The Horse's Head

The Plot: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a billionaire weapons manufacturer for the US military, equally famous for his genius inventions and playboy lifestyle. While in Afghanistan to demonstrate his latest missiles with his friend Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Terrence Howard, for now), Stark is injured in an attack and captured by a terrorist group that wants him to build one of his missiles for them. Supported by fellow captive Dr. Ho Yinsen (Shaun Toub), Stark instead designs a technologically advanced suit of armor to escape. The experience is a life-changer for Stark, who vows that Stark Industries will cease making weapons, much to the dismay of company manager Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges). With the help of his assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), Stark continues to refine the suit, with an aim at using it to help civilians. The press dubs this mysterious new superhero Iron Man, a name – and a franchise – that sticks.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film “a superhero film that transcends and elevates the genre”, praising the work of Favreau, Downey, and the effects and production design teams. The write-up also includes a quote from Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who declares that the movie’s NFR standing proves that “it has stood the test of time”. Dude, it’s only been 15 years. Cool your jets.

But Does It Really?: It was only a matter of time before the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) made the National Film Registry (NFR), and as the one that started it all, “Iron Man” is a natural choice. I saw “Iron Man” for the first time in 2012, and it was odd all these years later re-watching this movie under the lens of “significant American film”, and equally weird trying to treat this as the stand-alone movie it would have been in 2008, rather than as a small part of a larger movie experience. That is, however, a point in favor of this film’s legacy: It changed how we watch movies, especially big potential franchises. On its own, “Iron Man” is a fun outing boosted by Robert Downey Jr.’s immediately likable performance. The film can be a bit slow-going at times, but ultimately its emphasis on Tony Stark rather than excessive world-building makes it more palatable for a wider audience (including this one with only a passing knowledge of Marvel). “Iron Man” succeeds at being a superhero origins movie that puts its characters first, and its inclusion in the NFR is – to quote another undying franchise – the first step into a larger world.

Shout Outs: Look closely when Pepper downloads the files from Tony’s computer: a document pertaining to Obadiah Stane is labeled “MSC Lebowski“.

Everybody Gets One: A USC film graduate and a lifelong Marvel fan, Kevin Feige joined Marvel Studios in 2000 and quickly rose in rank from associate producer to co-producer to President of production in 2007. During the early to mid-2000s Marvel had licensed out the film rights to its various characters to other studios (X-Men to Fox, Spider-Man to Sony, etc.) and wanted to make its own movies. Recognizing that Marvel still owned the film rights to its Avengers characters, Feige pitched an ambitious film project: multiple stand-alone films starring individual characters that would culminate in an Avengers film with everyone, creating a shared universe akin to the Marvel comics of the ’60s. Iron Man was selected first because Marvel had just gotten the film rights back from New Line Cinema. Also making their NFR debuts are director Jon Favreau (another self-professed Marvel geek), and actors Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and Terrence Howard.

Wow, That’s Dated: All of Iron Man’s Vietnam origins of the 1960s were transplanted to 2000s Afghanistan. Plus a reference to MySpace and a cameo by Jim Cramer of “Mad Money”.

Title Track: The Black Sabbath metal classic “Iron Man” plays during the end credits of this movie. For the record, the song had nothing to do with the character, as no one in the band had any knowledge of American comic books. Plus keep an ear out for the “Iron Man” animated series theme song a few times in the film.

Seriously, Oscars?: Second only to “The Dark Knight” at the box office, “Iron Man” received two Oscar nominations: Sound Editing and Visual Effects, losing to, respectively, “Dark Knight” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. Also worth noting that Robert Downey Jr. received an Oscar nomination that year not as Tony Stark, but rather for his supporting turn in “Tropic Thunder”; a performance that I assume hasn’t aged well at all.

• A reminder that Jon Favreau also directed “Elf”, and cast himself here in the supporting role of Tony’s bodyguard Happy Hogan.
• It’s so weird seeing Gwyneth Paltrow in this movie. Known for awards-bait period pieces in the ’90s, Paltrow seems out of her element playing a less-dimensional character in a modern superhero movie and being forced to keep up with Downey’s ad-libbing. On the plus side, Paltrow reportedly took the role because it filmed 15 minutes from her home, meaning she could be with her kids during the shoot. And I’m sure those paychecks helped get Goop off the ground.
• Shaun Toub doesn’t get the credit he deserves for his performance as Yinsen, the man that helps Tony Stark create the Iron Man suit and basically motivates Stark’s 180 towards good. In a movie with flashy effects and a big movie star at its core, Yinsen/Toub injects some much needed calmness into the proceedings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwYEjl_swNM

• Funny to think of Tony Stark as essentially a modern-day Scrooge; the heartless businessman who has a revelation that leads to a life of do-gooding. I’m sure if Dickins had lived long enough he would have turned Scrooge into some sort of superhero with an expanded universe and a cool suit.
• This character evolution/denouncement of war profiteering brought to you by Burger King: Have It Your Way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09KTGVpKN2U

• Jeff Bridges’ overall filmography tends to get overshadowed by The Dude, but you forget what range the man has. As Obadiah Stane, Bridges reminds us he can play both the warm father figure and the ruthless villain just as well as a stoner detective. I also love that the photo of younger Stane during the opening montage is Bridges from “Tucker: The Man and His Dream“; the closest that movie is ever getting to the NFR.
• Here’s how good Downey is: the man has great chemistry with robots. Watching Tony Stark have endearing banter with a silent mechanical arm is like watching Fred Astaire dance with a hat rack. His talent elevates everyone (and everything) around him.

• Shoutout to Paul Bettany as the voice of JARVIS, Tony’s AI butler. I don’t think anyone could have predicted that a two-hour recording session Bettany did as a favor for Jon Favreau would one day lead to his performance in Marvel’s surprisingly touching meditation on grief.
• Of course it isn’t a Marvel movie without a Stan Lee cameo. Marvel’s creator and public figurehead makes his NFR debut being mistaken for Hugh Hefner at a Stark Industries function.

• Everyone’s favorite ironic-in-hindsight line: Rhodes, upon seeing that Tony made an extra suit; “Next time, baby.” No offense to Terrence Howard, who I respect for stepping away from the sequels when offered a pay cut, but any role gets an upgrade when played by Don Cheadle.
• Stane’s Iron Monger is basically an evil version of The Iron Giant. Fun Fact: For most of the climactic fight sequence the Iron Monger suit is an actual suit! The legendary Stan Winston helped create the physical Iron Monger suit, one of his final film projects before his death in June 2008.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU4ho2se0xo

• In the end, “Iron Man” is basically the pilot episode for all that will come later. They’re still working out the kinks of a “Marvel movie”, but you see the potential. Oh, and there’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. reference at the end for anyone who cares about that.

Legacy

• “Iron Man” marked the beginning of what is now called Phase One of the MCU. Over the next four years audiences got “The Incredible Hulk”, “Iron Man 2”, “Thor”, and “Captain America: The First Avenger”, with all of them (plus Black Widow and Hawkeye) teaming up to fight evil in 2012’s “The Avengers”. While the MCU is still going strong over a decade later, it’s maybe going a little too strong, as the increasingly complicated mythology and abundance of media has caused a bit of viewer fatigue. Personally I tapped out sometime after “Civil War”, though I remember liking “Black Panther”.

Further Viewing: The other 2008 Marvel movie: “The Incredible Hulk”…the Edward Norton one, not the Ang Lee one. Released one month after “Iron Man”, the film features a cameo by Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, the first bit of connective tissue to the MCU. It’s never explained, however, why Edward Norton turns into Mark Ruffalo after this movie. 

And with that unnecessarily condescending Edward Norton reference (déjà vu), we round out Year Seven of The Horse’s Head. We’ll be taking a breather for the holidays, but there will be an update once the Class of 2023 is announced, with new posts resuming in January. As always, thank you for continuing to check out this blog and- wait there’s another scene after the credits? Is that Samuel L. Jackson? OH MY GOD HE’S NICK FURY THEY’RE DOING THE AVENGERS THEY’RE DOING THE AVENGERS AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

NOTE: The only surviving version of “The Cheat” is a 1918 re-release of the movie. More on this version’s importance later on.

The Plot: Socialite Edith Hardy (Fannie Ward) loves spending money on her extravagant lifestyle, even though that money belongs to her husband Richard (Jack Dean), who can’t pay off her debts until his stock investment comes through. Acting on a hot tip from one of Richard’s colleagues, Edith places $10,000 raised by her local Red Cross chapter for Belgian refugees into a new stock that will double her money. The next day, Edith learns the tip was a fake and that all her money is lost. Horrified, Edith goes to Japanese Burmese ivory merchant Hishuru Tori Haka Arakau (Sessue Hayakawa) for help. Haka agrees to loan Edith the money, in exchange for a sexual dalliance the next day. What follows is a small melodrama about three people directed by the man who will one day bring us epic spectacles with a cast of thousands!

Why It Matters: The NFR says the film features “some of the silent era’s most potent plot twists and elaborate production design”. The write-up also praises Sessue Hayakawa’s “subtle yet menacing” performance.

But Does It Really?: I didn’t realize until researching this film how underrepresented Cecil B. DeMille is on the NFR; with only this and “The Ten Commandments” making the cut (plus his acting cameo in “Sunset Boulevard“). DeMille is such an important name in the history of American film that one of his early successes should be on the list, but “The Cheat” feels like an odd choice, especially considering how early into the NFR it made the cut. “The Cheat” is the kind of moralistic melodrama I’ve come to expect from the 1910s; hardly the kind of film I’d associate with Cecil B. DeMille, and certainly not my first choice to represent him. “The Cheat” is one of those NFR movies that seems to have skipped the line; it’s deserving of its NFR status for sure, but more as the kind of “I guess” choice the NFR would make in the 2010s after selecting all of DeMille’s essentials, and certainly not in the same class as “It Happened One Night” and “Godfather Part II“.

Everybody Gets One: By 1915, Fannie Ward had been a popular stage actress for many years, her perpetually youthful looks giving her an extended life as a leading lady. It was also around this time that Fannie married her second husband, fellow actor Jack Dean, and the two accepted an offer to come to Hollywood and make films with Lasky Players. “The Cheat” was the second film for both Fannie Ward and Jack Dean, and their earliest surviving film.

Wow, That’s Dated: Adjusted for inflation, the $10,000 dollars Edith owes would be over $300,000 today. Those poor Belgians.

• In 1921, French composer Camile Erlanger’s opera based on “The Cheat” – “La Fortaiture” – premiered in Paris (sadly, this was a posthumous premiere; Erlanger died in 1919). “La Fortaiture” is the first opera to be based on a film scenario, making “The Cheat” indirectly responsible for whatever movie turned musical is on Broadway right now. Let’s see, right now we’ve got “Aladdin”, “Lion King“, “Back to the Future“, “Some Like It Hot“, “Moulin Rouge!”…and coming up we’re getting “The Notebook” and “Days of Wine and Roses”. What a legacy.
• Neither Fannie Ward or Jack Dean’s film careers lasted too much longer after “The Cheat”, though they stayed married until Dean’s death in 1950. As for Sessue Hayakawa, he became the film’s breakout star, but an increasing typecast as a sexually dangerous heavy (along with rampant anti-Asian sentiment in Hollywood) led to his departure from American film, returning for such later classics as “The Bridge on the River Kwai” and “Swiss Family Robinson”.
• But of course, the biggest career boost from “The Cheat” was for Cecil B. DeMille, who spent the next 40 years producing bigger and bigger movies, culminating in his final, most famous movie: 1956’s “The Ten Commandments”.

Further Viewing: A selection of DeMille’s better known titles that have yet to make the Registry: “The Ten Commandments” (the 1923 version), “The King of Kings” (the 1927 version), “Cleopatra” (the 1934 Claudette Colbert version), “Samson and Delilah” (the 1949 version), and “The Greatest Show on Earth” (the…only version).

September 26^th 1991: The National Film Registry announces its next (and potentially final – more on that later) batch of 25 films for induction. Having just finished watching the last of these 25 for this blog, it’s time to reflect on them as a collective viewing experience. Once again, here is your NFR Class of 1991:

With this roster of films, we start to see the NFR make a transition of sorts. There’s still plenty of iconic heavy hitters in this round (“King Kong”, “Frankenstein”, “2001”, etc.), but we also start getting more obscure films from outside of Hollywood (“Tevya”, “Blood of Jesus”, “David Holzman’s Diary”). We also start seeing our first repeats, with Chaplin, Keaton, and Lubitsch each getting another film on the list. Most noteworthy for me are films like “I Am a Fugitive…”, “Place in the Sun”, and “Gigi” that may have been obvious choices in 1991 but whose reputations have faded over the last 32 years and probably wouldn’t crack anyone’s top 75 today. Proof that any film’s status as a classic isn’t a permanent designation.

The Plot: George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) hitchhikes from Chicago to upstate New York to work for his wealthy uncle Charles (Herbert Heyes) at his factory. Lonely and isolated from the high society of his family, George begins a romantic relationship with his homely but loving co-worker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters). When George is finally invited to an Eastman social event, he immediately falls for glamorous socialite Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). The two begin their own affair as George tries to call things off with Alice, only to learn that Alice is pregnant. With Alice threatening to expose his affair to the Eastmans, George does the honorable thing and…plots to murder Alice by drowning her in the middle of a lake? Well this certainly took a turn.

Why It Matters: This is definitely one of the NFR’s weirder write-ups. There’s the usual plot recap and production rundown, but then it goes on a tangent about how modern audiences find the film “slow-paced and lacking in depth or social relevance.” I’ll never understand when the NFR doesn’t support its own choices.

But Does It Really?: “A Place in the Sun” is one of those movies where I get why it’s on the list, but I also get why it’s not as revered as it once was. Every individual element of the film works; the direction, the cinematography, the performances, but overall it just didn’t make a collective whole for me. What was praised as a quality drama in 1951 comes across as a muddled melodrama in 2023. “A Place in the Sun” is on the list as an Important Movie of its day and its NFR standing is warranted, but over the decades it continues to lose its “classic movie” luster. Its “place in the sun”, if you will. You won’t? Okay, I’m sorry.

Title Track: Paramount did not like the idea of another remake of “An American Tragedy”, seeing as their 1931 film version was such a bomb that even Theodore Dreiser disowned it. Part of Paramount’s compromise with George Stevens was that his version couldn’t be titled “An American Tragedy”, and Stevens’ associate producer Ivan Moffat successfully pitched the title “A Place in the Sun”.

Seriously, Oscars?: “A Place in the Sun” received nine Oscar nominations, second only to “A Streetcar Named Desire” in total nomination tally. “Place” tied eventual Best Picture winner “An American in Paris” for most wins with six, including Best Director, Screenplay, and Edith Head’s fourth (of an eventual eight) win for Costume Design. Clift lost Best Actor to Humphrey Bogart in “The African Queen” and in a definite no-contest competition, Shelley Winters lost Best Actress to Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois.

• Shoutout to Anne Revere in the brief but pivotal role of George’s religious mother Hannah. A proud member of the Communist party and equally proud critic of the House Un-American Activities Committee, Revere was blacklisted in 1950 (“Place” was filmed in 1949) and wouldn’t appear in another movie until 1970’s “Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon”.
• The scene of George and Angela professing their love for each other feels like the quintessential Classic Hollywood love scene: big close-ups of the stars (with Liz being filmed with the softest lens) as Franz Waxman’s score swells in the background. It’s a stirring cinematic moment; now if I only gave a damn about any of these characters.

• The stigma of illegitimacy brushes up against the Production Code in the scene where Alice visits her doctor and the two imply a conversation about abortion without ever directly saying the word. The Code’s one mandate about the scene was changing Alice’s line “Doctor, you’ve got to help me” to “Somebody’s got to help me.” The whole scene is so subtle and oblique that I had to double-check that they were in fact talking about abortion.
• My favorite unintentionally funny moment in the movie is the dramatic music cue when George and Alice see that the courthouse they want to get married in is closed for Labor Day. Speaking of, does this scene make “A Place in the Sun” the quintessential Labor Day movie? I can’t think of any other movie in which a major plot point happens during/because of Labor Day.
• [Spoilers] Alice’s drowning in the lake is a suspenseful moment, though maybe not as impactful as it should be. I feel like George has given her enough red flags that she should know getting on a boat with him is a terrible idea, no matter how much she still loves him. Also I’m confused: I thought Shelley Winters was an excellent swimmer.

• Oh right, Raymond Burr is in this. It’s no wonder that Burr’s dramatic turn here as a rather theatrical District Attorney would one day win him the plum role of Perry Mason.
• Burr’s opening statement in the court claims that George committed an act that has “broken every commandment”. Every commandment? I counted three, maybe four if you consider George’s love for Angela a form of coveting.
• The movie and novel are both based on a real-life murder in 1906 which, like this movie, ended with the boyfriend being convicted and sentenced to the electric chair. And this is in 1908; the electric chair hadn’t been around that long. Hell, electricity hadn’t been around that long! Anyway, my point being that if you know anything about the source material you know that this will not end well for George. The one upside to this ending is that the Reverend who visits George in his cell is a rare substantial on-camera role for veteran voice actor Paul Frees! You expect the Reverend to start talking about “Moose and Squirrel” or “999 happy haunts” at any moment.

This is a revised and expanded version of my original “Sherlock Jr.” post, which you can read here.

The Plot: Buster Keaton stars as a well-meaning, unnamed fellow working as a film projectionist at his local movie house. His attempts to woo his crush (Kathryn McGuire) are often thwarted by the town’s “local sheik” (Ward Crane), who goes as far as to frame Buster for the stolen watch of the girl’s father (Joe Keaton). While on the job, Buster falls asleep and dreams that he can enter the movie being played, in which he is transformed into the famous detective Sherlock Jr. His attempt to locate some missing pearls leads to the kind of inventive gag work that we now think of as classic Buster Keaton.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film no less than “a comedic masterpiece that both acknowledges and embraces the cinematic medium.”

But Does It Really?: Man oh man is this movie great. While “The General” is the best overall film in Keaton’s filmography, “Sherlock Jr.” is the most fun, and my personal favorite. With its flawless stunt work and downright magical special effects, there’s a point where even a movie buff like me stops trying to figure out how they did it and just sits back in awe of Keaton’s talents. And he delivers all of this in under 45 minutes! More movies should aspire to be as funny and concise as “Sherlock Jr.”; a perfectly constructed movie comedy and an absolute no-brainer for NFR inclusion.

Wow, That’s Dated: Mainly the profession of film projectionist. How is walking into your dream movie affected by film’s transition to digital?

Title Track: Keaton began work on this film under the title “The Misfit”, changing it to match his film-within-a-film character some time during previews.

• Once Keaton enters the film-within-a-film, the real movie magic takes place. The jump cuts as Keaton is transported to a variety of locations is truly astonishing to watch. That being said, I guess this movie was a montage of establishing shots before Keaton showed up.

• I didn’t realize “Airplane!” stole the “walking through a mirror” gag from this movie. Now that I think about it, there’s a lot of stuff in the movie “Zero Hour” that also gets copied in “Airplane!” What kind of a two-bit operation is this?
• Sherlock Jr.’s assistant is named Gillette, a nod to William Gillette, the silent film actor best known at the time for playing Sherlock Holmes. Gillette is also described as “A Gem who was Ever-Ready in a bad scrape.” Har-de-har-har. Side note: With his seemingly endless supply of disguises and fake mustaches, Gillette is the Gene Parmesan of detective assistants.
• The bit where Buster disappears into the suitcase being held by Gillette in his peddler disguise is apparently an old vaudeville trick. This is twice now that I have looked up how exactly that stunt was pulled off, and I still don’t understand how it was done.

• The third act chase scene, which sees Buster on the handlebars of a runaway motorcycle, is perfect. Even up-to-now-ignored leading lady Kathryn McGuire gets to do a pratfall, as she topples into the backseat as a car takes off. Keaton recognizes that the real meat of the movie is the film-within-a-film, and once it reaches its conclusion, the real-world resolution is short and sweet.