The Horse's Head

#538) Chan Is Missing (1982)

OR “Forget It Wayne, It’s Chinatown”

Directed by Wayne Wang

Written by Wang, Isaac Cronin and Terrel Seltzer.

Class of 1995

The Plot: In San Francisco’s Chinatown district, aging taxi driver Jo (Wood Moy) is applying for his cab license with his nephew Steve (Marc Hayashi). Their friend Chan Hung has been assisting them in the process, and one day seemingly disappears with the $4,000 Jo and Steve gave him. The two try to track down Chan, a search that leads them throughout Chinatown, where many of the residents have contradicting viewpoints of Chan. “Chan Is Missing” uses its mystery and backdrop to examine the struggles faced by the Chinese American community, including identity issues and tensions between mainland China and Taiwan.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls it “a seminal work of Asian-America cinema” and “a heart-felt travelogue of San Francisco’s Chinatown”.

But Does It Really?: “Chan Is Missing” is referred to in various film essays as a “quiet gamechanger”, and I think I know what they mean. “Chan” might not get mentioned among the groundbreaking classics of filmdom, but its diverse depiction of Chinese Americans was one of the first in American film, and continues to inspire more varied depictions of Asians throughout our popular culture. The film’s more cerebral approach takes some getting used to, but behind its complex outer shell is a dissection of Chinese culture with a film noir coating. A “yes” for the NFR inclusion/continuing impact of “Chan Is Missing”.

Shout Outs: Supporting character Henry is always seen wearing his “Samurai Night Fever” shirt.

Everybody Gets One: Wayne Wang inherited his love of movies from his father, who named him after his favorite actor, John Wayne. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Wang moved to California to study medicine, but the political atmosphere of 1960s Berkeley led him to study film and television at Oakland’s California College of the Arts. Wang was inspired to make “Chan” while working with immigrants and hearing their stories of struggle and assimilation. “Chan” was made with grants from both the AFI and NEA that totaled just under $22,000.

Wow, That’s Dated: “Chan” is a nice little encapsulation of 1980s Chinatown, including shoutouts to such political figures as then-mayor of San Francisco Dianne Feinstein. Plus, as with many a mystery movie on this list, this case would be a lot easier to solve if everyone had smart phones and the internet.

Title Track: “Chan Is Missing” refers to not only the missing character of Chan Hung, but also the fictional detective Charlie Chan. While popular throughout the ’30s and ’40s in various novels, films, and radio programs, Charlie Chan came to represent many negative Asian stereotypes (adding insult to injury, he was always played in films by White actors in yellowface). This film’s more dimensional depictions of the Chinese (mixed with the mystery elements) prove that (Charlie) Chan is indeed missing.

Seriously, Oscars?: No Oscar love for this little movie, but “Chan Is Missing” did receive a special award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Despite being filmed (and premiering) in San Francisco and utilizing local talent, “Chan” received zero San Francisco critics awards, and was rejected by the San Francisco Film Festival. Seriously, SF?

Other notes 

• First off, my namesake is St. Anthony, patron saint of lost people. Chan is missing? I’ll get Tony on it.
• One of Wayne Wang’s inspirations while making “Chan” was the Chinese philosophy that “what is not there is just as important as what is there.” While Wang felt the final result was “too intellectual” for film, he has stood by this creative choice in recent years, stating how important it is for young filmmakers to take these kinds of risks.
• The majority of “Chan Is Missing” was filmed on weekends, as everyone involved had day jobs and/or school. For example, Wayne Wang was simultaneously writing bilingual science curricula for SFSU while making “Chan”. With apologies to the late James Brown, Wang may in fact be the hardest working man in show business.
• This is the third movie on the NFR list that opens with “Rock Around the Clock”, albeit a cover of the song in Chinese, thus highlighting the film’s theme of cultural identity immediately.
• Both Wood Moy and Marc Hayashi were members of San Francisco’s Asian American Theater Company before being cast in “Chan”. The two have a nice rapport between them, and their inherent dichotomy gives the film a nice balance: Jo with his more mature, grounded approach to the mystery, Steve with a more youthful, unpolished confidence. And when was the last time you saw a movie where one of the leads was a Chinese man in his mid ’60s?
• Wang’s theory of filmmaking: when in doubt, cut to the old guy. Moy’s reaction shots cover up a lot of edits, presumably to stitch together two separate takes of improvised dialogue.

• One of Wayne Wang’s best directorial decisions: the multiple POV shots throughout the film. These shots allow the viewer to feel that they are a participant in this depiction of Chinatown, and not just an observer.
• Identity in film is a fine line to walk, but thankfully Wang et al never make their discussion about the subject sound preachy, or like a plea for racial tolerance. Each character in “Chan” is so well defined the dialogue comes across as hearing different perspectives from real people, rather than characters that serve as a mouthpiece for the writers.
• This movie’s drinking game: take a shot every time a passerby realizes they are on camera. Guerrilla filmmaking at its finest.
• “Chan Is Missing” rarely strays from Chinatown, but one of the last scenes occurs at Fort Point, not too far from where Kim Novak jumps into the bay in “Vertigo“. Hey, I was just there!
• The final montage is set to the song “Grant Avenue” from “Flower Drum Song“, offering one final contrast between a White perception of Chinatown and its authentic reality.

Legacy 

• After being rejected by multiple film festivals, “Chan Is Missing” was selected by New York’s MoMA to play as part of its New Directors/New Films series. Shortly after this, “Chan” was picked up for distribution by New Yorker films and had a surprisingly successful run in a handful of independent theaters. Wayne Wang often recalls seeing lines at its original New York engagement that stretched around the block.

• Despite the warm reception “Chan” has received over the years, Wayne Wang has expressed disappointment that his film didn’t lead to more change in the opportunities and representation of Chinese and Chinese-Americans within American film.
• After making a series of movies that dissected the Chinese-American experience (among them future NFR entry “The Joy Luck Club”), Wayne Wang branched out with movies tackling more diverse subject matters and cultures, in an effort to avoid being pigeonholed as an “Asian” director. And you can’t get any more different from “Chan Is Missing” than with 2002’s “Maid in Manhattan”. Not a great movie, but hey, if it pays the bills…

#537) Scarface (1932)

OR “Say Hello to My Older Friend”

Directed by Howard Hawks

Written by Ben Hecht. Dialogue by Seton I. Miller, John Lee Mahin, and W.R. Burnett. Based on the novel by Armitage Trail.

Class of 1994

This trailer appears to be from a re-release in the late ’70s.

The Plot: In 1930s Chicago this town, Italian mobster Al Capone Tony Camonte (Paul Muni), shoots down a crime boss so that mafioso Johnny Torrio Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins) can control the South Side of…this Anytown U.S.A. Acting as Lovo’s second-in-command, Tony sells booze to speakeasies across their new territory. Soon Tony’s ambition gets in the way, and he begins selling beer to the North Side, starting a turf war with the Irish mob. Tony also starts aiming to replace Lovo as the crime boss, even stealing his best gal Poppy (Karen Morley). It’s a tale of gangsters hot with power that is in no way related to…what did you say his name was? Al Ca-pone? I’ll have to look him up.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls “Scarface” no short of a “masterpiece”, praising Paul Muni for giving “his best performance”.

But Does It Really?: Hey, why not? While not the quintessential ’30s gangster picture, “Scarface” is worthy of NFR recognition thanks to its top-notch talent, its behind-the-scenes struggles with the censors, and for spawning an equally memorable remake. No argument here for “Scarface” on the NFR.

Wow, That’s Dated: Italian stereotypes, pay phones, tommy guns, yada yada yada, you know the drill with this segment.

Title Track: As part of the Hays Office’s many attempts to water down the film’s glorification of the crime world, some prints of “Scarface” include the subtitle “The Shame of the Nation”. The subtitle has often been used in recent years to help differentiate this film from its better-known remake. Also, weirdly enough, in order to further avoid any connections to Al Capone (who was also nicknamed Scarface), no one says “Scarface” at any point in this movie.

Seriously, Oscars?: Perhaps due to the film’s controversies with censorship or its poor box office receipts, “Scarface” received zero Oscar nominations. The film was, however, named one of the top 10 films of 1932 by the National Board of Review.

Other notes 

• Producer Howard Hughes (yes, that Howard Hughes) was interested in doing a gangster picture based on Al Capone (still in his bootlegging prime in 1931), and bought the film rights to the novel “Scarface”, based in part on Capone. Hughes hired screenwriter Ben Hecht (writer of previous Hughes film “The Front Page“) and director Howard Hawks to mold Tony Camonte to a figure more align with the Borgia Family. Interesting side note: Hawks was in the process of suing Hughes for plagiarism on another movie when approached to direct! Helming “Scarface” was part of the agreement to drop the case.
• Due to its central themes of crime and corruption, “Scarface” ran afoul of the Hays Office throughout its production. In order for the film to be approved for release, a text prologue was added calling the picture “an indictment of gang rule in America”, and several new scenes were shot of journalists and government officials serving as a Greek chorus condemning Tony and his actions. In addition, any elements that were specific to Capone were toned down or eliminated.

• Tony gets a nice reveal: his first scene is played out in shadow, and you finally see his face during his second scene at the barbershop when the towels are being removed from his face.
• There’s something quite interesting about Paul Muni’s performance. In a movie swarming with the Italian stereotypes of the day (there’s an organ grinder for crissakes!), Muni approaches Tony organically. Still plenty of clichés in his performance, but he’s building the character from the inside out. It’s the kind of “method stereotyping” that Eli Wallach would perfect in the ’50s.

• A quick reminder that stage legend Osgood Perkins is the father of Anthony Perkins.
• George Raft was hired to play Tony’s confidante Guino Rinaldo thanks in part to his real life connections to various gangsters (he was childhood friends with Bugsy Siegel). As Guino, Raft spends most of this movie flipping a coin. Where’d he pick up that cheap trick?
• This movie may have the greatest time-lapse scene in cinema history. The passage of time as Tony starts to take over is visualized as pages rapidly falling off a calendar, synchronized with the rat-a-tat of a machine gun. It’s perfection.
• So that’s what Boris Karloff actually looks like! As Irish gang leader Tom Gaffney, Karloff is either using his native English accent or has the worst Irish accent since Sean Connery. Either way, Karloff has more dialogue here than he did in two whole “Frankenstein” movies.

• Between the free spirited, opinionated female characters, the rapid fire dialogue, and the comic relief of Tony’s secretary Angelo, are we sure Hawks didn’t think he was directing one of his screwball comedies?

• Like oranges in “The Godfather“, “Scarface” uses the X motif to symbolize when a character is about to be killed. Typically this is represented by perpendicular architecture or convenient shadows, but there’s also the creative workaround when a character is killed in a bowling alley immediately after scoring a strike. Even Tony’s scar is an X!

• Apparently the filmmakers fought to retain the original novel’s implications of incest between Tony and his sister Cesca. If any remnants of that are in the final film, I definitely missed them. Of course, that’s not something I inherently look for while I’m watching a movie.

• In addition to the overall neutering of violence and story elements “Scarface” endured from various censor boards, a new ending was filmed in which Tony turns himself in to the police and is hanged in the gallows, rather than being shot in a blaze of glory. Richard Rosson directed this new ending when Hawks refused, and a double filled in for Paul Muni, who was starring in a Broadway play at the time. Current releases of “Scarface” include the original ending, with the mandated alternate ending appearing as a supplemental feature.

Legacy 

• It was the long-fought censorship battles movies like “Scarface” encountered that led to the eventual installment of the Production Code. While this move negated the need for each state to have its own censor board, it created an over-protective code of conduct the movies would be straightjacketed with for the next 35 years.

• While there were critics and moviegoers alike who praised “Scarface” from the beginning (even Capone liked it), the public backlash over the film’s subject matter led to “Scarface” underperforming at the box office. Disappointed with the film’s initial lack of success, Howard Hughes removed all prints of “Scarface” from circulation and turned down all offers to sell or re-release the film during his lifetime.
• Following Hughes’ death in 1976, “Scarface” returned to the public eye for a reappraisal. Among those who saw the film was Al Pacino, who started planning a remake with producer Martin Bregman. Originally attached director Sidney Lumet came up with the idea of transplanting the story to the Cuban Mariel boatlift of 1980, and in the hands of new director Brian de Palma, 1983’s “Scarface” is more iconic than its predecessor. And yet, still no NFR recognition.

Bonus Clip: While we’re waiting for the ’83 “Scarface” to make the NFR, please enjoy this montage of Universal’s attempt to clean up Pacino’s F-bombs for network TV. Because this town is like a great big chicken just waiting to get plucked.

#535) Carmen Jones (1954)

OR “Let’s Get Bizet”

Directed by Otto Preminger

Written by Harry Kleiner. Based on the musical by Oscar Hammerstein II, the opera “Carmen” by Georges Bizet, and the novella “Carmen” by Prosper Mérimée.

Class of 1992 

The Plot: “Carmen Jones” updates the opera “Carmen” from 1820s Spain to 1940s North Carolina with an all African-American cast. Carmen Jones (Dorothy Dandridge) is a free-spirit and relentless flirt working in a parachute factory during the war. When she is arrested for fighting with a co-worker, Corporal Joe (Harry Belafonte) is assigned to escort her to the authorities. Carmen works her charm on Joe and the two begin an affair. Things are complicated by Carmen’s desire to not be held back by anyone, Joe’s engagement to Cindy Lou (Olga James), and the arrival of champion boxer Husky Miller (Joe Adams). An impulsive trip to Chicago leads to more complications, and follows its source material to its tragic conclusion.

Why It Matters: The NFR write-up calls the film “[e]xceptionally liberal in its time”, gives some historical background, and weirdly highlights that “Otto Preminger’s realist sensibility often seems contradictory to the whimsical nature of a musical”.

But Does It Really?: “Carmen Jones” tends to be forgotten in terms of classic Hollywood musicals, but it earns its NFR status thanks to its progressive subject matter and a star-making turn by Dorothy Dandridge. The film’s social commentary may have been eclipsed by later progressions in the Civil Rights movement, but “Carmen Jones” can still be viewed today without any major cringing, and is a testament to the career of Dorothy Dandridge. No argument here for NFR inclusion.

Wow, That’s Dated: Like “Porgy and Bess” before it, “Carmen Jones” is a musical about Black characters written by White men. Sure, phrasing like “You is” and “Dey is” might be accurate to this specific regional subculture (emphasis on might), but at the end of the day, this show is White composers approximating a Black experience.

Seriously, Oscars?: Well received in its time, “Carmen Jones” won the Golden Globe for Best Comedy or Musical, and received two Oscar nominations. Although Dorothy Dandridge lost Best Actress to Grace Kelly, she made history by being the first African-American woman nominated in that category. The film’s other nod was for its Musical Scoring, which it lost to “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers“.

Other notes 

• How do you think Rodgers felt when Hammerstein told him he wanted to collaborate with a dead guy?
• Like many a classic opera, “Carmen” features music that you’ve heard a thousand times before, but couldn’t say where it’s from. “March of the Toreadors” shows up in a lot of commercials, as does “The Toreador Song“, but most people would recognize “Habanera” out of all these numbers.
• Another historical highlight: “Carmen Jones” features Saul Bass’ first opening credits sequence! Bass debuts with a simple yet powerful image of flames over a stylistic rose. This symbol was put to more provocative use in international versions of the film’s poster.

• By the early 1950s, Dorothy Dandridge was known primarily as a nightclub singer, with a handful of bit parts in films. A starring role as a reserved teacher in “Bright Road” almost cost her “Carmen Jones”, when Otto Preminger felt she was too demure for the part. After an in-person meeting with Preminger where she “dressed the part”, Dandridge won the role, and started a four-year affair with her director.
• I don’t know how Preminger almost messed this up: Dorothy Dandridge has star quality coming out of every pore. You can’t take your eyes off of her (well, at least I couldn’t).

• Despite both Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte being known for their singing abilities, neither had a voice deemed up to the demands of the score, and the two were dubbed by, respectively, Marilyn Horne and LeVern Hutcherson. That being said, Horne does a remarkably good job matching Dandridge’s vocal inflections.
• Shoutout to cinematographer Sam Leavitt. Like his other 1954 musical “A Star Is Born“, Leavitt knows how to fill the CinemaScope frame without the characters becoming eclipsed by spectacle. Though there are a few shots that must have been a real bummer to watch in pan-and-scan.
• “There’s a Café on the Corner” features a fun performance by Dandridge/Horne, but Carmen’s doing a lot of moving about in an open-top car. Someone please invent the seat belt.

• Things start to pick up once we arrive at the café. In addition to the always entertaining Pearl Bailey (the only lead performer who does their own singing), you get Diahann Carroll in her film debut! She was 19!

• The “Whizzin’ Away Along de Track” number is a fine example of this musical’s focus on character rather than the spectacle of its contemporaries. The song is primarily one shot of the five singers (all fitted comfortably in the widescreen), but there’s enough character development and back-and-forth between them to hold your interest without resorting to cuts. Well done.
• Just a reminder that Harry Belafonte is still alive and thriving at age 93, with a performing career that is second only to his outstanding humanitarian accomplishments.
• Dorothy Dandridge strips down to her bra and panties! It’s 1954, how did any of this get past the censors? Preminger, you’ve done it again!
• The only thing Cindy Lou has done wrong this whole movie was not be a star of the same stature as Belafonte or Dandridge. At least her subplot ends with an inner monologue song about how she can do better than Joe.

• When he picks a fight with Husky Miller, Joe learns the hard way never to bring a knife to a fistfight. …wait, what?
• [Spoilers] Given its opera lineage, I should have seen this movie’s ending coming. It’s a real downer, but at least Preminger only films Carmen’s dead body from the shoulders up. I always get distracted watching corpses breathe in movies.

Legacy 

• “Carmen Jones” was a hit and made Dorothy Dandridge a star. Dandridge followed the career advice from her paramour Otto Preminger, which she ultimately regretted taking when it limited her casting options and stalled her rising star. After a decade of various financial and professional setbacks, Dorothy Dandridge died unexpectedly in 1965 at age 42.

• Preminger would reunite with Dandridge and Pearl Bailey for another NFR musical entry: 1959’s “Porgy and Bess”.

• The making of “Carmen Jones” is touched upon in the 1999 HBO movie “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge”, starring Halle Berry as Dandridge and Klaus Maria Brandauer as Preminger.

• Following its original Broadway run in the ’40s, the stage version of “Carmen Jones” has only had a handful of revivals. “Carmen Jones” would eventually return to New York in 2018 in an Off-Broadway production starring Anika Noni Rose.

• The original “Carmen” opera is still performed with some regularity, with a few filmed versions over the years, including a hip-hopera starring Beyoncé. You know, for the kids.

Listen to This: Despite showing up in two movies on the NFR, Harry Belafonte doesn’t sing a note in either of them. Fortunately the National Recording Registry came through in 2017 by inducting his 1956 album “Calypso”. The NRR write-up includes an essay by Belafonte expert Judith E. Smith, as well as an interview with the man himself. Day-O!

#534) The Italian (1915)

OR “The Least Happy Fella”

Directed by Reginald Barker

Written by Thomas H. Ince and C. Gardner Sullivan

Class of 1991

The Plot: In Venice, Italy, Pietro “Beppo” Donetti (George Beban) is a lowly gondolier who pines for the beautiful Annette Ancello (Clara Williams). Her father (J. Frank Burke) wants Annette to marry someone with money, but gives Beppo one year to earn a decent wage and marry his daughter. Beppo heads to America and while working as a shoeshine, gets enough money from politician Bill Corrigan (Leo Willis) to send for Annette. But their happy life in America doesn’t last long, and things take a surprisingly dark turn.

Why It Matters: The NFR praises George Beban, saying that the stage actor “mastered the nuances of film acting better than many of his contemporaries”. The write-up also highlights the Ince style of filmmaking, contrasting its “less structured, less rigid technique” to that of D.W. Griffith.

But Does It Really?: “The Italian” is not without its cultural misrepresentation, but the film holds up far better than you’d expect from a 106-year-old movie. The Ince/Barker/Sullivan collaborations are highlighted elsewhere on the NFR, but I’m willing to give a slight pass to “The Italian” for, if nothing else, a representation of the Immigrant Boom of the 1910s.

Everybody Gets One: San Francisco native George Beban was one of the big names in theater and vaudeville, specializing in…ethnic caricatures. After being pigeonholed for his French characters, he branched out by playing an Italian in “The Sign of the Rose”, a vaudeville sketch that evolved into a full play. “The Italian” was Beban’s film debut.

Wow, That’s Dated: It should go without saying that no one in this 1915 movie about Italians is actually Italian. For example, George Beban was of Irish and Dalmatian descent (Dalmatian as in from the Dalmatia region of Croatia; he was not part dog).

Title Track: Because of course it was: this movie’s working title was “The Dago”, but changed at the request of George Beban.

Other notes 

• Despite having four of his movies on this list, we’ve never really talked about Thomas H. Ince. Largely overshadowed today by the scandal surrounding his death (more on that later), Ince was a major figure in early Hollywood. His “Inceville” was the first major Hollywood studio facility, and he streamlined the filmmaking process by creating something akin to Henry Ford’s assembly line manufacturing, a process that stayed the industry norm for over 50 years. Ince could be, however, a bit of an attention hog: in early prints of “The Italian”, while Ince’s name is all over the credits, director Reginald Barker’s was removed.
• This is a very meta opening: A curtain parts to reveal George Beban (playing himself?) in a smoking jacket settling down to read “The Italian”, authored by this film’s screenwriters (there’s Ince’s name again!). What a weird way to bookend your movie. It’s like if “The Wizard of Oz” began with Judy Garland reading the book in her dressing room.
• Every intertitle features the heading “George Beban In The Italian” at the very top. He must have had a great agent.
• Watching Beppo navigate a gondola and talk with his hands, I have to ask as a person of Italian descent: Are we better off being stereotyped as mobsters and thugs?
• Most of the film was shot on location in San Francisco (the city’s immigrant neighborhoods doubled for Manhattan’s Lower East Side), but apparently the crew actually traveled to Italy to film the scenes of Beppo and the gondola. Seems excessive, did Ince take pointers from Erich von Stroheim?
• I feel like a 1915 audience would respond well to this movie: Many of them would have been part of the Immigrant Boom depicted in this movie. Speaking of, did Beppo skip Ellis Island when he got to America? There’s a whole process…
• Despite the movie’s inherent insensitivity, there’s only one instance where a character refers to Beppo as a “wop”, and I ain’t talking about Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion.
• When Beppo and Annette get married, the film turns a little slapstick-y with Beppo running around trying to find a wedding ring.
• The version of “The Italian” I watched was restored from three different surviving prints. It’s obvious what parts of the film came from which prints, a reminder of just how fragile tangible film is. Also a reminder of how lucky we are that so many of these silent films have enough surviving elements to reconstruct them to their entirety.
• When Beppo finds the two men who robbed him, we get what may be film history’s first extreme close-up. Cameras were still pretty rudimentary, and the close-up is achieved when Beban walks right up to the camera lens.
• It took us most of the movie, but at last we get an intertitle that simulates an Italian accent: “I must get-a-de milk or my babee is die.” Mamma Mia indeed.
• This movie loves shots of people in moving vehicles that clearly aren’t moving. At least rear-projection shots have some sort of background movement.
• Side note: George Beban is apparently doing his own stunts in this film, including being pushed out of a car onto the busy street. After a near-brush with death involving Beban and a streetcar, Thomas Ince had Beban insured for $25,000.
• So even back then politicians would go back on their promises? Can we all just admit this is a systemic issue and not a case of a few bad apples?
• [Spoilers] The third act of “The Italian” veers quickly into melodrama territory, including the death of Beppo’s child Tony. I cannot in good faith endorse a movie where they kill off a character named Tony.
• One character in this movie succumbs to “brain fever”, a medical condition that seemed to exist only in the Victorian era. Modern day equivalents would be meningitis and scarlet fever, among others.
• Wow, this got very dark very fast. There’s a little bit of redeeming humanity in the proceedings, but ultimately this is a typical melodrama. I guess the moral is “Never come to America”? I mean, that’s not wrong.

Legacy 

• “The Italian” was well-received in its day, and George Beban’s next film was an adaptation of his play “The Sign of the Rose”, now retitled “The Alien”.
• Many of the creatives behind “The Italian” pop up elsewhere on the NFR with their films “The Bargain“, “Civilization“, and “Hell’s Hinges“.
• Of course the most infamous story to come from this creative team was the death of Thomas Ince at age 44 aboard William Randolph Hearst’s private yacht. Could it have been….murder!? …No. It was heart failure.

#536) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

OR “Cool Hand Jack”

Directed by Miloš Forman

Written by Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman. Based on the novel by Ken Kesey, and the stage adaptation by Dale Wasserman.

Class of 1993

The Plot: A mental institution in 1963 Oregon welcomes new patient Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a statutory rapist faking insanity to avoid penal labor. Used to defying authority, McMurphy meets his match with Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), who runs the ward with an iron fist. Despite his anarchic energy, McMurphy actually makes a positive impact on his fellow patients, including Chief Bromden (Will Sampson), the deaf-mute Native American that the staff has given up on.

Why It Matters: The NFR lauds director Forman, the cast’s “outstanding performances” and the “masterfully adapted” screenplay. The write-up also describes the film as “a hard-hitting and wry condemnation of the Establishment and its ethos of conformity.”

But Does It Really?: Hmm…good question. “Cuckoo’s Nest” is revered by many film groups as one of the best movies of all time, and it’s very good, but maybe there’s a little overhyping going on? Don’t get me wrong, everything about this movie is solid, from the pitch-perfect ensemble to Forman’s naturalistic directing, but it didn’t wow me at the level I hoped it would. “Cuckoo’s Nest” is a great movie with a legacy more than deserving of NFR recognition, but maybe I just need to be in a better mood before calling it an untouchable classic.

Everybody Gets One: Despite not actually appearing in this movie (and being the namesake of my oft-mentioned age gap scale), this is the only NFR representation for movie star/“Cuckoo’s” producer Michael Douglas. Michael’s father Kirk Douglas bought the film rights to “Cuckoo’s” in the early ’60s, and starred in the stage version on Broadway. After spending a decade unable to secure a studio backer, and realizing he was too old to play McMurphy himself, Kirk sold the film rights to Michael, who co-produced this movie with Saul Zaentz’s Fantasy Films. “Cuckoo’s” is also the only NFR appearance for the majority of the cast, including Louise Fletcher and Brad Dourif.

Wow, That’s Dated: Unfortunately we don’t have time to throughly delve into the complex issue of mental health in America. Suffice it to say that while the kind of mental institutions seen in this film have given way to more humane mental health centers, we still have a long way to go to efficiently and effectively handle our country’s ongoing health crises.

Title Track: The film’s title is derived from the children’s folk rhyme “Vintery, Mintery, Cutery, Corn”, a counting rhyme a la “Eeny Meeny Miney Moe”. Coincidentally, in some versions the last line is “Make your way home, Jack”.

Seriously, Oscars?: Second only to “Jaws” at the box office (albeit a distant second), “Cuckoo’s Nest” led the Oscar pack with nine nominations. Despite heavy competition from “Jaws”, “Nashville” and “Dog Day Afternoon“, “Cuckoo’s” became the first movie since “It Happened One Night” to sweep the Oscar’s Big Five categories: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay. Nicholson’s Best Actor win was his first after five nominations in six years.

Other notes 

• Turns out this was a particularly tense production. In addition to the inherent hassles of on-location shooting (in this case Oregon State Hospital), cinematographer Haskell Wexler was fired halfway through production over creative differences with Miloš Forman. Wexler’s replacement, Bill Butler, ended up serving as the middleman between Forman and Jack Nicholson when they stopped speaking to each other. These and other delays caused the film to go over-schedule and to double its budget.
• This is the film debut for much of the cast, many of whom were either stage actors or actual citizens and hospital employees in Salem, Oregon. Among the professional actors, Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd. Was anyone in this movie not on “Taxi“?
• As always with older movies, my apologies to Native Americans everywhere. At least Will Sampson was actually Native American (Muscogee). And a shoutout to the Kalapuya people of Salem, Oregon, because why not?
• While not his crowning achievement as an actor, Nicholson is very good in this; a fine balance of his trademark lunacy (for lack of a better term) and a more sincere leader for this group. Like many of Jack’s bad boys, you root for McMurphy, even though you really shouldn’t. Plus this has got to be Jack’s last somewhat restrained performance before veering off into caricature territory. Next stop, “The Shining“!

• Wow Louise Fletcher is on fire here. Her Ratched is manipulative without being a cartoon villain, with some nice subtleties to question the character’s motives. Plus Fletcher says more with one icy stare than most actors do with their entire body. I’m still not sure Ratched is a “lead” performance, but Fletcher definitely deserves all the accolades she got.

• The fishing scene is a highlight; it’s fun watching all of these characters out in the “real” world. Side note: Blink and you’ll miss Nicholson’s then-partner Anjelica Huston as one of the extras watching the boat return to the dock.

• Another highlight for me is the basketball game with Chief as your MVP. Looks like all those Lakers games are finally paying off for Jack.

• The scene where McMurphy and Chief get electroconvulsive therapy is a bit intense. Not “Exorcist” angiography intense, but up there.

• Here’s a question: It’s established that part of the film occurs in October 1963 when McMurphy listens to the World Series. Later on, Christmas decorations are set up in the hospital. This begs the question: did they gloss over the Kennedy assassination? Did anyone tell them?
• Speaking of, here’s another movie for my “Die Hard” Not-Christmas list.
• Scatman Crothers makes a fun contrast as the night shift aide, taking a bribe from McMurphy in exchange for booze and female companionship. But hey, at least this went better than that other time Nicholson and Crothers tried to work together.
• Billy Bibbit doesn’t get a lot of screentime, but his final showdown with Ratched and subsequent breakdown is worth the trip out. Brad Dourif knocks it out of the park in his film debut, and he received an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actor.

• Despite everything that goes wrong for these characters, Chief’s ending is surprisingly uplifting, and the film is bookended by two lovely nature vistas and Jack Nitzsche’s excellent use of the band saw.

Legacy 

• “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was a hit with critics, audiences, and everyone who wasn’t original author Ken Kesey. Dissatisfied with the “butchering” of his book (the novel is from Chief’s perspective, not McMurphy’s), Kesey sued Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz for breaching their verbal agreement about the adaptation’s faithfulness. Kesey settled, and claimed he changed the channel whenever “Cuckoo’s” was on TV (a similar claim has been attributed to both Stephen King and Roald Dahl).
• References and spoofs of “Cuckoo’s Nest” in pop culture typically center around either the title, the main characters, or the ending. As always, bonus points to a parody with an original cast member, such as Danny DeVito’s send-up in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”.

• Because every IP needs an origin story these days, the Netflix series “Ratched” stars Sarah Paulson as a younger Nurse Ratched, delving into the character’s evil beginnings. Paulson’s always great, but I have to ask WHO IS THE AUDIENCE FOR THIS?

• The stage version of “Cuckoo’s Nest” makes the regional theater rounds pretty regularly. A 2001 production by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre made its way to Broadway, but I’m always partial to the production my high school put on my freshman year. I played Billy Bibbit, and the experience has caused me to see this dark, unsettling movie as an old, warm friend.

Further Viewing: “Cuckoo’s Nest” was filmed in Oregon during the winter/spring of 1975, meaning Jack Nicholson missed the occasional stop on his “Chinatown” awards season tour (he attended the Oscars that year sporting his semi-shaved haircut for “Cuckoo’s”). Unable to attend the BAFTA ceremony, Nicholson pre-taped an acceptance speech on the set of “Cuckoo’s”, with the rest of the cast in support.