The Horse's Head

The Plot: Dante Hicks (Brian O’Halloran) is called in on his day off to cover a shift at the Quick Stop Groceries convenience store in Leonardo, New Jersey. The day proceeds normally, with Dante receiving visits from his girlfriend Veronica Loughran (Marilyn Ghigliotti), and his best friend Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) who works at RST Video next door. But as the day wears on, Dante’s luck gets increasingly worse: interacting with a number of bizarre customers, receiving the news that his ex-girlfriend Caitlin Bree (Lisa Spoonauer) is engaged, and trying to ward off Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) who are not-so-discreetly conducting their drug dealing business in front of the Quick Stop. And from these humble beginnings comes the crass, clever, pop-culture infused, jersey-clad work of Kevin Smith.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film “hilarious, in-your-face, [and] bawdy-yet-provocative”. The rest of the write-up is a rundown of Kevin Smith, as well as a lengthy blurb from Roger Ebert’s review of the film.

But Does It Really?: As I said the day the Class of 2019 was announced: “Oh for the love of— who put Kevin Smith on the list?”. At first glance, “Clerks” is an odd choice for the National Film Registry, but upon further inspection, its inclusion checks off a lot of boxes. Like many other NFR entries, “Clerks” is an era-defining hit that put its filmmaker on the map, and spawned a franchise and cult following that continues decades after the original film. On its own, “Clerks” is crude (in every sense of the word), but makes up for its guerrilla filmmaking aesthetic with sharp dialogue that captures the existential banality of working customer service. While I’ve never had anything for or against Kevin Smith, this viewing of “Clerks” made me appreciate his place in our movie landscape, and while I have mixed feelings about the final film, I have no objections to “Clerks” making the NFR cut.

Shout Outs: The most iconic scene in the movie comes from Dante and Randal’s conversation about “Return of the Jedi” (with Dante calling “Empire Strikes Back” the superior film). We also get a “Jaws” parody and, thanks to several shots inside the video store, at least 21 other NFR movies available to rent on VHS, from “2001: A Space Odyssey” to “A League of Their Own”.

Everybody Gets One: Hailing from Red Bank, New Jersey, Kevin Smith was inspired to become a filmmaker after seeing Richard Linklater’s “Slacker”, which made Smith realize he could make a movie locally without dealing with Hollywood studios. Smith attended Vancouver Film School for four months before dropping out and starting production on his own movie based on his experience working at Quick Stop Groceries in Leonardo, an unincorporated community near Red Bank. Oh, and like his main characters, Smith was 22 years old when he made “Clerks”. Take that, Orson Welles!

Wow, That’s Dated: Mainly the fact that Randal works at a video rental store. If I were Randal I wouldn’t be so smug when a customer vows never to return.

Seriously, Oscars?: No Oscar nods for “Clerks”, but it did receive three Independent Spirit nominations, including Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay. “Clerks” lost both of these awards to David O. Russell’s “Spanking the Monkey”, a title that somehow isn’t one of the adult movies Randal lists off.

• This movie is so aggressively ‘90s. There’s something about disenchanted young Gen-Xers rattling off pop culture references that encapsulates this era of filmmaking so succinctly. Between this and “Pulp Fiction” (also released by Miramax around the same time as “Clerks”), its feels like independent filmmaking finally found its voice in 1994.
• This is your reminder that there is now a movie on the NFR in which “snowballing” is discussed. If you haven’t seen this movie, please don’t Google that.
• I’m so used to seeing Jay and Silent Bob in bigger movies (and in color) that it’s weird to see them here as supporting characters in a low-budget black-and-white movie. On a related note, Kevin Smith has somehow not aged in 30 years.

• Even at 22, Kevin Smith knew how to make a movie. It’s all rudimentary, but like many an independent filmmaker, you can sense Smith’s love of the game. In addition to writing, directing, producing, and acting, Smith co-edited the film with co-producer Scott Mosier. Given the confident rhythm of the editing, you get the sense that the film wasn’t saved in the edit, but rather enhanced by it, particularly the well-timed cuts that take us from one vignette to the next.
• Multiple actors pull double-duty in this film, but shoutout to Walt Flanagan who shows up as four different minor characters throughout the movie. Flanagan kept getting parts when their original actors flaked on production, and I didn’t realize all four characters were played by the same actor until Flanagan’s name kept popping up in the end credits.

• Despite my issues with “Clerks”, I must admit I laughed out loud quite a bit during my viewing. My favorite line in the movie is Randal declaring, “This job would be great if it wasn’t for the fucking customers”. I’ve said very similar things throughout my own customer service experience. Other lines I found funny include Dante’s refrain of “I’m not supposed to be here today,” and the running gag about the store smelling like shoe polish.

• Of all of this movie’s low-budget hacks, my favorite is the sweater that Rick the trainer is wearing that completely covers his arms. Just take our word for it: He’s ripped.
• Speaking of low-budget filmmaking: How do you stage a fight in a real convenience store without damaging any property? The answer: Not well.
• The film’s ending feels abrupt, but there’s a reason for that. As Dante is closing Quick Stop for the night, he was originally going to be shot and killed by someone robbing the store. Kevin Smith based this sudden downer of an ending on the final scenes from “Do the Right Thing”, though he admitted later that he wrote it because he “didn’t know how to end a film.” It was definitely the right call to cut this: As much as I was let down by the film’s anticlimactic ending, I would rather be confused by its suddenness than depressed by its tragic tonal shift.

• There have been two attempts at a “Clerks” TV series. A pilot was developed in 1995 by Touchstone Television without Kevin Smith’s involvement, but was deemed awful by all involved and never picked up. Smith was directly involved with “Clerks: The Animated Series”, which was quickly canceled by ABC in 2000 after airing only two of the six produced episodes.

• The Quick Stop seen in “Clerks” in still standing, and has definitely leaned into its status as a famous filming location. The RST Video next door, unsurprisingly, closed decades ago, and is currently being used for storage. Attempts to reopen RST Video around 2019 seem to have fallen by the wayside.

• And finally: “Clerks” is one of the rare NFR movies to inspire another movie about its production.“Shooting Clerks” was written and directed by Christopher Downie, who would go on to lead the grassroots Twitter campaign that eventually got “Clerks” into the Registry, with the NFR announcing that “Clerks” received the most public nominations in 2019. Well movie geeks, your voice was heard. Happy now?

The Plot: In 1880s London, newly married Gregory and Paula Anton (Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman) move into the townhouse of Paula’s Aunt Alice, who was mysteriously murdered 10 years earlier. While everything starts well for the couple, Gregory becomes more possessive of Paula as time goes on, to the point of keeping her in the house all day and not admitting visitors. Gregory implies that Paula is going crazy and dismisses all of her concerns, especially her claim that the house gaslights start dimming whenever Gregory goes away at night. Scotland Yard Inspector Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotten) becomes suspicious of Gregory’s behavior and reopens the investigation of Alice’s murder, discovering many secrets along the way, as well as a new term for psychological abuse.

Why It Matters: The NFR praises the film for being “as suspenseful as the day it was made”, singling out Cukor’s direction, Bergman’s “spellbinding performance”, and the longevity of the term “gaslighting”.

But Does It Really?: In any other time, “Gaslight” would have made the NFR solely for its standing as a classic movie thriller. But no, we live in a time where “gaslighting” has crossed-over into the mainstream, and we have to give the film its due for originating the term. Future historical context aside, “Gaslight” holds up very well after all these years, with genuinely suspenseful moments aided by Cukor’s taut direction and lead performances by Boyer and especially Bergman. “Gaslight” is still in the “minor classic” category, but its recent resurgence (for better or worse) has helped make this film an NFR no-brainer.

Everybody Gets One: Despite his extensive Classic Hollywood resume, this is the only NFR appearance for Charles Boyer. A leading stage actor in his native France, Boyer pivoted to film in the 1920s, first in uninteresting supporting roles and later romantic leading roles with the advent of sound. A trip to Hollywood in 1930 found Boyer getting work with MGM and Paramount, often appearing in both the English and French language versions of the same film! Among his most famous roles was jewel thief Pepe Le Moko in 1938’s “Algiers”, a performance that served as the inspiration for Looney Tunes’ Pepé Le Pew.

Title Track: The original play was titled “Gas Light” (two words) when it premiered in England, but for unknown reasons the title was changed when it performed in America: first as “Five Chelsea Lane” in Los Angeles in 1941, and then “Angel Street” on Broadway later that same year. Following the play’s stateside success, MGM bought the film rights, with one of the conditions being that the film retain the play’s original title (albeit as one word instead of two).

Seriously, Oscars?: At the 1945 Oscars, “Gaslight” received seven nominations, including Best Picture. Although the film lost most of its awards to “Going My Way”, it did walk away with two wins: Best Art Direction (Black-and-White) and Best Actress for Ingrid Bergman, the first of her three eventual wins. Coincidentally, when Bergman won Best Actress, she was in the middle of filming “The Bells of St. Mary’s” — the sequel to “Going My Way”.

• [Spoiler? Maybe?] One thing that’s confusing me: Are we supposed to know out the gate that Gregory is the murderer? Like, I get that we obviously shouldn’t empathize with him given his treatment of Paula, but did this movie intend to play its hand that early? The reveal of Gregory’s motives is a bit more gradual in the play, and there is still a bit of mystery regarding that in this film; I guess I thought they would draw it out longer. I wouldn’t be surprised if the studio mandated Gregory’s intentions be moved up to the beginning, avoiding the kind of moral ambiguity that was frowned upon in the Hays Code era.
• On a related note, this movie gave me some serious “Rebecca” vibes. Both films are period pieces about a newly married woman, her husband’s mysterious past, and a deceased woman who haunts everything (metaphorically). I’m not the only one to compare these two films: critic Emanuel Levy includes them in a sub-genre of movie dubbed “Don’t Trust Your Husband”, which includes such other films of the era as “Suspicion”, “Notorious”, and “The Spiral Staircase”.
• One addition I found a bit jarring: the Anton’s nosy neighbor Miss Bessie Thwaites, played by British acting legend and MGM contract player Dame May Whitty. There is some comic relief in the original play, but it’s much more subdued and…British. Having this proto-Mrs. Kravitz pop in throughout the movie feels like another Hollywood diluting of the source material, as well as a supreme waste of Dame May’s talents.
• The Anton’s Cockney maid Nancy is none other than Dame Angela Lansbury in her film debut! Lansbury arrived in America with her family in 1942 to escape the Blitz in London, and she landed “Gaslight” (and an MGM contract) thanks to family friend John Van Druten, one of this film’s screenwriters. In only a few scenes, Lansbury gives us a sample platter of her many talents: foreboding drama, playful comedy, and even a song! No wonder multiple reviews singled her out as a promising newcomer.

• Side note: Angela Lansbury was 17 when she began filming, and a scene of Nancy smoking a cigarette had to be postponed until Angela turned 18 during production. 
• The gaslighting begins almost immediately, and as tough as it is to watch, Bergman and Boyer play their sides expertly; Boyer in particular showcasing some excellent restraint in his performance. According to Ingrid Bergman, despite their on-screen relationship, she and Boyer got along well during filming.

• Shoutout to the film’s cinematographer, MGM staple Joseph Ruttenberg. At a time when film noir was permeating the art form but hadn’t been labeled as such yet, “Gaslight” follows the genre’s aesthetics, with shots of shadows on the wall enhancing the film’s suspense. Ruttenberg also makes it a point to keep the gas lamps in frame, even when the scene doesn’t call attention to them.
• Another major change from stage to screen: In the original play, the third lead is G.W. Rough, an older British detective. For this film, Rough becomes Brian Cameron, a young American working with Scotland Yard. Once again, I assume this alteration was to make the film more palatable to an American audience. I couldn’t find anything to confirm if MGM wanted Cotten for the part or if he was thrown in as part of their deal with Selznick. Either way, he works well for the film, so I have no objections.
• “Gaslight” includes one of my biggest pet peeves in old movies: rear projection walking shots. It’s always so jarring. Like, you couldn’t just film two people walking in an actual park? You had to do it in studio on some sort of treadmill?
• “You’re not going out of your mind. You’re slowly and systematically being driven out of your mind. If only there was a term for that…”

• [Semi-Spoiler] After almost two hours of tension and paranoia, Paula’s final confrontation with Gregory is such a relief. She finally has the upper hand on her husband and it is wonderful. This triumphant climax is slightly undercut by the ending, which tacks on an implied relationship between Paula and Brian, topped off with one more punchline from Dame May Whitty. What is happening?

• Some movies have an iconic scene or a quotable line, but“Gaslight” has made a huge impact on our culture with just one word. The use of “gaslighting” as a term for psychological manipulation can be traced back as early as the 1950s, with many a TV show referring to “the ‘Gaslight’ treatment”. Medical essays started to use “gaslight” as a clinical term around the 1970s, and its usage saw a massive surge in 2016, a newfound popularity that has continued for the last decade. Hmmm, I wonder what happened in 2016?

Further Viewing: MGM’s “Gaslight” was the second film adaptation of the play; the first was made in 1940 by British National Films. When MGM bought the American film rights, there was a rumor that the studio had also purchased the 1940 “Gaslight” and destroyed all prints. This turned out to be false, as the British “Gaslight” began airing on TV in the 1950s, and is still widely available for viewing. The British “Gaslight” hews closer to the original play, and is an overall more streamlined and subtle version of the American film. Side note: To avoid confusion with the MGM “Gaslight”, the British original was re-titled “Angel Street” when it arrived stateside.

December 16^th 2002: The Library of Congress announces 25 more films added to the National Film Registry, bringing the total to 350 films. With all 25 films finally under my belt, let’s take a look back at the NFR Class of 2002:

Star Theatre (1901): “time-lapse photography is neat, and someone had to introduce it to the American mainstream.”

Wild and Woolly (1917): “[Douglas] Fairbanks is entertaining, but we’ve already got three of his later iconic movies on the list.”

Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925): “impressive as an exercise in translating a very wordy play into a much more visual film.”

Theodore Case Sound Test: Gus Visser and His Singing Duck (1925): “technically it has historical significance, but…there weren’t any other films to choose?”

From Stump to Ship (1930): “Thanks to this 30-minute documentation, I feel wholly qualified to be a 1930s logger”.

Punch Drunks (1934): “checks all the boxes you want from a Stooges short”.

Melody Ranch (1940): “a perfect encapsulation of the all-in-good-fun type of movies [Gene] Autry specialized in.”

La Perla [The Pearl] (1947): “Not a classic, but not a relic of its time either.”

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952): “a well-made tale of corrupt Old Hollywood”

This Is Cinerama (1952): “essentially the birth of the widescreen movie as we know it.”

All My Babies: A Midwife’s Own Story (1953): “the kind of unique film the NFR was made for…Just don’t eat before watching it.”

From Here to Eternity (1953): “A well made film with good performances all around, but that’s about it.”

Sabrina (1954): “iconic enough for eventual NFR inclusion, but not tops on anyone’s list.”

Wild River (1960): “an engaging examination of time and place, but as an NFR entry it doesn’t pass muster.”

The Endless Summer (1966): “If you’re going to have one surf film on the Registry, this is a fine choice.”

Navajo Film Themselves (1966): “a specific glimpse into an Indigenous culture…courtesy of the culture itself.”

In the Heat of the Night (1967): “A top-notch film that shows us where we were, where we are, and where we’re going. Now that’s a classic.”

Why Man Creates (1968): “I have no objections to including a film by Saul Bass, whose praises I have sung in many previous posts.”

Fuji (1974): “highlights what experimental animation is capable of.”

Alien (1979): “There’s no way [the NFR] could ignore a move as iconic, as memorable, or as perennially exciting”.

The Black Stallion (1979): “set the template for kids-and-animal films for the next two decades.”

Stranger Than Paradise (1984): “a perfect representation of [Jim Jarmusch’s] work.”

This Is Spinal Tap (1984): “one of the most consistently funny movies ever made.”

Beauty and the Beast (1991): “a spectacular feat of animation, an incredible piece of musical theater, and an overall outstanding film.”

Boyz n the Hood (1991): “a realistic, sincere movie with a strong message.”

The Plot: In 1937, Tennessee is in a transitional phase as the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) builds several dams across the state’s rivers to prevent flooding, as well as purchasing nearby land and relocating families residing within the flood zones. TVA bureaucrat Chuck Glover (Montgomery Clift) heads to Garthville, Tennessee when one family refuses to sell their land on Garth Island within the Tennessee River. Glover is unable to reason with the family matriarch Ella Garth (Jo Van Fleet), but forms a mutual attraction with her widowed granddaughter Carol Baldwin (Lee Remick). At the same time, Glover runs into trouble with the locals when he proposes hiring Black workers to help with the land clearing and paying them equally to their White counterparts. With its liberal leanings and a cast of Actors Studio alum, this film has all the earmarks of an Elia Kazan production.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film “often overlooked and visually stunning”. Their brief write-up does, however, contain two factual errors: they state the film’s year of release as 1961, and refer to Lee Remick’s character as Ella’s daughter-in-law.

But Does It Really?: This one baffles me. There’s nothing wrong with “Wild River”, it’s a well-made film with good work on both sides of the camera, but no one has made a compelling argument to me for its NFR inclusion. “Wild River” is not an important movie in Kazan’s body of work, had a brief and unremarkable theatrical run, and has rarely been referenced or discussed in the ensuing 65 years, even within the confines of Kazan’s filmography. As a standalone movie, “Wild River” is an engaging examination of time and place, but as an NFR entry it doesn’t pass muster.

Shout Outs: Some of the historical flooding footage at the beginning comes from “The River”, the government-sanctioned documentary about how great the TVA is.

Title Track: I think it would be easier to list the working titles this film didn’t go by. Originally taking its name from its source material “Mud on the Stars”, the film’s multiple screenplay drafts contained such titles as “Time and Tide”, “God’s Valley”, “The Swift Season”, and “As the River Rises” before settling on “Wild River”. After the film’s initial box office disappointment, the title was changed again to “The Woman and the Wild River” with a promotional re-emphasis on the love story.

Seriously, Oscars?: No Oscar nominations, but “Wild River” was named one of the top 10 films of 1960 by both Cahiers du Cinéma and the National Board of Review.

• For the role of Carol, Fox pushed for Marilyn Monroe, but Kazan’s first and only choice for the part was Lee Remick, his breakout discovery from “A Face in the Crowd”. Carol doesn’t have a lot to do for the first third of the movie, but Remick keeps her very present in her scenes, even when she’s just in the background observing Chuck and Ella’s back-and-forth. When Carol begins her relationship with Chuck, both Remick and Clift help make the situation more believable by injecting tons of subtext. The dialogue is about the land and the river, but those eyes are telling a different story.

• We learn from his tombstone that the name of Carol’s deceased husband is James Baldwin. The author and Civil Rights activist of the same name was already an established writer by 1960, so if that’s meant as a nod to him, having it on a White guy’s tombstone is a weird choice. Speaking of Civil Rights; Kazan keeps his progressive streak going by casting a large number of Black actors in the film, including Robert Earl Jones, father of James Earl Jones.
• While at Carol’s house, Chuck uncovers her deceased husband’s shotgun. Upon the gun’s reveal, I wrote down the note “Chekov’s shotgun” and continued with my viewing.
• My problem with this movie is how it was shot; not the compositions of cinematographer Ellsworth Fredricks, but rather the initial choice of how to shoot the film. “Wild River” was filmed in De Luxe color and widescreen CinemaScope, but I think the film would have worked better in black-and-white and a more standard aspect ratio. Perhaps color and widescreen were mandated by the studio (this was only Kazan’s second film in color after “East of Eden”), but the color makes the Tennessee landscape too beautiful, and the CinemaScope gives the whole thing an unnecessarily epic feel. Maybe I just associate the Depression with black and white, but I kept thinking how much better this film would have been without the distracting aesthetics.
• One scene near the end features Chuck drunkenly confronting Ella late one night. This scene is notable due to Clift’s well-known alcohol problem following his car crash. Apparently Kazan made Clift promise he wouldn’t drink during the shoot, and whether or not Clift kept his word depends on who you ask.
• As I’ve said before on this blog, “It’s not a movie about racial tensions until a White male lynch mob shows up”. As the locals start surrounding Carol’s house and things take a violent turn, I kept an eye out for the inevitable return of Chekhov’s shotgun. Not only does the shotgun fail to make an appearance here, it’s never mentioned again. They brought it up earlier with no pay off. Come on!
• I don’t have much else to say about this movie. It’s good, but is it NFR good? The film doesn’t waste too much time reaching its inevitable conclusion (and I appreciated the ongoing rain as a metaphor for the impending flood), but I wasn’t too attached to the story or its characters, and by the end I was ready to move on and go about the rest of my day. And I have say that despite the title, that river wasn’t wild at all. Maybe they’re thinking of that Meryl Streep/Kevin Bacon movie?

• Although “Wild River” is largely forgotten, it is still highly regarded by Southerners, especially those whose families were directly impacted by the floods. Perhaps the biggest fans of “Wild River” are the people of Bradley County, Tennessee, where most of the movie was filmed. In 2010, Cleveland, Tennessee held “Wild River Days” celebrating the film’s 50^th anniversary. The festivities are included in the 2011 documentary “Mud on the Stars”, along with interviews from locals who witnessed the production first-hand.

While not currently available for streaming, “Navajo Film Themselves” is available for purchase on DVD through the Penn Museum website. All profits from the DVD sales go to the filmmakers and their families.

My immense thanks to the Internet Archive for preserving the Penn Museum’s original “Navajo Film Themselves” website, where most of my information about these films comes from.

The Plot: In the summer of 1966, professors Sol Worth and John Adair traveled to Pine Springs, Arizona with a grant from the National Science Foundation for an anthropological project: Teaching local Navajo residents how to make films. Over the course of two months, Worth and Adair taught six students of varying age and experience the fundamentals of filmmaking, and asked them to each make a film about something important to them.  The result is a collection of seven films focusing on Navajo customs and traditions: from rug weaving to a medicine man ceremony to a local silversmith to…more weaving.

Why It Matters: Not a lot of superlatives in the NFR write-up for “Navajo”, just some historical context, which we’ll delve into throughout this post.

But Does It Really?: “Navajo Film Themselves” is certainly the kind of unique filmmaking I’ve come to expect from the NFR. Not only do we get a specific glimpse into an Indigenous culture, we get that glimpse courtesy of the culture itself. The individual films are interesting on their own, but the historical context I found in my research definitely enhances the experience. I’m glad “Navajo Film Themselves” has made the NFR, and equally glad that the film is once again available for individual purchase.

Everybody Gets One: Sol Worth was a communications professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania; John Adair was an anthropology professor at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University, my alma mater!). Richard Chalfen was a former student of Worth’s who joined the two in Arizona and would go on to be a successful Visual Anthropologist in his own right. “Navajo Film Themselves” came to be as an experiment in a new type of anthropology Worth dubbed a “bio-documentary”: filmmaking by the subject to get a better sense of how they see the world. The Navajo were chosen for this experiment for a number of reasons, but primarily as an exercise in giving the oft-studied community free agency to film what they deemed important or significant without any outside influences.

Title Track: In 1972, Worth, Adair, and Chalfen published a book about their experience with the Navajo called “Through Navajo Eyes”. Since then, the book’s title has been used interchangeably with “Navajo Film Themselves” as the film series’ title.

Listen to This: The National Recording Registry also includes documentation of Navajo traditions, with ethnomusicologist David McAllester’s 1957-1958 recordings of a Navajo Shootingway ceremony, the nine day event that often uses Yeibichai masks like the one from “Intrepid Shadows”. Anthropology professor Charlotte Frisbie pens a very detailed essay about the recordings, and you can listen to a brief excerpt on the NRR website.

Further Reading: The companion book “Through Navajo Eyes” is a treasure trove of information regarding this project. If any of this interests you I can’t recommend this book enough. Read it for free on Internet Archive!