The Paul Newman Retrospective: Another Brick In The Wall: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, 1958

You have no idea how I have been dying to use that title! See it's a pun, right? And yet it actually kind of fits. Because this film is all about deciding if you should conform to what people expect from you. I'm not sure what Pink Floyd: The Wall is about.



Welcome to the fifth edition of the Paul Newman Retrospective. Today we'll be dealing with Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, the first film for which Paul Newman received an Academy Award Nomination and his first appearance in the world of Tennessee Williams with whom he was also friends. That does not mean Tennessee liked this film at all, in fact he told people not to see it. The obvious reason is that since his play dealt with homosexuality, most of that had to be done away with because of the Production Code and you've seen Mad Men, right? I think maybe he was too dismissive, though. Even though they had to take the homosexual storyline out (not like it's totally out, though, it does seem weird for a while that Brick is so hung up about this) they did leave us with a protagonist struggling to find any meaning in life that to him seems to be too often lived dishonestly.



The great dilemma in this film is that the part of Maggie The Cat is played by Elizabeth Taylor, who makes me want to spit blood. It's not even her fault, I think, I just usually don't like her, but I do like her in this performance. It's rendered all the more impressive by the fact that Elizabeth Taylor's husband, Mike Todd, died in a plane accident during filming. Her performance in this is so flawless in spite of that. Now, for you Hollywood history buffs, that was the catalyst of the Taylor-Fisher-Reynolds Affair, soon to be followed by the Taylor-Burton-Fisher Affair. I was watching Oprah with Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher recently and it occurred to me that if I was Elizabeth Taylor and I was going to steal another woman's husband while I made this movie, I would make a play for Paul Newman and not Eddie Fisher. That would make much more sense. People would understand that. Anyway...

The supporting parts are filled out by Burl Ives as Big Daddy, who also sings "Holly Jolly Christmas." Big Mama played by Judith Anderson, Brick's brother Gooper played by Jack Carson (Where are these people getting these names?) and his wife, the perpetually procreating, Sister Woman, played by Madeleine Sherwood, who also appears in another Newman-Williams effort, Sweet Bird of Youth.

We start out in a scene on a high school athletic field where Brick attempts to jump the high hurdles while drunk and breaks his ankle. By the way, has anyone else noticed that the best Paul Newman movies seem to start with a long scene with Newman alone somewhere? Cool Hand Luke, this one, I know there are others. Next, we're back at the Pollitt family home where everyone has gathered to celebrate Big Daddy's birthday. Brick doesn't seem to care about the whole proceeding except where he's going to get his next drink from. Maggie laments the connivings of Gooper and Sister Woman to get their hands on the Pollitt fortune, Brick's lack of interest in it as well as the decline in their love life. Who can blame her, really? Anyway, Big Daddy comes home from a clinic thinking he has a bill of clean health. The family doctor informs Gooper and subsequently Brick that Big Daddy is going to die. Brick's instinct is to bail, which is symptomatic of his larger problem.

Much of the guts in this film derives from the confrontations between Brick and Big Daddy. Big Daddy wants Brick to inherit his empire, Brick doesn't want to. Big Daddy wants to know why Brick drinks and Brick doesn't want to talk about it. Most of it comes down to something called mendacity.



Big Daddy makes Maggie say what happened to Brick's friend, Skipper. It comes down to Brick failing his friend since it is clearly not what happened in the play and even I thought we were getting a little convoluted at this juncture. Big Daddy tries to get brick to face the truth about that and their confrontation leads to Brick spitting out to Big Daddy that he is going to die. It's the first time we see both of them exhibiting vulnerability. This becomes a turning point for father and son, as they're both forced to confront the truth about their lives. As this happens, Sister Woman and Gooper try to talk Big Mama into giving them control of Big Daddy's interests. Maggie stays in the fray there, fighting for position. Big Daddy and Brick come to a similar conclusion, that even if life is fraught with mendacity, it had better be lived than not. Big Daddy seemingly resolves to live out the rest of his days and Brick is going to stop using alcohol to hide from his problems. Meanwhile, Maggie says she is pregnant which is patently untrue, but it really pisses off Sister Woman, everyone else seems to know it's not true, but enters it in the "Who the hell cares?" column. This is ultimately what I like best about the film, we didn't quite get the happy ending, but we're happy enough, as happy as we can be.

What else about this film? It's beautifully shot, even if it's small. The whole thing takes period over a single night. I feel like we get a sense of the heat in the film, even though I can't put my finger on it. Also, this movie has the most monstrous collection of child actors ever and a great line about the Cotton Bowl that I couldn't quite work in here, so you will have to watch the movie. They were going to originally film it in black and white, since most films with an artistic bent were shot in black and white at the time, but director Richard Brooks decided that was crazy given Elizabeth Taylor's eyes and Paul Newman's eyes. Good call. It is obviously different than the play, but I don't think it suffers for it. You just have to look upon it as something separate. I think it becomes about something else, about facing life rather than isolating yourself from it.

So, does the Production Code suck? Would you have liked a real adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play better? Would you have gone for Eddie Fisher, too? If so, why? Will you listen to "Holly Jolly Christmas" differently next time? Do those kids in the meat grinder bother you too? Explain all in the comments section.

The Paul Newman Retrospective: From The Terrace, 1960

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Paul Newman Retrospective and the second part of the first Joanne Woodward back-to-back. This is as promised the crappy one. From The Terrace is just plain inexplicable. Paul plays Alfred who returns to his prominent parents from World War II to find that his mother is an alcoholic wreck and his father is still a jerk. Instead of taking on the family business, he and a pal are going to start an aircraft company. Alfred marries a rich girl Mary St. John (Joanne) who was going to marry a doctor and then things start going south. The aircraft company goes bust and Alfred gets a job working at some firm that's just like Mad Men, except no advertising and no Joan. Basically, I've noticed that I've said "It's like Mad Men" to come to terms with any workplace in New York in the 1950s or 1960s lately. Oh, and Mary starts sleeping with that doctor guy which is inexplicable. Just why? Alfred starts falling for this other girl he met on a business trip but won't act on it. At this point, I start losing interest because the movie broke with reality and there's a lot of crap about social standing and mores, business versus personal life, stuff they would never bother with on Mad Men. And this goes on for like two and a half hours.

So, this movie is awful. Paul Newman can't even save it. I can't think of anything that I really like about this movie and I can't even figure out how it got made. Or how Ernest Lehman wrote this crap. Yes, the guy who brought you The Sweet Smell of Success and Sabrina wrote this crap. Apparently, this is based on a novel and the film just has about half of the novel. I can only assume the entertaining stuff was in the other half. This movie is so bad, I can't even find a real trailer on YouTube. I know, fail, but no more than this film. I've got nothing to say. If you do, or you know why this movie doesn't suck, please share in the comments section. No, seriously.

The Paul Newman Retrospective: A New Kind of Love, 1963

Welcome to the third edition of the Paul Newman Retrospective. Obviously, one of the best known things about Paul Newman is his long marriage to actress, Joanne Woodward. They collaborated on a few projects together and this is one of my personal favorites and incidentally the first part of the first Joanne Woodward back-to-back. let me clarify. There are ten Newman-Woodward films and I don't want to bore you by doing them all in a row. So, my plan is to take one Woodward-Newman film from the good column, one from the bad and do them as a back-to-back. For those of you unfamiliar with basketball parlance, I will be doing two entries, one after the other.

So, let me start with a story about how this picture came to be taken from the pages of Shaun Levy's Paul Newman: A Life. Joanne Woodward read the script and loved it. She showed it to Paul and he said, "Well, I don't think it's fun. I don't think it's anything." Then Joanne said she had the idea that they could do the movie together to which Paul said, "No, you do it and I'll watch and clap soundlessly from the wings." Joanne, to Paul's recollection, because I'll give her the benefit of the doubt even though I feel this would be justified said, "You son of a bitch!... Here I've made my career subservient to yours, I've raised your family and not only my children, but your children from another marriage... and now when I ask you to make a movie with me, you tell me there's nothing in it for you!" Paul, apparently not being an idiot, decided to make the movie. Well done, Joanne.

A New Kind of Love is the story of a woman named Samantha, played by Woodward, who steals fashion designs from all the big designers to sell them in a cheaper department store. Samantha is thoroughly engrossed in her work, with no time or tolerance for love. Newman plays Steve Sherman, a newspaper columnist whose affair with the boss' wife gets him sent to Paris. Samantha is travelling to Paris with her colleagues, Leena, played by Thelma Ritter and Joe Bergner, played by George Tobias, so they can steal designs from the French fashion houses. They have the traditional meet-cute on the plane where Steve jokes around and Samantha gives him the number for Alcoholics Anonymous.

Steve hangs around in Paris, womanizing, columnizing and Samantha gets to work with the aid of Felicienne Courbeau played by Eva Gabor. This starts a subplot where Joe and Felicienne start a courtship much to Leena's chagrin. The best part of this is that instead of that turning into a catfight, the two women become friends, chagrined that they like each other. By the way, this movie has the essentials for a movie set in Paris and made in the 1950s or 1960s: one of the Gabors and Maurice Chevalier. One day, Samantha drinks too much, can't sleep and realizes that everyone in Paris is having fun and falling in love except her. She goes for a makeover and becomes quite the fashion plate. So much so that Steve meets her and mistakes her for a high class call girl. She doesn't try to dissuade him from this, in fact leading him on by sharing false tales of her romantic escapades within this great sports motif the movie uses. I could try to explain it, but you should just watch the movie. Two problems: Samantha is falling for Steve and doesn't know how long she can keep lying to him or how she can possibly get out of this. Secondly, Steve is falling for Samantha and doesn't like the idea of the woman he loves being a prostitute because as the Narcoleptic Argentinean in Moulin Rouge told us, "Never fall in love with a woman who sells herself. It always ends bad!" (Hey, they go to the Moulin Rouge in this movie,too.)Steve drags Samantha to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, to try and save her soul and she runs out screaming. It is brilliant. Later, Steve tracks Samantha down to her hotel where he meets Joe and Leena who explain that Samantha is not, in fact, a prostitute, which makes him angry. He tries to entrap her by going to her and offering to pay her for a night's services. She shocks him by accepting the terms. He eggs her on, taking her back to her apartment and thinking she'll crack before anything happens. Steve would be wrong in this instance, because you may recall, Steve is played by Paul Newman. So, we have that scene because I couldn't find the trailer. I know, fail.



Steve exposes Samantha and she explains that she was just going to sleep with him and not actually take the money, which he doesn't think is a big improvement. Okay, how is that fair? It resolves, as you may guess, happily.

Anyway, Paul Newman was never as comfortable in light comedy as he was in other projects and this is an instance of that. He's just too good an actor to be content doing the kind of fluff best left to, I don't know, Ashton Kutcher? Yeah, that works. Though I think if you put Ashton Kutcher opposite Joanne Woodward in the film, it would probably ruin it. Joanne Woodward is brilliant, though, and I'm so glad that she had the foresight to see the potential in this project. I find it remarkably fresh after a lifetime spent watching romantic comedies. It's got everything: Paris, fashion, makeover, a woman with a job, way before Sex and the City caught on to the formula. What do you think? Does this belong in my good column? Was the film ahead of its time? is the fashion awesome? Or am I completely wrong? Let me know in the comments.

The Paul Newman Retrospective: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? The Towering Inferno: 1974

Welcome to the second edition of The Paul Newman Retrospective. As promised, I won't shy away from the crap films and this is the first one. This film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture. ARE YOU EVEN KIDDING ME???! Luckily, The Godfather Part II came out that year and obviously that won, but the fact that it was even nominated frightens me. Just so you know, I'm not even bothering to learn the names of the characters in this movie, so I'm just going to refer to them with the names of the actors playing them.

So, The Towering Inferno. The screenplay was adapted from two novels about giant buildings that burn down so there is your first sign about the quality of the story. My first sign that this movie wouldn't go well? There's a long helicopter ride during the credits. Anytime, there's a long helicopter ride at the start of a movie everyone is doomed. Also, that's how MASH starts. So, in this film Paul Newman plays the architect of the world's tallest building. He gets off the helicopter somehow managing not to look ridiculous in a deep orange henley. He meets up with the building's owner, William Holden, where we learn Paul wants to retire from making stupid buildings, but he puts it differently. Anyway, he meets up with his lady friend, Faye Dunaway and you can guess what happens. Still, Faye is having problems deciding if she wants to take the promotion at her job or go off to the country somewhere. I was wondering what the hell her problem was until I thought Paul was talking about going to Montana. Gee, Paul, Montana? We couldn't just live wherever Steve Jobs lives, I could commute and you could stay home with the imaginary kids? If you think I thought that too far through, then you are obviously overestimating the amount of intellect required to watch this movie.

Not that there aren't plenty of plots. There's something about a deaf mom and some kids. Robert Wagner tries to run faster than fire. Fred Astaire tries to con a lady and O.J. Simpson rescues a cat. Yes. O.J. Simpson rescues a cat. Oh, and the priest from the Thornbirds buys some cheap wires which make the building catch on fire.

Then, there's Steve McQueen. When the building ineveitably catches fire, fire chief Steve comes to stop it. Good luck. More interesting than the plot of this film is the behind the scenes bitch fest that Steve McQueen had over the size of his part versus Paul Newman. He wanted billing over Paul Newman. Okay?? They settled on diagonal billing so it was like they both had top billing. Also, Steve was mad Paul had twelve more lines than him. Really, Steve, really? And then he had to carry Scott Newman in a scene. Scott Newman plays a fireman, one of his few roles. If you're wondering why you haven't heard about Scott Newman, it's because he very sadly died of a drug overdose in 1978. I know, way for me to bring down the mood. Anyway, if you're bored watching this movie by the time Steve McQueen shows up, I found it entertaining to finish all of Paul Newman's lines to Steve with the word "bitch."

I won't bore you with the other four million things that go wrong with this building and rescuing the people in the building. Let me just tell you how they decide to put out the fire: THEY BLOW UP THE WATER TANKS ON THE TOP FLOOR. First, how can that possibly work? Second, why are the water tanks on the top floor of the tallest building in the world? Does that make any sense?



Per my mom, I'd like you to note the level of badass with which Paul and Steve confront a giant wall of water that could drown them. They're like, "Oh, I'm just a little wet."

Normally, I would try not to give you a video someone made off YouTube, but the song in this film "We May Never Love Like This Again" by Maureen McGovern did win the Academy Award for Best Song that year, so I feel I must share it with you as an example of music in 1970s disaster cinema. Also, this video saves you the trouble of watching the film and I do what I can for my readers. Also, the lyrics are right there at the bottom, so sing and sway and wave your lighters/cell phones.



So, Roger Ebert says this movie does not suck. Therefore, I ask you, have I gotten it wrong? Is this in fact a good movie? Were you worried about that cat O.J. saved too? Did Paul Newman make Steve McQueen his bitch? Tell me any and all of your thoughts about this movie in the comments section. Also, whose brilliant idea was it to build the world's tallest building in San Francisco, the most eathquake-y city on Earth?

Presenting The Paul Newman Retrospective: A Failure to Communicate: Cool Hand Luke, 1967

Well, the Oscars ended and I decided that I liked having a theme. I just finished reading Shaun Levy's Paul Newman: A Life and I thought, "Hey, the Paul Newman Retrospective!"

Here's the deal: I am going to cover every Paul Newman movie I can, even the crap ones, which sometimes in the 1970s he just did a movie because it wouldn't interfere with race season, so he made some crap. Okay? Even Paul has his faults. There is one exception to this though and that is Quintet. All I know about Quintet is that it takes place in some post apocalyptic future where people kill each other because they're bored and it was directed by Robert Altman. I do not do doomsday/post-apocalyptic scenarios because I will not sleep for a week. Also, movies where the aliens invade or say they're here to be our friends. If I had met the Vulcans in First Contact, let's just say it probably would have gone differently. So, I intend to alternate posts between good Paul Newman and crappy Paul Newman. So, I'll take you from his debut in The Silver Chalice to Cars. Yes, I watched Cars.



I thought no place would be better to start than Cool Hand Luke. Two disclaimers. One, the first time I saw it, I did not have a clue what was going on. Two, it is one of my favorite movies.

The story is about Lucas Jackson, who we see in a very bizarre scene at the beginning of the film drunkenly cutting the heads off of parking meters. He can't really answer why he's doing this. He gets sentenced to two years in a prison chain gang. We quickly realize that Luke is unable to deal with any authority from the prison boss to the prisoner structure.



It's not that Luke is stupid, he just seems unable to bend to any rules, even in the interest of self preservation. We get the feeling that he wishes he could just obey rules like other people. Take this scene where he fights the prison leader Dragline and impresses the other prisoners even though he loses, but he never can give up.



Luke becomes a hero to the prisoners through this and a series of other escapades including the famous 50 eggs scene.



Or when he encourages the other prisoners to finish their work early simply to confound the guards.



In these small ways, Luke achieves victories against the system and the man, but these are short-lived. Problems arise when Luke's mother dies. Yeah, like being in a chain gang wasn't bad enough. The prison boss decides to put him in the box instead of running the risk that he will try to escape. Unfortunately, this makes Luke want to escape. And escape he does. This makes him even more of a hero, he sends back a picture of himself with two attractive women. Luke is finally returned to the prison, where the guards endeavour to break his spirit through hopeless tasks and merciless beatings. When he finally collapses and begs them for mercy, the effect is devastating. You feel like Luke has died and you're not quite certain what sort of creature you're looking at. The film carries on with the new, broken Luke and just when it seems like all hope is lost, Luke makes another escape, this time with Dragline. They split up and Luke takes refuge in a church for what is my favorite scene in a movie full of great scenes.



It strikes me as a favorite because it is so universal. Who hasn't asked God or the Universe if you would rather see it that way, what the hell is the deal here? Paul Newman manages to pull this scene off in a way that draws us in, doesn't seem so theatrical and doesn't come off as hokey as the scene could easily do if in the hands of a lesser actor.

Things don't end up well for Luke, like so many literary Christ figures before him. The film concludes with the other prisoners remembering Luke and his exploits, which is what my grandmother claims is the important part of the story. I'm not entirely sure, but it may well center around the theme of defiance in the face of an uncaring world, the uselessness of rebellion. As the prison boss asserts, most of us get used to our chains. Luke doesn't. He can't, so the world destroys him.

shockingly, this movie didn't have a Best Picture nomination. George Kennedy did win a Best Supporting Actor nomination and once again, Paul Newman got nominated for an Oscar but didn't get one. It does have one of the most famous lines in all of cinema, though.



Strother Martin the actor who plays the warden saw the line as something his character would have absorbed with the intellectualizing of the penal system. To me, it feels like such a real line, that could come straight out of the mouth of any southern sheriff.

This is not an easy film, maybe one better watched with some Cliffs Notes. In my mind, that's probably why the film didn't get the recognition it deserved when it came out. On the inane note, two years on a chain gang for vandalism? Are you kidding me? What crappy lawyer did Luke have? Were there no women on that jury? What the hell? Also, if you watch the Special Features on the DVD, you can listen to the other actors tell how they asked Paul Newman how he had a six pack and say things like, "Of course, we didn't call it a six pack back then..." I'm not even kidding.

So, what do you think? Is Paul Newman supposed to be Jesus in this film? Did he really have a great six pack? What do we know about "the man"? Let me know in the comments section!