Best Film Ensembles of All Time Part III: 11-20 Orrin's list

This is Part III of a series in which Adam Spector of Adam's Rib and I count down out top 50 film ensembles of all time. Part I is here and Part II is here. Because Adam and I went into so much detail, we split this entry into two with the other entry here.

Orrin’s List: 20. X-Men 19. Key Largo 18. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World 17. Double Indemnity 16. Bridge on the River Kwai 15. Back to the Future 14. The Great Escape 13. North by Northwest 12. Dead Poets' Society 11. Judgment at Nuremberg

Adam's Response:

Orrin, now that are getting near the home stretch, I’m going movie by movie to make sure each one gets the attention it deserves.  Here’s your #11-20: 

11. Judgment at Nuremberg – You mentioned that you had reservations about the film, specifically how Montgomery Clift took advantage of Clift’s condition by casting him as the mentally disabled castration victim.  Certainly when you watch his performance, you can’t help but thinking of Clift’s 

real life struggles (with alcoholism and mental degeneration following an accident), but I disagree that Clift was somehow exploited.  When director Stanley Kramer offered him the part, Clift offered to do it for nothing.  He ended up agreeing to the minimum salary.  Clift often missed his lines, but Kramer told him he could ad-lib, and frequently reassured him.  According to a Clift biography, Spencer Tracy told him “Just look into my eyes and do it.  You’re a great actor and you understand this guy.  Stanley doesn’t care if you throw aside the precise lines.   Just do it.  Do it into my eyes and you’ll be magnificent.”  Clift did just that, focusing on Tracy during his performance.  Not only was Clift not exploited, but his castmates had his back, another way of demonstrating a strong ensemble.  Clift garnered his last Oscar nomination for this role.  Maximillian Schell was largely unknown in America going into the film but won the Oscar.  In fact this is one of the rare films with two Best Actor nominations: Schell and Tracy.  Throw in Marlene Dietrich, Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland, Richard Widmark, and a young William Shatner, and this film truly belongs on your list.  I may like your selection more than you do and am only upset that I didn’t include it.             

12. Dead Poets Society – An ensemble piece disguised as a star vehicle.  The film’s marketing focused solely on Robin Williams, as though this was a prep school version of Good Morning Vietnam. Williams is charismatic and funny, but the real stars here are the young men, led by Robert Sean Leonard, Josh Charles and a young Ethan Hawke.  These actors have a comfort and ease with each other that lends to their believability as classmates.   When I saw this in 1989 I didn’t realize that Norman Lloyd, who played the draconian headmaster, had worked in the Mercury Theater for Orson Welles and then later acted in two Hitchcock films.  Speaking of Hitchcock . . .  

13. North by Northwest – Ensembles don’t come to mind when considering Hitchcock’s films.  Many of them have characters who find themselves isolated, often only interacting with a small number of people.  North by Northwest may be an exception, even though the film’s signature scene is Cary Grant by himself running away from the plane.  Grant’s scenes with Eva Marie Saint sizzle with sexual chemistry.  James Mason serves as almost a mirror image of Grant, as though they were raised by the same parents but one turned bad.  Martin Landau gives his evil henchman so much more than what is on the page, even implying that he may be secretly in love with his boss.  Leo G. Carroll plays an American spymaster as the model of British efficiency.  Joyce Carroll Landis steals every scene she’s in as the overbearing, clueless mother (“Are you trying to kill my son?”)  Kudos, Orrin for digging deeper on this

14. The Great Escape – This is closer to what you traditionally think of as an ensemble film.  Effective mix of American (Steve McQueen, James Garner, James Coburn, Charles Bronson) and UK (Richard Attenborough, James Donald, Donald Pleasance, David McCallum) fitting for a World War II movie.

15. Back to the Future – Another one where I had to look twice, since I usually just think of Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd.  Still it’s Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson and Thomas F. Wilson who were funny and authentic as younger and older versions of the same character.  Wilson set the standard for playing mean, dumb bullies.  When Chuck Berry died earlier this year I also remembered Harry Waters, Jr. fine turn as Chuck’s fictional cousin Marvin Berry.   

16. Bridge on the River Kwai – This must be the World War II related section of your list, between this The Great Escape, and Nuremberg.  The film stands as a brilliant depiction of the madness that comes from war.  Still even though there’s a huge cast, the only ones that stand out are William Holden, Sessue Hayakawa, and of course Alec Guinness.  Guinness certainly deserved his Best Actor Oscar.  His scenes with Hayakawa work in part because they both let you see the grudging respect their characters have for each other underneath the enmity.  Just because it’s a great movie doesn’t always mean it has exceptional ensemble work.  

17. Double Indemnity – Case in point.  To this day, one of the archetype film noirs.  Exquisitely plotted, with crackling, biting dialogue.  Wilder is an underrated visual director, using light and shadow here to create an atmosphere of intrigue and eventually dread.   Still, I don’t remember anyone in the film besides Barbara Stanwyck, Fred McMurray, and Edward G. Robinson.   Yes, they are all at the top of their game.  Stanwyck remains the femme fatale that others are measured against.  But three standouts does not an ensemble make.    If we did that, why not Sleuth, with just Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine?  

18. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World – The film that proves that just because an ensemble looks promising on paper doesn’t make it work on the screen.    It’s a Who’s Who of the top 50s and 60s comedic talent: Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, Jonathan Winters, etc.  Plus Spencer Tracy.  Too bad the story doesn’t give them much to do that’s actually funny.  The film is freaking 3 hours and I maybe laughed twice during that time.  They don’t seem to work that well with each other either.    Also, how can you cast the Three Stooges and not have them do anything?  There’s a reason Stanley Kramer didn’t direct a comedy before or since. 

 

19. Key Largo – You rebounded with this pick.  The confined space where most of the story happens tightens the pressure and brings out the best in the fine cast.   This was the last Bogie-Bacall film, and is less focused on those two then their prior three.  Seeing Bogart and Edward G. Robinson go toe to toe is a treat.  Lionel Barrymore gives the film dignity and moral weight.  But it was Claire Trevor that won an Oscar.  She excelled at playing women weighed down by bad luck and bad choices. 

   

20. X-Men (2000) – A superhero movie here?  Yes, and it belongs.  Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen bring dramatic heft and gravitas to Professor X and Magneto.  Hugh Jackman became a star overnight through this film.  Then add in Anna Paquin (who already won an Oscar), and Halle Berry, win one who would soon.  Much of the fun comes from the byplay among the mutants.  Jackman and James Marsden have terrific chemistry as frenemies vying for Jean Grey’s love.  Among the humans, Bruce Davison, one of the most underrated character actors around, brings heart and vulnerability to what could have been a standard villain role.  Unlike some of the future installments where some of the actors got lost or overlooked, this one gave all of the key players moments to shine.

   

Orrin's Response:

Adam, you nailed my reasoning in many instances.

Dead Poets Society is not just about how well the film accomplishes the difficult feat of creating a young group of actors in chemistry, but think of how impressive it is to have  simultaneously discovered Ethan Hawke, Josh Charles and Robert Sean Leonard while they were all in their late teens. Similarly, you're correct that Key Largo for me is about the greatest of different generations sharing the screen as much as it is about the classic Bocall-Bogart and Bogart-Edward G. Robinson pairings at their best. While I’m in agreement with the critical consensus that this isn’t the best Bogart-Bacall pairing or the best gangster movie of all time, it’s a great film and holds a special place in my heart (my grandparents lived not too far from the hotel where this film is set) and I’m glad you share an appreciation.

I think we also agree that Hitchcock doesn't always have a focus on acting--the documentary Hitchcock/ Truffaut emphasized that he wasn't particularly fond of listening to or collaborating with actors-- but North by Northwest is archetypal as far as I'm concerned: Eva Marie Saint is the empowered beauty (more Halle Berry than Britt Ekland if we were to go for a James Bond analogy), Martin Laundau (a personal favorite) is the most memorable of henchmen, Cary Grant's abilities at reactive physical comedy made him the best of Hitchcock's fish-out-of-water heroes, and James Mason is so denobair as the villain.

As for some of the ones you disapprove of:

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The Bridge on the River Kwai is a film that earns a place this high on my list because of the performances of four actors: William Holden, as far as I’m concerned, is the most exciting actor of his generation (and if I ever contradict this in past or future discussions, you have permission to beat me with a cane). Every leading man from Jimmy Stewart to Henry Fonda to Gregory Peck had a certain screen persona that they used to carry them through most of their movies with the occasional variation (like Henry Fonda in How the West Was Won).  Holden had leading man charisma but you have absolutely no idea what you’re going to get with him. To see him acting alongside Mr. Chameleon himself, Alec Guinness (in a very focused role, no less), is quite a treat. Additionally, Geoffrey Horne plays a green-eyed private with a palpable sense of fear and naiveté about killing another person. In an epic war movie (particularly one with a British styling), I’ve never seen a character like this: Typically, soldiers are just about marching onwards and forwards for the Queen and all that. Lastly, how can you not appreciate Sessue Hayakawa?  As someone who’s always talking about minority representation (along with nearly everyone else in film criticism), there’s a great deal of history of East Asians treated abysmally on screen that’s been overlooked. What’s more Hayakawa wasn’t a foreign import who had great success in Asian cinema (like Ken Watanabe or Michelle Yeoh) before coming to Hollywood. He had been acting in films since 1914 and experienced a lot of the casting bigotry first hand. He is tremendous here alongside Guinness.

Back to the Future is primarily about the fact that the five leads--Christopher Lloyd, Michael J Fox, Thomas Wilson, Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover-- all do great, great work here that, as far as I know, has never been matched in any of their respective careers (although Wilson has a couple great stand-up clips). Whether you’re next greatest film ranges from Who Framed Roger Rabbit to Howard the Duck (sorry Lea Thompson for bringing that up), I get the sense that Robert Zemeckis really took the care to pick the absolute best actors for these parts. Evidence of this meticulousness is also reflected by how sacrificed much of the wiggle room in their budget by replacing Eric Stoltz after filming had commenced.

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As for Double Indemnity and It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, I’ll just concede they were bad picks because your arguments were strong enough to convince me otherwise. I remember Jean Heather and Tom Powers as the rest of the Dietrichson clan in Double Indemnity and the shady underworld figures that populate film noirs, but maybe you’re right that it’s too reliant on just those three people. I think that Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson are all extraordinary here, but maybe we should try to have a minimum of four here (you don’t want to exclude, say, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, do you?), and to be fair, Robinson and Stanwyck are great in A LOT of films. I think it’s a pretty awesome achievement that Kramer was able to get all those comic actors in one movie, but you make a good point that he doesn’t necessarily utilize that dearth of talent other than simply putting them in bit roles.

Let me close out with a couple additional questions: X-Men is a film I picked because not just the actors are great, but because it feels like a turning point to comic-book/superhero movies being taken seriously and that is precisely because of the ensemble. To me, the difference between putting say Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando in Superman and Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, and Patrick Stewart in X-Men is that, in the latter, the actors were taking their parts as seriously as a prestige film. Perhaps you might have a bigger familiarity with tent pole movies than myself. Is that an accurate assessment?

Adam's Last Words:

Orrin, I was critical of some of your picks, but not Back to the Future.  In fact, I agree with every point you made.   I was merely stating that I did not immediately think of it as an ensemble film.  When I saw it on your list, I looked back through a different lens, past Fox and Lloyd.  With Glover, Wilson, and Thompson, even smaller bits by James Tolkan as the uptight principal (“Slacker!”) and Harry Waters, Jr, who I mentioned before, this truly belongs.  

With The Bridge on the River Kwai, Horne’s performance did not register for me the way it did for you.  However, I am on board with Holden, who you will see later on my list.  Holden was a more modern leading man, perfect for the 1950s.  He would seem one way on the surface, but always had something going on underneath.  Holden had a certain mischievous charm that blended perfectly into a more weathered, worn performance when needed.  

Intriguing question about X-Men.  Certainly before Stewart and McKellen you had big name stars in comic book movies.  Besides Brando and Hackman, you had Jack Nicholson, Tommy Lee Jones, etc.  In many cases they were playing self-aware villains who were having fun and they acted accordingly.  Yes, Stewart and McKellen played their roles as if they were serious dramatic parts, and that’s in part because they were written that way.  Professor X is part teacher, part civil rights leader, while Magneto sees himself not as a bad guy but as a freedom fighter.  That’s not to take anything away from their performances.   They helped pave the way for the Dark Knight series.    

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You have a valid point about Wes Anderson’s work, which are all fine ensemble pieces.  You can make a case for any one of them, and I wouldn’t argue.  In fact, it may be too much of a good thing, where to avoid taking all of them and having it be a huge chunk of the list, I stuck to one.  Granted, that’s not solid logic, and you could justifiably ask me why I picked more than one from other directors but not Anderson.  All of his films have wide ranging ensembles, and he has developed a stellar stock company over the years (Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston).  I picked The Royal Tenenbuams for two reasons.  First, it features Gene Hackman’s last iconic performance.    Second, it had the widest and deepest cast.  Not just the big stars, although it had plenty of those – Huston, Murray, Wilson, Danny Glover, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow.  Also lesser known actors such as Anderson mainstay Kumar Pallana.  He performed when he was younger and then Anderson (re)discovered him in his 70s.   Pallana conveyed a sense of having seen everything, while also displaying terrific deadpan comic timing.