Nights of Cabiria -- 1957

This was an odd little film in regards to structure and whatnot. It followed a woman who, in the first scene, had her purse stolen and was tossed into the river to drown. She was rescued and the first thing she displayed was a bad attitude. Turns out that Cabiria is (never explicitly stated) a prostitute and she hangs with other prostitutes who live in her area of town and not always in a house. Cabiria is not proud of her life, but she is content with what she has. Through these episodes, we learn about her and what she does want out of life.

It took me a while to figure out what was good about this film because it seemed to drag on for awhile without much of anyhting happening, but this film was all about character and developing this girl of Cabiria. This development was never totally clear until the end when we got a repeat performance of the beginning and our heart gets torn out of our chest. Turns out if you're paying attention, you do care about Cabiria and what happens to her.

Not a 100% satisfying ending, but it leaves you thinking about Cabiria, and what she's going to do next.

Hellcats of the Navy -- 1957

So I've never sat down and watched a war movie before, particularly a submarine one. The reason I watched this one is because I realized I'd never seen a Ronald Reagan movie, and this one happens to be the only one to have both Ronald and Nancy Reagan (as Nancy Davis) in it twenty three years before they took over the White House as President and First Lady.

The plot is rather simple. It involves a submarine captain (Ronald Reagan) and his first officer as they navigate their submarine through the waters around Japan during World War II. Early on, the captain is forced to abandon one of his men when a Japanese destroyer starts breathing down their necks and the first officer believes he did it because that person was going out with the captain's ex-girl. The captain insisted that what he did was in the best interest of the ship and crew, but it serves to create that line of tension between them. There's some development as the captain reunites with his girl (Nancy Davis) and he reiterates the reason he didn't want a relationship with her before the war was because he wanted a "wife and children" not a "widow and orphans." Seems reasonable. After a daring move, the captain's sub is blown up and he and his first officer are given another sub to take on a final big mission. They go through it, and we get our inevitable irony before a big happy ending.

While the film sports decent characters and an interesting enough situation, it didn't really have much in the way of outward plot tension. The subject is war, and though we occasionally had the Japanese closing in, we never really felt it. I'm not sure if it was to detach from them, but we only had one image of any Japanese soldiers; the rest was implied or just boats. It never served to really grip us or drag us into the story. It just plodded along and everything continued to work out just fine.

Maybe that was the point. In the end, it felt like a bit of war propaganda even though World War II had been over for 12 years at that point. Maybe it was assurance that we did the right thing. It opened up with an "admiral" voice over explaining the situation and the heroes involved, and closed with titles congratulating those involved. It was actually a bit corny.

So I don't know how realistic a depiction of war it really was. I mean, we did lose a sub as well as some of the men on board, but we never got the emotional impact of that loss, since we never saw any reactions to this other than from Reagan who simply described what happened. But for a film about a conflict, the conflict was limited, and the emotional impact was stifled. I thnk it could have been a lot better if they allowed that part of the story to open up, but maybe that would have been too much for the public to handle at the time. Perhaps so close to the end of the War, people still wanted to feel good about it and minimize their own emotional scars.

I can grant this for the time being, but it destroys any staying power this film ever hoped to have as fifty years after its release, its only claim to fame is the reason I watched it. As a basic film, it only stands as mediocre; not bad, mind you, just mediocre.

Witness For The Prosecution -- 1957

And again, we come in with a year that has paired movies. 1957 was the year another court play adaptation came out: 12 Angry Men. That one is definitely a smaller scale, but our tendency to have genre films come out in pairs goes back years. This one had no disappointment to offer within its frames, and even ended with a word from the theatre management requesting the audience not to divulge the secret of the ending for the enjoyment of your friends. Far be it from me to deny the request of the 1957 theatre management. This comes as no surprise, really, as the final five minutes of the film contains no less than 3 twists.

The story, itself, is fairly simple. Based on an Agatha Christie play, the film follows the trial of a man accused of killing a rich, old woman who had taken a liking to him. While there appears to be no initial motive, one comes out in that day's paper showing that the woman had recently rewritten her will to bequeath her 80,000 pound estate to the man (and back then, that was a lot of money). Throughout, we get lots of backstory of the man, his wife, and the old woman to show how everything came to pass, but the man maintains his innocence about the killing stating he got home before the murder occurred.

The big question mark is his wife, who says she is repeating what her husband told her to say about when he got home, etc. We learn that under British law, a wife cannot testify against her husband, and the lawyer says that the testimony of a loving wife carries little weight. So what happens? The title character turns out to be the wife who is proven to be married to someone else in Germany, not in love with her supposed husband on trial, and then surprises everyone by telling a completely different story than she told the police -- one that implicates the man in the murder. And that's where I leave you.

The characters are very well developed here, and the relationship between the lawyer and his nurse is nothing short of hilarious. It's a drama by nature, but it doesn't stop at any chance of grabbing a laugh from the audience, and I found myself laughing out loud at regular intervals at the antics and audacity of some of the characters. Even the judge uttered some deadpan lines that were very funny in the situations.

The plot was meticulously constructed and interest was maintained throughout the potentially most boring part of the movie: the trial. Since the characters were setup so well, we just felt like we were watching people we knew go into a hard situation, and we watched their idiosyncrasies play out in this stressful environment. Without the development of the characters, the trial would have been beyond boring, but as it was, it was well done and interesting.

This is a very easy film to watch and very enertaining despite its simplicity. It has some good, well rounded characters with individuality and personality that constantly comes through within its plot. When all truths are revealed in the end, it is both shocking and anticipated, but ultimately satisfying and the only way it could have gone. Very excellent film.