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.
