From Here To Eternity (1953)

Director: Fred Zinnermann

Cast: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. I mean, I’ve seen that one shot any number of times, but there’s a whole dynamic movie outside of those waves!

Did I Like It: And one that really puts into sharp relief just how stupid an undertaking Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor (2001) really was. The film might be a bit weighed down by the trappings of a Hollywood product of the era, but any film that tracks in the inevitability of a looming historical event and still manages to milk tension out of that dread is worth a look. Even in the film’s climactic act, the production does not cheap out on the scope of the attack. There’s a little bit of stock footage—and it works well enough—implemented, but there’s more than enough Zeroes actually being shot from the sky to make it all credible as if it was actually taking place in December of 1941.

People might get bent out of shape about Lancaster or Clift not winning the Best Actor Oscar that year, but I think this is another example of a great film clearing the big awards only for its best elements. The two leading men may be wielding the most dynamic acting craft then available for the screen, but they are fundamentally just accomplishing the pedestrian task of being romantic leading men.

One might even bring themselves—and apparently even the Chairman himself thought he was more deserving for later work—to say that Sinatra isn’t doing much more than being comic relief. But to watch a man whose entire iconic image is so far from a comedian thoroughly fight every instinct he must have is worthy of at least some hardware. The fact that nearly any time some one is singing in the film, he just stands there at the edge of the frame, likely seething at a bunch of amateurs taking the focus away from him only clinches the deal.

Act of Violence (1948)

Director:  Fred Zinnemann

Cast:  Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor

Have I Seen It Before: Never.

Did I Like It: It’s a perfectly formed movie for what it is, so much so that I worry I may not have any greater insight about it. It offers no easy answer as to who might be considered heroic and who might not, and it is sort of jarring to see anyone have the same kind of reservations and angst about fighting in World War II that one would assume didn’t enter American life until the second half of the 20th century, but you take all of that in from reading a below average plot summary of the film.

But presentation is worth more than what we sometimes think it is. Displayed in 35mm is automatically a feature that will make the film appointment viewing for me, I think my record is pretty clear on that. But something dawned on me during this viewing that hadn’t really crystalized in other 35mm screenings at Circle Cinema. Sometimes their projection is a little wonky. A reel will change, and the new reel kicks in not quite aligned with the screen, taking a moment to re-orient itself. A flaw, sure, but a charming one. This screening did remarkably well in this regard, but the frame was still not quite right. The top of the frame bled ever so slightly into the ceiling. When, as tends to happen in a black and white noir film, a wobbly light fixture dangles from the ceiling and the movie, and causes the light to dance inside the room. I look around in these moments and something dawns on me. When a film is projected in black and white, the theater itself is reflected in those same shades of grey (minus an emergency exit sign or two). The border between the unreal and the real became thinner in that moment. Even when a little wonky, film is just better than any digital format you might be able to find.

That all may sound like the film couldn’t hold on to my attention, but it did. The flaws in the presentation only ensnared me further into the film.