The Queen And The Falcon

Originally, I was going to do this post about The Maltese Falcon, which deserves a spot on anybody's Best Movies List. And for the record, The Maltese Falcon really is on my list. But since I'm limiting myself to ten (in no particular order), I have to admit that I like Humphrey Bogart better in The African Queen. And it's not just because Charlie Allnut is a nicer guy. In a weird sort of way, my choice between the two movies (and the two characters) is like the difference between the dangerous kind of guy and the good guy. You're attracted to the dangerous guy, but in the end it's the good guy you end up marrying.

Both movies have well-written stories and engaging plots. ButThe African Queen has one other bonus: Katherine Hepburn. While the Maltese Falcon is about one guy, Sam Spade, and his search for the truth, The African Queen is about two very different people whose lives intertwine so successfully, they're able to achieve the impossible (or at least the improbable).

Charlie Allnut is a tugboat captain, an independent guy whose love of freedom has taken him to Africa, a place most Americans will never see. The political climate there is dangerous, so he has to be both smart and courageous to pursue that freedom. But he's also a down to-earth-guy, and when he meets Rose Sayer, he feels that they belong to different classes.

And he's right. She is the sister of a missionary, and her goal is to help people find God. It's a goal that blows up right in her face, leaving her with ashes, but Charlie rescues her in more ways than one. Rose feels she has lost everything, but as she and Charlie get into that boat and go crashing down the river rapids into an uncertain future, she makes an observation that is my favorite quote from the whole movie: “I never dreamed any mere physical experience could be so stimulating!” She loves that trip down the rapids. She begins to develop an interest in the boat itself – and in the man who owns it.

Katherine Hepburn wrote a wonderful diary about the making of the movie, The Making Of The African Queen. They filmed in Africa, and there were some issues with the water which Humphrey Bogart and John Huston seemed to have neatly avoided by spiking that water with a little whisky. The African Queen is an essential John Huston movie. Like the cast and crew, the characters are tested by hardships. How they rise to those challenges defines their character.

The most charming moment in the film happens the morning after Charlie and Rose have obviously been intimate with each other (a moment handled with great sensitivity and discretion), and she says to him, “Dear – what is your first name?” This romance binds them together, but isn't the strongest thing doing so. That would be their mission, which is to blow up a German warship that has moored in the lake at the end of the tributary in which they are struggling. They may be going through Hell, but it's not High Water they're battling, it's low water, which threatens to strand the boat. But they refuse to give up, even when things look hopeless.

With equal parts humor and tragedy, their struggle is engrossing. The resolution of their story is both gratifying and believable. No superheroes save the day, no wizards throw magic bolts of lightning at each other. Instead, two people refuse to give up – and they triumph. That's why The African Queen makes the top ten, with no reservations whatsoever.

Hal 9000 Was Not the First Computer Heavy In Movie History

Most people who write a best movies list that includes a movie with Katherine Hepburn choose something other than Desk Set. They may prefer Pat & Mike or Adam's Rib, titles that are much better known. Almost certainly, they would name The African Queen, which deserves to be honored.

In fact, The African Queen will be the subject of my next blog entry. And of all the romantic comedies that Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy made together, Desk Set is my favorite – for one simple reason. It's a science fiction movie.

No, it doesn't have ray guns, space ships, or aliens. But it satisfies one of the most basic criterions of a science fiction plot: it's about how technology changes the lives of people who use it. In this case, it's about a civilian application for an early computer, the EMERAC (probably based on the UNIVAC and the ENIAC). Spencer Tracy plays the efficiency expert who is adapting the computer for a business interface, and Katherine Hepburn is the head of the reference department at a New York Magazine that will try to integrate the big computer into their operations. Since the computer processes questions and is supposed to come up with instant answers, the reference staff is understandably nervous about their jobs.

This is one of the main conflicts in the story. The employees in the reference department are all female, and you get a glimpse into the lives of an earlier generation of working women. The wonderful Joan Blondell is Peg Costello – who, like the other gals in her department, is single, independent, and older than people probably expected a working woman to be in those days – old enough to be married, in other words. They have to be ingenious to make ends meet, but you get the feeling that none of them have met a man for whom they would be able or willing to give up their independence – except, possibly for Hepburn's character, Bunny Watson. She does have a fella she's serious about: Mike Cutler, played by Gig Young. But he keeps putting her off until his career takes off, something it always seems to be on the verge of doing. By the time the computer shows up, he's starting to take her for granted.

That's the other conflict in the story. Because Tracy's character, Richard Sumner, is quite charmed by her. He's fascinated by the way the women perform their jobs, especially by the way their memories work. He notices that Bunny uses association as a memory tool. And he enjoys the quick, witty responses she comes up with when they talk. I suspect he also notices her trim figure and dazzling smile, but he is so unassuming and courteous, this is more of a conclusion than an observation.

Bunny tries very hard not to like Richard – after all, he's programming the electronic monster that will make her obsolete. But something between them just seems to click, and pretty soon the luke-warm boyfriend begins to notice that he's got competition. Suddenly he's not so inclined to take her for granted. But will he rally in time?

If you're familiar with the pattern in Hepburn-Tracy movies, you already know the answer to that question. But the characters are so likable, you just can't help getting caught up in their lives. And in the meantime, the big computer is looming over everybody's job, until the day when it generates a bunch of pink slips for the reference department. Neither love nor computerization goes smoothly for anyone in this film.

But in the end, you cheer for both. Desk Set is not a grand film that forever changed the art form. But it is an irresistible snapshot of a particular time and place, a moment of change in American business and American romance. I watch it at least once every year, so I can take a brief vacation to that time and place. That's why it goes on my list of the best.      

Shadows Of A Lost World

Many people would put a movie by Akira Kurosawa on the list of top ten films, and that choice would be justified. There are quite a few Japanese filmmakers who have earned a place on that sort of list. But for me, the first movie that always comes to mind when I think of great Japanese films is the horror classic, Kwaidan, directed by Masaki Kobayashi.

Based on the ghost stories collected by Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan is spooky, gorgeous, and fascinating. It takes its inspiration from classic Japanese illustrations of ghost stories. The last time I watched it I realized something amazing – this lavish production was filmed entirely inside a studio. This includes a segment depicting sea battles.

The first segment, “Black Hair,” is not my favorite, but I like it more every time I see it. I think it depicts the true experience of a haunting, which is always more psychological in nature. A samurai is sick of poverty, so he abandons his wife and marries the vain daughter of a wealthy nobleman. His fortunes immediately improve, but he can't forget the wife he so callously abandoned. Eventually this obsession with the past wrecks his new life, and he goes home again to salvage his old life. But what is waiting there for him? I love the gorgeous, moody sets in this one. I especially like the character of the spoiled new wife. She isn't likable, but she's very interesting.

The second story, “The Snow Maiden,” has a lot in common with European fairy tales. A man witnesses a fey creature killing another man. She almost kills him too, but she falls in love with him and can't bring herself to kill him. Instead, she makes him promise never to tell anyone what he's seen. The actress who plays this creature manages to make her really scary, just with her body movements and facial expressions. I think she takes her cues from classical Japanese theater – at times her expressions are mask-like. The same actress manages to look warm and kind when the fey creature imitates a human woman so she can marry the man. The outcome of this union also mirrors European folk tales – I won't reveal it here. I love how this segment uses stage techniques for its special effects.

My favorite segment is the third, “Hoichi The Earless,” and I suspect that's the case for most viewers. It has spectacular battle scenes, and the way they're narrated is particularly brilliant. Hoichi, a blind monk, is a very talented balladeer, and he knows the story of the Dan-no-ura battle from beginning to end. As he performs this ballad, the scenes are enacted. The camera alternates from live-action segments (entirely filmed inside the studio, though they're sea battles) to painted panels depicting the battle. You could consider this the most kick-butt segment of the movie. But I like it for more oddball reasons. To me, the ghosts in this segment aren't just shadows of that battle and that ruined clan, they depict a lost age. The remarkable formality of their lives, the protocol dictating their day-to-day existence, is marvelous and awe-inspiring – and lends credence to Shakespeare's assertion that all the world is a stage.

An interesting detail from the battle is a scene in which a woman leaps into the sea with the young emperor rather than risk capture by their enemies. This woman is steely in her resolve, a stark contrast to the weeping young woman who quickly follows them into death. It took me a few viewings to realize that the stern woman who orders her followers into the sea must be the dowager empress – the boy's grandmother, rather than his mother (the mother must be the weeping woman). As the mother of the deceased emperor, she would have had absolute authority until the boy came of age. Because of that battle, the boy never gets the chance, so she takes him into the sea to save honor, which she prizes above all else. Under the circumstances, I can't blame her.

After that amazing third sequence, the final story, “In A Cup Of Tea,” is a bit of a let-down. I think the purpose of that sort of story in a book is to bring the readers back down to earth and end on a humorous note. But in the movie, I often find myself running out of patience with it before it's over. It probably should have been placed at the beginning instead of the end.

Despite that minor flaw, Kwaidan still rises to the top. It will always fascinate and chill me. It will always be on my list of top ten movies.

Truly Haunted

In this age of ghost movies that rely on “boo” tactics and images of people being thrown around rooms, a very important fact has been mostly forgotten: a good ghost story is not about the ghost. It's about the people being haunted by the ghost. If it's done well, the audience will eventually realize that the ghost is not the only thing haunting those people – possibly not even the most frightening thing.

The Haunting is the best example of that kind of ghost story. The book (The Haunting Of Hill House), by Shirley Jackson, is one of my favorite novels – and the original movie, filmed in 1963 and directed by Robert Wise, is one of the few adaptations that actually does justice to the source material. In fifty years, very few movies have been made that can rival it in spookiness. And the wonderful thing about it is that no high-tech special effects were used – it was all great location, good acting, lighting, choice of film stock, camera angels, sound effects and music, and on one occasion a broom handle applied to an old-fashioned, moulded door. You never see a ghost.

So how can a movie that never shows a ghost be spooky? It starts with a good story and some troubled characters. The premise in the beginning is that some places are just bad. Maybe they started out that way, maybe someone made them that way, or maybe it was a combination of the two. Somehow a sediment of despair, sorrow, and fear has accumulated there, and it affects everyone who visits. The focal point of this wrongness is Hill House, a place built by an extremely authoritarian man whose version of Christianity makes the Puritans look like a bunch of free-love hippies. He wasn't content just to build an imposing pile of a house – he has to make sure that the place is a maze, both mentally and physically, where people are lost and eventually trapped. The angles are deliberately off by a few degrees; doors will silently swing shut if you've left them open.

The real setting of Hill House was a hotel in England, a beautiful place that is made sinister by lighting, special film stock, camera angles, etc. You get a glimpse of how nice the place really is when you look at the scenes done in the breakfast room and the music room. Turn the lights down and focus on some of the details of that house that would seem charming and quaint in the daylight, and suddenly you see faces among the leaf patterns on the wall and doorknobs that look like they're watching you.

Add the right characters to this setting, and things just have to happen. Professor Markway (Richard Johnson) is the perfect guy to get the ball rolling. He's a scientist to the core, looking for observable phenomena that can be recorded and analyzed. He believes that what seems to be supernatural is really natural-but-misunderstood. His wife (played by Lois Maxwell) does not agree – she is not only skeptical, but aggressively so, and very annoyed with him for embarrassing her in the upper-class circles in which she runs. Luke (Russ Tamblyn) is a spoiled rich kid who is simply hoping that he can make a profit on the old pile once he inherits it. Theo (Claire Bloom) is able to sense the thoughts and feelings of others, an ability that has often made her unhappy. And then there's Eleanor.

Unfortunately for Eleanor (Julie Harris), she has something in common with one of the ghosts of Hill House. This similarity makes her especially vulnerable to the house. On top of that, she's a sheltered woman who was never able to spread her wings until this odd trip in which she gets to belong to the team of investigators. She falls in love, and the love can't be fulfilled.

I've always thought that this team of characters could have carried a TV series for at least a couple of seasons, if it were well-written. TV executives would probably balk at the cost of special effects for such a show, but that's the irony – CGI ruins ghost stories. The old-fashioned, clever, and inexpensive effects of this movie are the best sort of effects to use for story lines that rely on the psychology of the characters – and the psychology of the audience. When you watch The Haunting you believe you've seen things that were actually never shown.

That's true movie-making genius. And that's why The Haunting makes my top ten list.   

Cosmic Dad And His Robot

In my previous Best Movie blog entries, I've mentioned scenes that I believe to be the heart of those films, the essential expression of their nature. In La Belle et La Bete, it's the scene where Belle and the Beast walk together in the garden for the first time. In Bad Day At Black Rock, it's the scene where Macreedy delivers a karate chop to Trimble, proving that one-armed war veterans should not be underestimated by small-town thugs.

In The Day The Earth Stood Still, it's the scene where Klaatu signals Gort with the flashlight, then enters his spaceship, while Bernard Herrmann's incomparable score plays in the background (a segment called Nocturne/The Flashlight/The Robot/Space Control). With no dialog, it manages to convey a supreme sense of wonder as we're invited into that alien ship to glimpse the Unfathomable.

Like Rear Window, The Day The Earth Stood Still has no wasted scenes, every frame counts. The difference is that the score forThe Day The Earth Stood Still is an integral part of the movie – it's essential to help tell the story. Movies like this are one of the reasons music videos eventually became so popular – images and sounds, when combined, are powerful storytellers.

In a way, it's surprising this movie ever got made. It's based on a classic science fiction story, “Farewell To The Master,” (Harry Bates, 1940) which has a very different plot. Only the basic premise of an alien visitation remains the same, and the fact that there's a robot. These are nerdy elements, and in those days they were usually relegated to the realm of the B movie. YetThe Day The Earth Stood Still was made by an A-list director, Robert Wise – which is why it also earned an A-list composer for the score, and an excellent cast and script (Edmund H. North).

Many people have seen a parallel to the storyline of the film and the Jesus parable, with Klaatu as the Messiah. At one point, he is killed and resurrected. But though Klaatu is ethical and wise beyond Human standards, his message is not one of joy and peace. Basically he's on Earth to tell us, Look, you're a bunch of destructive yahoos. If you're so petty and foolish that you have to keep killing each other, that's your business. But if you bring your conflicts out into space, we'll blast you into oblivion. The choice is yours.

He doesn't deliver that ultimatum until the very end of the movie – up until that point, most of the humans he encounters spend their time proving that his lack of faith in us is utterly justified. People react fearfully, and the government fails to approach Klaatu with diplomacy (they opt for the Scorched Earth approach). A few of the people he meets manage to win him over. You never get the impression that he hates us, just that he's disappointed that we can't grow up and get a clue. Heck, I'm disappointed by that, too. Being a member of the Human Race is like having a cousin who's a great guy – unless he's drinking.

Both Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal give their characters extraordinary depth. They come from a time when “The Theater” included plays acted on stage. In the early days of Hollywood, casting directors recruited heavily from a stable of extremely well- trained and talented character actors from that earlier tradition. This is one of the things that puts the Day The Earth Stood Still in a category above many of the Science fiction B films of that era (fun and imaginative though they could be).

The special effects are fairly minimal – just some minor animation when Gort disintegrates guns and tanks (also a soldier or two when the going gets tough). Everything else is camera angle, lighting, great editing, perfect music. I'll take these old-fashioned psychological effects over CGI any day.

Beyond the fact that it's a great Science Fiction movie,The Day The Earth Stood Still has a personal dimension for me. The first time I saw it, I was about eight years old, and my father didn't live with us. He and my mother had divorced a few years before, but I didn't know that. He served in the air force, and the Viet Nam war was still going on. I knew my father was deployed there, so I assumed he wasn't home because he was fighting in that war. I was only half right.

In the movie, Klaatu befriends a boy. His behavior toward that boy is fatherly, and I've always sensed a bit of romance between Klaatu and Patricia Neal's character. When I saw Klaatu get into his ship at the end of the movie and fly away, leaving the woman and her boy behind, it broke my heart. It still does, every time I see it.

That's why this movie makes the A list – and my list of greatest movies ever.

Where Is My Beautiful Beast?

Jean Cocteau's La Belle et La Bete is on a lot of Best Movie lists, sometimes for snooty reasons. After all, it's foreign (that'll get you 4 stars right there), it's French (there are a whole class of movie critics who like nothing but) – and it's relatively old (made just after WWII), so it qualifies as a “classic.” But sweep aside all that pseudo-intellectual noise, and you're still left with a magnificent movie.

I discovered it accidentally. Most of the people I grew up with, went to school with, worked with, never knew it existed – and if they had known, they might have thought it was dumb and boring because there weren't any car chases or explosions. Plus you have to read subtitles – what a bummer!

But there are times in your life when you're ripe for magic. I was fourteen, and I had my own (black & white) TV in my bedroom. I loved that thing, because it showed me worlds far outside my little Phoenix suburb. One night I was surfing (in this case, actually turning a dial), and I landed on our local PBS station. I saw a beautiful woman entering what looked like a haunted castle. Disembodied arms held candelabra in the entryway, and she glided along the hallway outside her bed chamber as if the floor were moving. There was no sound, and when she turned to run from the castle, she moved in slow motion. When she got to the courtyard, she was confronted by a magnificently dressed man with the head of a lion. She fainted. He picked her up and carried her back into the castle.

That was IT, my friends. That scene was like an arrow to my heart. No way was I going to touch that dial until the movie was over. It replayed the next night, so I watched it from beginning to end. No other attempt to film the story of Beauty And The Beast has even come close to it. No other attempt ever will. There are several reasons why.

Maybe the essential reason is Jean Cocteau. He was like an author writing a book. This makes sense when you consider that he was a novelist, painter, playwright, and poet, besides being a filmmaker. Though he was a poet, he knew that pursuing poetry too enthusiastically can cause it to elude you completely. And I suspect that the romance in La Belle et La Bete was more personal for Cocteau than it ever was for other directors who filmed the story of Beauty And The Beast. Of all the characters in his film, the one he seemed to relate to the most was Belle, played by Josette Day. In his book about making the movie, Diary Of A Film, Cocteau wrote a little note about Josette. He said she looked like he had when he was younger. When you consider that his lover and lifelong friend Jean Marais played both the Beast and the other man who loved Belle (Avenant), this little note takes on extra significance.

Considerable credit for the look of La Belle et La Bete belongs to Christian Berard, the art director, and Henri Alekan, the cinematographer (just two of of the artists/technicians who deserve credit). According to Cocteau's own diary, he did not always agree with his team, and often felt frustrated with them. Yet he persevered in his collaboration with them, trooping forward even though he suffered from bouts of illness. The production was an expensive challenge, he really had to improvise to get supplies, line up shooting locations (many of the beautiful garden scenes were shot at the Chateau de Raray), and design special effects. Though it may seem like filming the production in black & white was an artistic choice, he indicates in Diary of a Film that he would have preferred color – it just wasn't an option in post-war France. It's hard to say what that color production would have looked like – the black & white turned out gorgeous.

The acting is superb.  And the folktale was originally adapted for print by two Frenchwomen, so perhaps Cocteau was sensitive to what was between the lines. But two things that really make the movie stand head and shoulders (and mane?) above other versions are the “creature” design for the Beast and the beautiful score by Georges Auric. The Beast was so splendid in his velvet outfit and starched collar, so perfect as a lion, it makes you sad when he eventually metamorphoses into a man at the end. This outcome is not helped by the fact that Jean Marais is wearing those silly pantaloons that look like the little tents that go on the end of Thanksgiving drumsticks. Legend has it that Marlene Dietrich, after witnessing this transformation during a screening in Paris, asked, “Where is my Beautiful Beast?” I'm inclined to agree.

Georges Auric's score is also on my list of top ten scores. I love it from beginning to end, but one segment haunts me – the scene where Belle and the Beast walk together in the garden for the first time. There's something timeless and magnificent about that scene – I think it's the heart of the movie.

Great books, music, and movies are made by brilliant people who are unique because they are a product of their particular place and time. That's why other attempts to reproduce what they've done are unsuccessful. No one will ever write a fantasy likeThe Lord Of The Rings, because Tolkien was a British man who was born in South Africa near the end of the 19^th century, emigrated to England, and eventually served in the trenches of World War I. Likewise, Cocteau and his team of filmmakers had their unique experiences and vision (not to mention their own Great War). The result of their collaboration is a movie that will be loved as long as people are still watching movies. It's magic truly is timeless. 

Bad Day At Black Rock

If you've never seen Bad Day At Black Rock, you may assume someone named Bad Bart is prominently featured in the story, along with a shootout at high noon. You'd be wrong on both counts. You'd also be wrong if you assumed it was an old-fashioned Western. It's more of a new-fashioned Western, set in an Arizona town that's little more than a dent by the side of the road, just after WWII. That great war may seem like a simple background detail at the beginning of the movie. It's anything but.

Bad Day At Black Rock is a hard-boiled mystery/action/thriller starring Spencer Tracy as Macreedy, a one-armed war veteran who has come out West to fulfill the dying request of a fallen comrade. His destination is a small town that is barely more than a train stop, so you would think the folks who live there would be happy to see visitors. But they have a big secret weighing them down, and they can tell this particular visitor is going to get right to the heart of that secret.

Every time I see this movie, I try to figure out where it was filmed. Some of the rock formations look like Southern Arizona. It was actually filmed in the Mojave, but it could be one of several Southwestern locations, a desert with vast, empty space between each town. Space may represent freedom in some circumstances, but in this case it's more of a prison for Macreedy, who can't survive that huge stretch of arid desert if he isn't in a train or in a car with plenty of gas. Since he's arrived on the train, and it won't be back for a few days, he's got to survive until it does – and that turns out to be a huge challenge.

The Bad Guys know Macreedy is a threat to their secret from the moment he gets off the train, yet they underestimate him – and the audience may feel the same way, at first. Macreedy lost an arm in the war, and he's one guy against many. He has courage and integrity, and he's smart, too – possibly too smart for his own good. He asks few questions, but those questions are too perceptive. He sees the trap closing around him, but he doesn't knuckle under. Instead, he keeps thinking. He reacts calmly to the bluster of bullies and never shows them the fear they'd really like to see. This keeps them guessing long enough to buy him a little time. But will it be enough?

You may think you know how things are going to turn out, but Macreedy has at least one trick up his sleeve that will have you cheering. He is a hero, someone who learned to fight in the war. If this movie had been made after 1970, it probably would have been spoiled by having Macreedy beat all the bad guys up with kung-fu expertise. Hollywood has really lost its ability to depict heroes realistically. True heroism is when you're facing down unfair odds and getting your head handed to you on a platter, yet you still try to do the right thing.


The score was composed by Andre Previn, who "deals in the realm of creating tension and release in his sonic dramas," according to reviewer Lindsay Planer on Allmusic.com.

The casting of Bad Day At Black Rock is a who's who of great character actors. Ernest Borgnine is a perfect bully. Robert Ryan is chilling as the Boss behind the scenes, the guy who has always run the show in that unhappy little corner of the world. Anne Francis is best known for her role in Forbidden Planet, but she shows a much broader range here as a woman trapped between a rock and a hard place. Dean Jagger is a ruined marshal who regrets trading his soul for the bottle. And no one could play Macreedy better than Spencer Tracy. He's another actor from the Golden Age of Hollywood, when they were willing to cast leading men who didn't have perfect faces and bodies. It's the force of his personality that makes him stand out from the crowd.

As we get further into the 21^st century, those of us who grew up in the shadow of WWII are starting to die off. Many young viewers may miss the point of Bad Day At Black Rock – that a Japanese-American soldier wants his father to have the purple heart he earned fighting for his country. The internment camps are still discussed in history class, but if you don't know someone who went through that, if you didn't go through it yourself, it's hard to understand why someone got killed because of what was going on back home – or why the killers would kill again to keep the secret. This movie is a window into those times. Look through it, and maybe you'll understand why Bad Day At Black Rock is on my Best Movies list.  
  

But -- Which Thief Of Bagdad?

If I say The Thief Of Bagdad is on my list of greatest movies, anyone who knows the history of fantasy films will immediately ask, Which one? There are several great versions, including the original silent film with Douglas Fairbanks Sr. It was remade in the sound era with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., whose version is also well worth watching. But in my opinion, the greatest version of all was made by Alexander Korda with the Indian actor Sabu, in 1940. It was largely filmed in England when WWII was well under way, and despite the fact that it had multiple directors, this Arabian Nights story rises above all others.

Plot is an important factor in a good movie, but in The Thief Of Bagdad there's a unique twist. The story is told in a non-linear Arabian Nights style, so it starts in the middle, goes back to the beginning, then proceeds to the end. And in keeping with Middle-Eastern tradition, there are stories within stories, all woven seamlessly into a lively tapestry of characters and adventures.

The set design is inspired – gorgeous, yet subtle when compared to the standard Hollywood concept of Arabian Nights décor. I'm especially impressed with the colors of the walls in the palaces, pale yellow near the bottom, but pale blue at the top, as if they're merging with the heavens. I don't think this is actual paint on the walls, it's a beautiful special effect that showcases the artistic and technical expertise of that era. The art director was Vincent Korda, and he deserves a large part of the credit for the magic of this movie.

The film score was composed by Miklós Rózsa, and it's one of his best. His chronicle of the writing of this score is included in his memoir, Double Life. The movie opens with a love song to adventure: “The sea is cruel but the sea is clean . . .” Rózsa's score is essential fantasy film music, enhancing the action and helping to advance the plot.

Last but not least, the cast is wonderful. Sabu, Rex Ingram, and Conrad Veidt are the three big stars in the move, but June Duprez may be the loveliest princess in fantasy movie history. John Justin, as the King Ahmad, is actually a little goofy, but intentionally so (since his character is a pampered blue-blood with little practical experience of the world). Veidt is masterfully fiendish as the evil sorcerer Jaffar, whose only weakness is his passion for the princess (“She has Babylonian eyes!”). Rex Ingram is a magnificent genie, even though he can't totally shake his New York accent. You can forgive him for calling Sabu, “Little Master of the Univoise.” And Sabu – a young man who was really an elephant boy in India when he was discovered – is Abu, a confident, kind-hearted rascal who loves the world and wants to see as much of it as he can.

If sense of wonder is what makes a movie magic, The Thief Of Bagdad has enough magic for two movies. When the genie gets Abu to steal the eye of the all-seeing goddess, he says that she won't be able to see the doings of men for another 2000 years, and you have to wonder why the genie wanted that to happen. Does he have plans with which she might have interfered? And who is the mysterious Halima who was Jaffar's right-hand woman (played by Mary Morris) – she bears a disturbing resemblance to the bloodthirsty wind-up doll that killed Sultan (played by Miles Malleson). What happened to the Kings of the Golden Age after Abu inadvertently released them from the crystal eye of the goddess? And at the end, when Abu flies off into the sunrise on the magic carpet, what adventures did he have?

When a story continues in your imagination long after the movie has ended, you know you've seen one of the greats. That's why The Thief Of Bagdad makes my Best Movies list.

Harvey -- More Than Just A Giant, Invisible Rabbit

Harvey may seem like a whimsical choice for a Best Movies list. It's odd, and no earth-shattering issues seem to be addressed in the story. But there's more to Harvey than meets the eye – and I'm not just talking about the giant, invisible rabbit.

The first time I saw Harvey, I enjoyed it very much as a charming comedy with a touch of fantasy. In a nutshell, it's about a guy named Elwood P. Dowd who keeps company with a giant, invisible rabbit named Harvey. His sister (played by wonderful Josephine Hull) and her daughter think he's nuts, and his behavior is seriously cramping their style with the society folk in town. His sister decides he should be committed to the local sanitarium so she and her daughter can get on with their lives. But her attempts to put him away have unexpected results.

I like this movie so much, I've seen it at least a dozen times over the past decade. As I got older, I began to realize that the movie struck me a little differently every time I saw it. New layers are exposed with each viewing – and finally I understood that under all that light-hearted whimsy, Harvey is the story of a shattered man.

Jimmy Stewart played Elwood P. Dowd, Harvey's best buddy, in both the movie and the stage version. I doubt anyone else could have nailed the role, though Jim Parsons (Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory) seems like a good choice for the new stage version. Stewart is an essential American character, very much a product of his place and time. He raises his voice when he's irritated or excited, but when he's truly angered or troubled, his voice becomes quieter. As Elwood, he's unfailingly kind and courteous, so people respond to him warmly. Elwood is so likeable, some people even continue to like him after he introduces them to the invisible rabbit.

Elwood is younger than his sister, and their elderly mother doted on him. She left the entire estate to him when she passed away, which is another reason his sister feels she has to wrest Power of Attorney from him. He likes to invite people to supper at the home he shares with his sister and niece, regardless of who the people are or how long he's known them (usually just a few minutes). He is oblivious to class, race, religion, or any other social distinction, and in that time and place that's just plain awkward. Elwood seems innocent, perhaps a bit simple, and childlike in his reaction to people.

But if you really listen to him, you realize this is far from the case. Before his mother died, Elwood used to be a different man. As a member of the upper class, he was among movers and shakers. But something seems to have snapped in him. He quotes his mother a lot, and one wonders if her death was a blow from which he couldn't completely recover. His remarks also indicate a sense of futility in the pursuit of money, status, and power. After all, what good is any of that when the person you loved most in the world is gone? His recovery from this loss is fragile, but something unexpected has come along to help him hold it together: Harvey the pookah becomes his friend, confidant, and drinking buddy.

According to the movie, Pookahs are Celtic spirits with an odd sense of humor. The character of Wilson, an orderly at the sanitarium, discovers this when he looks the word up in the Encyclopedia. As he reads the definition aloud, the printed entry concludes with the words, “ . . . and how are you today Mr. Wilson?” “How am I?” demands Wilson. “Who in the encyclopedia wants to know?”

As the story begins to unfold, we find out that pookahs aren't just fun-loving, they have interesting powers, too. For instance, they can stop time. If they really like someone, they have a protective streak, too. Elwood needs that protection, because the misguided doctor in the movie believes the only way to shock Elwood back into a normal life is to give him a chemical lobotomy in the form of a drug called Formula 977. If Harvey were just about this dreadful injection, it would be a horror movie. Before the whole thing is over, you wonder if sweet, kind-hearted Elwood won't be shattered for good.

The story in Harvey works on multiple levels, and that alone would make it a good movie. But it also has a marvelous cast, and their deft performances are unforgettable. A less skilled actor than Stewart might have overplayed Elwood's simplicity, or camped up the whole invisible rabbit thing. Instead, Stewart plays the part not only with perfect comic timing, but also with a subtlety that allows you to understand Elwood's character once you really start to listen. The dark undercurrent in Elwood's life actually reminds me of a heart-breaking scene in the movie It's A Wonderful Life, another story that's often described as too sugary and feel-good. Anyone who describes it that way must not have seen the scene in which Stewart's character George Bailey, at the end of his rope after a large sum of money has disappeared, prays desperately to God for help. When God answers the prayer, it's not with an instant fix (Here's the money, pal – good luck!). Instead, he finds a way to let George know his life matters to people, that he's not alone.

Harvey finds a way to do that for Elwood, too. By the end of the movie, you realize that Elwood and Harvey probably have the best approach to life after all. And that's why Harvey is another permanent resident of my Best Movies list.

Rear Window: The Most Perfect Movie Ever Made

Making a list of the top ten of anything seems futile. Lists like that are subjective – what I like may make others go, “Meh.” Also, what makes this week's list may not make next week's. Plus it's probably not reasonable to limit lists to ten choices – Top Ten is an advertising gimmick that we've all bought into a little too readily.

Having said that, I have to admit that there is one good reason to make a list of your top ten favorites of something, and that's to give exposure to things you like, promoting them to people who may enjoy them. That's why I've decided to list my top ten favorite movies. My real list of favorites is way too long, but I'll pick the ten that occur to me as I write this. They're in no particular order – but there is one movie that I consider to be the most perfect movie ever made, so I'll put it at the top of the list. It's Alfred Hitchcock's version of Rear Window.

A perfect movie has to take the best possible advantage of its medium, which is primarily visual. It has a finite amount of time to tell its story, so each frame has to count – there can be no unnecessary scenes or shots. It has to have an excellent cast. And the story has to be good enough to make you keep your eyes on the screen the whole time, wondering what's going to happen next. If it isn't a silent film, the score has to complement the visuals rather than detracting from them. If you can do all that, you've made a perfect movie.

If you watch Hitchcock's Rear Window, you may be deceived into thinking that not much thought went into it. It's so seamless, you can't see how clever it is. There are two sets, and they blend into each other. The whole shebang – Jeff's apartment, the courtyard, and the other apartments the main characters can see into – was filmed on a big soundstage. The sounds and music in the movie are ambient, what you would naturally hear if you lived in one of those apartments. This enhances the reality of the setting, and puts the characters and story in the forefront. We're really there with 'Jeff' Jeffries, a world-traveling photographer who's laid up with a broken leg and going stir crazy. That's why we're able to see, almost from the beginning, that things are not what they seem.

The screenplay is based on Cornell Woolrich's short story, “It Had To Be Murder.” Woolrich was one of the best American short story writers of the 20^th Century, a master of suspense. John Michael Hayes' adaptation is perfect, and I suspect it was shaped as much by the cast as it was by the necessities of the movie medium. Grace Kelly owns the role of Lisa – I think it's her best role ever. She's so believable, you know she lives beyond the story, having adventures well into her 90s.

Jimmy Stewart made several great movies with Alfred Hitchcock, including Vertigo, an almost-perfect movie. Vertigo is marred by an info-dump scene in which Kim Novak's character writes a letter explaining a plot point. The studio insisted this was necessary, because the executives who saw the first screening were too dumb to figure out what was going on. If Hitchcock could have lived long enough to see the “Director's Cut” videos that have since become the norm, I'm sure he would have insisted on releasing a version without that dopey letter scene in it.

Fortunately, Rear Window made it to the final cut without that sort of tampering. Complementing Kelly and Stewart is a cast of veteran character actors. Thelma Ritter shines as the visiting nurse, Wendell Corey makes you believe he's a police detective who also fought in WWII. The actors who play the neighbors whose antics are so fascinating really seem to be living the lives of those people. And Raymond Burr is one of the scariest movie killers I've ever seen.

Though Burr is a big guy, he's not an ax-wielding, snarling, macho kind of killer. He's clever, quiet, and sneaky. You don't get a hint of the violence he's capable of until someone actually confronts him. Even then, you get the feeling he'd rather not mix it up with anyone, he just wants to get rid of the multiple packages that used to be his wife and get on with his new life.

Stewart's character is also not a macho guy, though he has a lot of courage. He's never afraid to say what he thinks, but even if he didn't have a broken leg, you get the feeling Burr could have kicked his butt. That's what makes the final confrontation between the two so suspenseful.

One terrifying moment that stands out in Aliens is the scene where the door to the freight elevator opens. You suspect the Queen alien is crouched in that shadowy space, but you don't know for sure until you see the light glistening on those dreadful teeth. In Rear Window, the cinematographer manages to achieve that effect with Raymond Burr's glasses as he steps into Jeff's darkened apartment. Somehow, this nerd gear is transformed into something really creepy and threatening. Burr manages to make the salesman sound both pathetic and dangerous when he demands to know who Jeff is and what he wants.

Rear Window doesn't have a formal score, unless you count the title sequence (“Juke Box #6”), a delightful crime-jazz piece written by Franz Waxman in the heyday of the great movie scores. Otherwise, music plays on the radio, or is sung by drunken partygoers, or is tinkered together on a piano by a struggling songwriter in his rooftop studio. The song he's working on eventually becomes an integral part of the plot, and by the end of the movie it's “Lisa's Theme.”

The plot threads are woven into a satisfying conclusion, and Jeff and Lisa reach a believable accord in their relationship. The ending of the movie is every bit as perfect as the beginning. That's why Rear Window will always make my list of top ten greatest movies.