. Canfield is not afraid of Gant, even if he recognizes of mean and cruel Gant is. On top of that he is dating a retired Judge’s (an excellent portrayal by Edgar Stehli) young daughter, Anne Benson (the cute Joan Evans) whom her father is equally brave towards Gant himself. In fact Judge Benson knows an important way to get rid of Gant for good. Anyhow, I’m not telling that solution.

The point is that “No Name on the Bullet” is one underrated little western; I thought it was wittingly first rate. Murphy delivers as the no-good gunslinger who causes lots of panic in Lordsburg and the rest of the cast portraying the town afraid of him are superb. Equally winning is the dark tone set for this slick screenplay that has this psychological western with very few gunshots included. Even the story as I have described is effective because we don’t have any other clichés used in more routine westerns.

A Night At The Opera (1935)

 A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935)

By Ralph Santini - ****

                Hysterically funny and fancifully witty, the Marx Bros. satirical farce “A Night at the Opera” is greatly their finest of all film comedies. Directed by Sam Wood with terrific humor, the film’s storyline is centered on an incompetent stage music manager Otis P. Driftwood (isn’t that a funny name?) who can dodge anything payment related including an expensive hotel bill and team up with two equally crackpot (but good natured) boys to bring a mere chorus boy, Ricardo (Allan Jones) to show business. However Driftwood’s cold and prejudiced, no-nonsense boss, Mr. Gottlieb (the always dastardly wonderful Sig Rumann) ignores their offer by becoming a lot more interested with a more well-known but hot-headed tenor Lasparri (Walter Woolf King) who is also madly in love with his beautiful soprano colleague Rosa (Kitty Carlisle) but she hates him with a passion and would rather hook up with Ricardo.

                All of this premise would lead us to a great number of misadventures, particularly on a cruiser, where Otis happens to bring the two other Marx bros., Chico and Harpo playing respectably playing Fiorello and Tomaso, and Ricardo on a trunk because they are stowaways so Otis implores them to hide themselves more carefully but Fiorello insists that he and his friends are hungry so they escape Otis’ room and they find a place where they have some spaghetti dinner but unfortunately they are snitched by Lasparri to the cruiser officers and they are imprisoned to the Brig. However they manage to escape, and when they arrive from Italy to the United States (specifically, New York City)  they manage to escape even by disguising themselves as three long-bearded air force veterans and they do their best to avoid the speech prepared for the real ones.

                This is among many hilarious moments in this memorable comedy classic, along with one great one-liner scene where Driftwood first tries to give food to Fiorello, Tomasso and Ricardo in the first place and every time Otis asks for certain entries from the cruiser menu, Fiorello repeats his remarkable one-liner “and two hard-boiled eggs”. It is easily among one of the finest jokes in the history of American film comedies. Another equally hysterical scene is when after Otis and his two other crazed friends and Ricardo are all wanted for shady travelling, a tough police officer wants to arrest them in his apartment for the aforementioned crime but the stubborn businessman wants to insist that no-one else is in his room and every time the cop sees multiple beds disappear he gets a lot of wacky bamboozlement from our heroes.

                One more memorable scene in this comedy masterpiece is a seminal physical comedy take where our heroes are chased by Gottlieb and the police during the iconic classical music piece “The Anvil Chrous” from “Il Trovadore” the opera where Lasparri was supposed to star in. This scene is often copied but never equaled and that’s why “A Night at the Opera” is a prime example of comedic filmmaking. The Marx Bros. have never been better, their fabulous co-hort Margaret Dumont is simply astonishing as the conservative businesswoman who distrusts Otis’ affection for her, Ruman is superb as Otis’ pompously rigid, antagonistic boss, Gottlieb, and Jones and Carlisle sing marvelously together. Sam Wood’s direction seems to have good touch of comedy for this gem and George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind’s absolutely wonderful screenplay has tremendously hilarious one-liners that include Groucho Marx’s iconic line "The party of the first part shall be known in this contract as the party of the first part."