All The King's Men (1949)

"Jack, there's something on everybody. Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption. He passes from the stink of the dydie to the stench of the shroud. There's ALWAYS something." --Willie Stark to Jack Burden (All The King's Men, 1949)

I dragged my feet to watch this one, but unlike Hamlet, I was pleasantly surprised.  It wasn't my favorite film, but it was fast-paced, entertaining, and interesting to watch.  There weren't always easy explanations for some of the character developments, and I found Willie Stark much more compelling than our hero, Jack Burden.  But still a worthwhile watch, though I doubt I'll ever see it again.

The Plot
Minor reporter Jack Burden, played by John Ireland, is sent to cover the campaign of Willie Stark, a self-taught man from a small town in the south who is running for town treasurer.  Stark, played by Broderick Crawford, is convinced that he can fight the corruption running rampant in the city council.  Jack watches him get arrested for holding an illegal political rally, but after he is released, Stark takes Jack home to his family.  Jack meets Stark's elderly father, adopted teenage son Tom, and wife Lucy who is a former schoolteacher and Stark's inspiration.  Jack is impressed with Stark's honesty and integrity and after he leaves writes several favorable articles about him.  Stark later loses the race.

Burden's article about Willie Stark

Jack goes to his home to visit, a place called Burden's Landing.  His mother is a fragile alcoholic, his step-father arrogant and verbally abusive.  Jack meets with his neighbor, an elderly judge of good character and a strong influence on Jack.  He and Judge Stanton's niece Anne, played by Joanne Dru, are childhood sweethearts, and her brother Adam is a doctor and one of his best friends.  Jack proposes marriage to Anne Stanton, but she says that while she loves him, she knows he still has to find himself.  She promises to wait for him while he goes out and discovers what he wants to do.

Jack and Anne

Meanwhile, Stark loses the election, but with help from Lucy, gets his law degree.  Later, when corrupt politics leads to faulty engineering in a local school, the collapse of a fire escape leads to the death of several children.  This act galvanizes the people, and they turn to Willie Stark to file suit against the builders.  Stark now finds himself the figurehead of a reform movement.  Worried that Stark's popularity will lead to more votes for a reform candidate for Governor, corrupt politician convince Stark himself to run, thinking this will split the vote and give their own candidate the win.

Sadie talks it over with Willie.

Jack travels with the campaign, but he, and the voters, are unimpressed by Stark's dull, factual speeches.  Jack tries to help Stark one evening with his speech, but political aide Sadie Burke, who has been dispatched to keep an eye on Stark, tells him the truth--he's not really running.  Sadie, played by Mercedes McCambridge, gets him drunk, but then watches in amazement the next morning when he gives the best speech of his career, gaining the support of the crowd.  He tells them the facts, but emphasizes he is just a "hick"  like them.  He loses the race, but learns what he must do to win.  Jack quits when he is told to stop writing positive pieces about Stark.

Willie's run for governor.

Four years later Stark has won the race for Governor, and hires Jack as his aide.  He has won by making deals with anyone who will help him, but on a trip to Burden's Landing with Jack convinces everyone that good can come of making deals with evil.  Judge Stanton agrees to take the position of Attorney General, and Anne is particularly impressed by Stark.  Stark pushes through red tape to help the poor and to build schools, stadiums, and a new hospital--all while dealing in corruption.  Judge Stanton resigns when face to face with Stark's perfidy.

Jack, Willie, and Judge Stanton

Stark tells Jack to dig up information on the Judge to use against him.  Jack refuses, but still ends up finding blackmail on the judge.  While he decides what to do with the information, Sadie informs him that Anne has been cheating on him with Stark.  Jack confronts Anne, who doesn't deny the affair.  Rather than betray the judge, he gives his blackmail notebook to Anne and walks away.

Anne has an affair with Willie.

As Stark's public life becomes more and more extravagant, his personal life is having problems.  His wife is icy and diffident, and his son is increasingly reckless.  After he accidentally kills a girl while driving drunk, he publicly admits his guilt, despite his father's attempts to cover up the incident.  Willie offers the girl's father a bribe, which he refuses.  Later, Stark insists his son Tom play in an important football game, although he is still recovering from the accident.  Tom ends up paralyzed, as he is further injured in the game.

Willie Stark and Jack Burden

Adam refuses to head up Stark's new medical center, until Jack and Stark threaten to reveal incriminating information about the judge.  Later the father of the girl killed in Tom's accident ends up dead, and Judge Stanton accuses Stark.  As impeachment proceedings begin, Stark demands that Jack reveal publicly what he knows about the judge.  Jack goes to Judge Stanton and begs him to stop the proceedings, only to discover that someone has told Stark who then went to tell the Judge.  Judge Stanton commits suicide, and Jack realizes it was Anne who told Stark.  He quits his job in disgust.

When Stark is not impeached, Adam shoots Stark and then is killed himself by the police.  Jack tries to get Anne to reveal what she knows about Stark to the crowd, but she refuses.  Stark dies in Jack's arms, still not knowing why he was shot.

Willie Stark

The History
In 1947, Robert Penn Warren won the Pulizter Prize for his novel about political corruption, based loosely on the life of Huey P. Long, former governor of Louisiana and that state's U.S. senator in the mid-1930s.  All the King's Men was soon picked up by writer-director Robert Rossen, who purchased the film rights himself.  He wrote the screenplay and shifted the focus of the novel from the Jack Burden character (played by John Ireland) to Willie Stark.  The film was produced by Rossen's own production company but distributed by Columbia Pictures.

Robert Rossen

Rossen was a Jewish New Yorker, who came to Hollywood in 1937 to make pictures.  He was also a member of the Communist party from 1937-1947, which he explained later as being "dedicated to social causes of the sort that we as poor Jews from New York were interested in."  Though this would later get him into trouble with the HUAC, he split with the Communist Party in Los Angeles when they severely criticized his beloved project, All the King's Men.  As it was, Rossen had to put in writing his political tenancies for Columbia's studio head Harry Cohn, denying that he was a Communist Party member.

Merecedes McCambridge and John Ireland

With the backing of Cohn, Rossen offered the part of Willie Stark to John Wayne, who violently rejected the script as being "unpatriotic" and accused Rossen of making a film that that threw acid on "the American way of life."  The role would go to Broderick Crawford, a supporting actor who saw a great role and jumped on it.  He stayed up late watching films of Huey Long, and poured his heart into his performance.  Mercedes McCambridge, a radio actress, got her big break into films when she threw a temper tantrum and stormed out of the audtition room, irritated by how long the actresses were being made to wait.  Giving them a piece of her mind worked--the producers thought her temper the perfect match for Sadie's.  Cohn's critiques of Rossen's script included scrapping a framing structure that was difficult for audiences to follow, and several improvements in the relationships and motivations of characters.  Even after edits, Cohn refused to support the film, despite its great reviews.  He also refused to promote it in Los Angeles in time for the Oscars.  Rossen poured all of his money into publicity for the film.

Harry Cohn

Rossen had some stiff competition for the award this year, mostly in war films.  Battleground and Twelve O'Clock High both won accolades for their realistic portrayals of war.  William Wyler directed Olivia de Havilliand in The Heiress, based on Henry James's novel Washington Square.  This was his first film since Oscar-winner The Best Years of Our Lives, nearly three years previous.  When asked why he had waited so long, he quipped, "Well if I don't make any picture at least I'm not making a bad one."  The studios were still having a tough time competing with both the advent of television and the loss of their theaters.  When it looked as though they would be unable to support the Awards for a second year in a row, Hollywood moguls traveled to New York to convince their bosses that investing in the Awards paid off in publicity and increased world-wide business.  After that successful pitch, the Academy now had the funds to reserve the Pantages Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard for a glamorous Awards show.

Pantages Theatre during the 1949 Oscars

Newly minted star Paul Douglas, fresh off Oscar nominated A Letter to Three Wives, was the host and began the show with a warning against long speeches.  "I'll thank in advance all the writers, grips, hairdressers, cameramen, front offices and producers," he said, "And we'll also assume the without your mother the whole thing might not have been possible.  Just thank your lucky stars, the voters and no one else."  Highlights of this year's awards included a performance of "Best Song" winner "Baby It's Cold Outside," Ronald Regan's performance of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and a special award given to Fred Astaire by his partner, Ginger Rogers.  Olivia de Havilland walked off with her second Oscar for "Best Actress."  The remaining awards were split between the previously mentioned films, but with seven nominations, All the King's Men had three wins.  Mercedes McCambridge won for "Best Supporting Actress," Broderick Crawford for "Best Actor," and "Best Picture."  McCambridge encouraged "all beginning actresses" to "never get discouraged," while Broderick Crawford held the statue in silence before finally saying, "If my heart was to stop beating for a moment..."

Broderick Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge get their Oscars.

While none of the wins were unexpected, everyone had a good time at the once-again glamorous awards.  Broderick Crawford's wife got in the car immediately, worried the Academy had made a mistake, while Merecedes McCambridge accorded her win to her "lucky dress."  Olivia de Havilland was on top of the world with her second win, only to immediately drop her agency when they refused to let her husband approve all her advertising.  She never made another Oscar-worthy film again, and got a divorce in 1952.

Sean Penn in All the King's Men

All the King's Men was remade in 2006 with Sean Penn.  In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. To date, it is the last Best Picture winner to be based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.  While the re-make was mildly successful, the film has never achieved great popularity in modern times.

The Verdict?

And we're back!

So it's been awhile---with everything changing in the my life, it seemed that some things got put on hold.  But Oscar season is upon us, and I've finished up old posts that have been waiting.  Stick around while I start back up, and once again, watch all the movies nominated this year....

Hamlety Pizza

Hamlet and pork products?  I know, it's corny.  But it works!  And I think I cheated a little bit...I used my favorite version of ham: prosciutto and pancetta.  And to be even more Italian I decided to make pizza.  I've actually never made my own pizza, except for one effort that went seriously awry.  This time I used baby steps; I purchased the pizza dough from a local Italian grocery store.  I then tried three different pizza recipes all on the recommendation of my favorite food blog, SmittenKitchen.  And she didn't disappoint.  Below are my attempts at fresh ricotta and red onion pizza, bacon, onions, and cream pizza, and shaved asparagus pizza.  With a few tweaks.

"Oh that this too...would melt" Asparagus Pizza
 You'll Need:
1 medium sized ball of fresh pizza dough, uncooked
1/2 pound uncooked asparagus
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1-1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella
2 tbsps olive oil
1 scallion
salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
2. Take the asparagus and starting from the base, peel upwards in strips (like with a cucumber).  No need to snap the ends off.  Get as many peelings as you can, and press firmly for thick slices.  Toss peelings when complete with 1 tbsp olive oil and salt and pepper to season.  Set aside in a bowl.
3. Roll out and stretch dough until correct size with ends slightly higher for crust.  Cover the dough with remaining olive oil and a tsp salt.  Cover baking sheet with tin foil and then place pizza on a square of parchment paper.
4. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese, then mozzarella, over the dough.  Top with asparagus.  Bake in the oven 10-15 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and asparagus slightly browned.  Immediately top with sliced scallion and set aside to cool.

"Goodnight, sweet prince" Prosciutto Ricotta Pizza

 You'll Need:

1 medium sized ball of fresh pizza dough, uncooked

1 cup ricotta cheese

1 1/2 tbsps golden brown sugar

2 tbsps olive oil

2 tbsps balsamic vinegar

1 large red onion, thinly sliced

1/4 pound prosciutto

1 tsp fresh sage

salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
2. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in medium saucepan.  Cook onions with brown sugar until dark brown and tender, about 15 minutes.  Mix in vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.  Cook until thickened, about 2 minutes more.  Turn off heat.
3. Roll out and stretch dough until correct size with ends slightly higher for crust.  Cover the dough with remaining olive oil and a tsp salt.  Cover baking sheet with tin foil and then place pizza on a square of parchment paper.
4. Spread the onion mixture over the center of the dough within a 1/4 inch of the edge.  Top with ricotta and then place prosciutto over the top.  Sprinkle with sage.
5. Bake in oven for about 12 minutes, or until bread is brown and crusty.

"To die: To sleep" Pancetta and Cream Pizza

 You'll Need:

1 medium sized ball of fresh pizza dough, uncooked

1/2 cup ricotta cheese

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tbsp all purpose flour

1 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

1/4 pound pancetta, cubed

salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Cook pancetta with 1 tsp olive oil until slightly browned.  Then remove pancetta and set aside.  Add onions to the pan and cook until slightly softened, about 10 minutes.  Turn off heat.
3. Roll out and stretch dough until correct size with ends slightly higher for crust.  Cover the dough with remaining olive oil and a tsp salt.  Cover baking sheet with tin foil and then place pizza on a square of parchment paper.
4. Whisk together ricotta, sour cream, and flour.  Add salt and pepper to season.
5. Spread the cheese mixture over the center of the dough within a 1/4 inch of the edge.  Top with onions and pancetta.
6. Bake in oven for about 12 minutes, or until bread is golden brown.

Different in their own ways, but incredibly yummy.  Pizza was a success!  SmittenKitchen never leads me wrong.  I keep changing my mind about my favorite, but the asparagus was very good.  Well then... until next time?  For now...I'll enjoy the melted cheese...

Hamlet (1948)

"So oft it chances in particular men / That through some vicious mole of nature in them, / By the o'ergrowth of some complexion / Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, / Or by some habit grown too much; that these men - / Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, / Their virtues else - be they as pure as grace, / Shall in the general censure take corruption / From that particular fault... This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind."  Opening Narration, Hamlet (1948)

Hamlet has never been my favorite Shakespearean play.  I can appreciate it, I can enjoy certain scenes, I can even understand it.  But I don't particularly like it.  Hamlet is so damn whiny and self-involved--like most college students home over break.  So you can imagine I was dreading this one.  I wish I could say I finished the film enlightened and moved by a famous tragedian.  I wasn't.  I kept checking the time to see how much more I had left.  And Oliver cut my absolute favorite characters to boot.  Give me MacBeth over Hamlet any day; at least Lady MacBeth follows through.

Opening scene to Hamlet

Plot

The opening quote (taken in pieces and modified from Act I Scene IV of the play) above is narrated by Lawrence Olivier, who plays the character of Prince Hamlet.  The lines fade away and the camera pans to soldiers changing shifts atop the castle of Elsinore.  A sentry, Francisco, changes shifts with Bernardo and another sentry, Marcellus, both of whom have seen the ghost of the recently deceased King Hamlet.  Marcellus brings with him the skeptical Horatio, a friend of the young Prince Hamlet, played by Norman Wooland.  The three men see the ghost of the old King, but when they ask him to speak, the ghost hurries away.

Horatio sees the ghost of King Hamlet

Meanwhile, the court is celebrating the recent marriage of Gertrude, King Hamlet's widowed Queen, to his brother, the new King Claudius, played by Basil Sydney.  Gertrude, played by Eileen Herlie, has married Claudius a month after her husband was killed by an accidental snakebite.  Despite entreaties from both the King and Queen, Prince Hamlet sits alone and broods. Horatio interrupts him and brings him to the castle battlements with the story of the ghost.  They wait, and soon the ghost appears and beckons him to follow.  Alone, Hamlet hears the true recounting of his father's death.  He was poisoned when Claudius poured poison in his ear while he slept.  The ghost leaves, after charging him to both be kind to his mother and revenge his father.  Hamlet is tormented with indecision, and decides to pretend madness in order to draw out Claudius's guilt.

Queen Gertrude speak with Hamlet

Polonius, played by Felix Aylmer, King Claudius's chief counselor, watches his son Laertes, played by Terrence Morgan, leave on an extended trip for France.  Before Laertes leaves, he advises his sister Ophelia not to fall in love with Hamlet, as he must marry for the good of the kingdom.  Ophelia, played by Jean Simmons, has exchanged love letters with Hamlet, but first Laertes and then Polonius caution her against his courtship.  Later, when Hamlet begins to act mad, Polonius believes it is because of his love for Ophelia.  He tells Ophelia to return Hamlet's letters, and then hides nearby to see how Hamlet reacts.  Hamlet remains consistently mad, and manages to both frighten Ophelia and break her heart.  Both Claudius and Polonius are convinced of Hamlet's madness.

Ophelia and Hamlet

Hamlet hires traveling players to perform the play, "The Murder of Gonzago."  But Hamlet alters the play to portray how his father actually died.  The play is performed before the court, and Claudius is unable to watch and runs to his room.  Hamlet, convinced now of his guilt, follows Claudius to his room but catches him praying.  Unwilling to kill him while he prays, Hamlet goes instead to confront his mother.  He hears a voice from the curtains and, believing it to be Claudius, runs the curtains through.  After discovering he has killed Polonius, he is only mildly upset and continues to harangue his mother about her swift marriage.  Suddenly Hamlet hears the ghost of his father, reminding him to be good to his mother.  Hamlet speaks with the ghost but Gertrude cannot see it and becomes convinced her son is mad.

Gertrude fear Hamlet is mad

Hamlet is banished by Claudius to England, where Claudius has contrived for him to be assassinated.  But Hamlet's ship is attacked by pirates, and he manages to return to England.  In the meantime Ophelia has been driven mad by death of her father and Hamlet's rejection and spends her days wandering the castle picking flowers and singing nonsense songs.  Laertes arrives home distraught to find his sister mad and his father dead.  He is further disturbed when Ophelia drowns, presumable having committed suicide.  Hamlet returns just as Ophelia is being buried and is attacked by a grieving Laertes.  But Claudius pulls him away and then talks him into revenge against Hamlet by challenging him to a duel with swords.  Claudius will give Laertes a poison-tipped sword that will kill at the slightest scratch.  Claudius also prepares a poison drink, in case Laertes fails.

Laertes finds Ophelia has gone mad

Hamlet accepts the duel and the two fight, with Hamlet winning the first two rounds.  Gertrude sees Claudius making much of a goblet for Hamlet and suspects it is poisoned.  She drinks from it while Claudius watches in horror.  Laertes finally scratches Hamlet who continues to fight, not knowing he will soon die.  In the fight, he switches swords with Laertes and scratches him, fatally wounding him.  At that moment, Gertrude dies, telling Hamlet of the poisoned cup.  With his dying breath, Laertes confesses the plot, and Hamlet attacks Claudius in a fit of rage.  Hamlet kills Claudius, and then staggers to the throne while the courtiers kneel before him.  He then dies himself.  Horatio is horrified, and orders that Hamlet be given a soldiers funeral.  Hamlet's body to brought to the top of the battlements, while cannons are shot off from the castle in respect.

Final scene of Hamlet

History

British actor Lawrence Olivier had had great critical success with his production of Henry V in 1944, and decided to try again in his second Shakespearean cinematic role.  Hamlet wasn't his first choice; but Orson Welles had just finished filming Macbeth and was starting production on Othello.  Olivier was determined, however, that this be just as great a success as his last film, and he wasn't too concerned with Shakespearean accuracy. Writer Alan Dent, who was helping him with the screenplay, recalled that "one has to choose between making the meaning clear to twenty million cinemagoers and making two thousand Shakespearean experts wince, or not changing a word.  We decided to make the minority wince."  They trimmed the play from four hours to two hours and thirty minutes and changed some of the dialogue to make it easier to grasp.  They hired Jean Simmons, a young rising British star as Ophelia and 28-year-old Eileen Herlie as Hamlet's mother, Gertrude.  Olivier himself was 40 years old.  He also voiced the deposed King himself, by recording it and then playing it back much more slowly.  He died his hair blonde, and even did his own stunts by jumping from the parapet in the scene where he kills King Claudius.  The biggest change that Olivier made was to get rid of the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, in an effort to focus more on the psychological aspects of the play, rather than the political.

Sir Lawrence Olivier as Hamlet

The inventive camera effects and tricks were greatly inspired by Orson Welles's groundbreaking work in Citizen Cane.  Olivier stuck to his image as a prominent thespian by insisting they keep to black and white film as an artistic premise.  He would later come to admit he was in a heated argument with Technicolor.  But despite, or perhaps because of all the changes, Oliver's turn as the troubled Prince of Denmark was a success, much to the shock of the Hollywood bigwigs. Without much advertising or Oscar plugging, Hamlet was well on its way to sweeping both the awards and audiences.

Hamlet drops on the King

Hamlet wasn't the only big movie in 1948; films like The Red Shoes, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Johnny Belinda were all major contenders.  But far more pressing on the mind of the Academy members was where they were going to get the funds for this year's banquet.  In past years, the major studio heads had contributed the bulk of the funds, happy to pay for a ceremony that would lend them prestige and increase profits.  But in May of 1948 the Supreme Court told the major studios they couldn't own both their movie theater chains and their studios, as they were in violation of anti-trust laws.  The studios were forced to sell the theater chains, which represented half of their profits.  To make things worse, 1948 also marked the year that the World Series, Milton Berle and Ed Sullivan were broadcast on American television sets.  Movie ticket sales plummeted.  In December the Academy got the bad news--the studios were pulling their funding to cut costs.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Screening Theater

The Academy President, Jean Hersholt, threatened to resign in protest.  As it was he only agreed to stay on through the awards, and then announced that the ceremonies would be held in the Academy's 950-seat screening theater; last year's ceremonies at the Shrine Auditorium boasted 6,700 seats.  Hersholt turned down offers to host the Awards in stadiums in other cities, in the original place of the Ambassador Hotel, and especially for a local television station to broadcast the awards (though this was mostly out of spite for the new medium.)  Academy members lit up the switchboards to complain; their $36 yearly dues would not get them tickets this year.

Madame Karinska receives her first Best Costume Oscar from Elizabeth Taylor

Hersholt opened the ceremonies by dourly announcing his new successor, screenwriter/producer Charles Brackett.  The emcee, a rather smarmy Robert Montgomery, seemed to feel his entire job was to ogle the newest studio starlets who had been hired to distribute the awards throughout the show.  Ava Gardiner, Deborah Kerr, Arlene Dahl, and seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Taylor were among the presenters that evening.  This was the first year an Oscar for "Best Costume Design" would be presented, and legendary Hollywood costumer Edith Head thought she had it in the bag, as she "had been doing motion pictures before the Oscar even existed."  Yet she was forced to sit and watch while Madame Karinska and Dorothy Jenkins won for the "sack-cloths and suits of armor" in Joan of Arc.

Director John Huston and father Walter Huston celebrate their Oscars

The night would include big wins for Treasure of the Sierra Madre director John Huston; he won both Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.  He also directed his father, Walter Huston, to win a the award for Best Supporting Actor, who then said, "Many years ago...I raised a son and I said to him, 'If you ever become a writer or a director, please find a good part for your old man.'"  Jane Wyman, famous for being Ronald Reagan's first wife (and an actress), won for Best Actress in Johnny Belinda.  Lawrence Olivier was announced "Best Actor" to muted applause, and because of his absence, his friend Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. sheepishly accepted for his friend.  And then actress Ethel Barrymore stepped onstage to announce the winner of Best Picture.

Sir Laurence Olivier gets his Oscar

Hollywood moguls had gawked in some dismay at the increasingly popular films to come out of Great Britain.  And they were very upset to learn of Hamlet's many nominations.  Barrymore in particular was incensed with the film, and very vocally insisted it could not compare to her brother John's onstage performance.  Which was why she was so shaken to open the envelope and discover that same film to be the winner.  Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. accepted the second Oscar as the audience filed out in disgust.  When Olivier, who was starring with his wife Vivien Leigh in a London stage production of School for Scandal, was reached at 9am the next morning he issued a public statement thanking the Academy for the honor given to him and his associates.  When asked how he would celebrate, Olivier said, "Oh, perhaps an extra drink after tonight's show."

Hamlet's dying scene.

Studios were up in arms about Hamlet's win until former president Hersholt announced that their lack of support had led to the change in ceremony, making them look like petulant children.  Tabloids both lauded and denigrated the Academy, but it was the governor of California who said of Oscar, "At the ripe old age of twenty-one, he has shown that he is free to vote as he pleases."  In time, the specter of Hamlet has faded in the face of Olivier's stronger Shakespearean films, Henry V and Richard III.  It is Olivier's acting that has stood the test of time, rather than the film itself.  It is, however, one of only two foreign films to win Best Picture, the second being Slumdog Millionaire sixty years later.

The Verdict?

Well--you can tell this wasn't my favorite.  I tried to like it!  I was an English major.  Shouldn't I be holding a skull aloft and making arcane pronouncements?  I feel like a traitor.  To be honest, I've always felt a bit of a traitor for not being a huge Shakespeare fan.  I do like the Bard, and I can both appreciate and enjoy his plays.  All in all, I find it much easier to recite and/or see his plays rather than read them like a book.  But I prefer his comedies, or even MacBeth.  In the end, I much prefer Oscar Wilde to Shakespeare.  Much more my sense of humor.

Gratuitous melodrama in Hamlet.

And then there are the female characters in Hamlet.  Ophelia, who goes mad after her father dies and her boyfriend dumps her, and Gertrude, who marries her brother-in-law and manages to serve as a kind of Oedipal catalyst.  Neither one is a particularly stirring female character, and Ophelia in particular bugs me as I find myself continually rooting for her to do something.  Stop reciting weird poetry.

Gertrude drinks the poison.

But enough about Hamlet.   I think my biggest challenge in watching a film like this is over-stimulation.  Before I watched this film I had seen several other film representations of Hamlet, gone to a Hamlet production, read the play, and dissected it in English class.  I have even read and seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which I much prefer to Hamlet.  Watch it, they play a question game as a tennis match.

But again I digress, again.  This film showed nothing new to me to gain my interest.  When I see a production of Shakespeare, I'm always interested in how the director will bring his own sensibilities to any given play.  Will he place the characters in modern times and arm them with guns as Baz Luhrmann did?  Will the director decide Hamlet truly is going mad, or that Ophelia is indeed pregnant with Hamlet's child?  I once saw a very interesting production of A Midsummer Night's Dream where the scenery became increasingly bare until the end when the actors were just in front of a white backdrop.  I want to know why this rendition of the play is different, and what should make it stand out for me.  I did not find anything in this version of Hamlet.

Hamlet fights Laertes

Again, perhaps I am jaded.  This was the first sound film of Hamlet, and Olivier did make changes.  But I find it was a very average, very unoriginal portrayal of a play I don't really like to begin with.  If I had seen it in 1948, I would have perhaps been more easily stirred.  But I really think that it is not the lack of 21st century bells and whistles I find irritating, but instead lack of imagination I find in this film.  And yet, I would absolutely see Olivier in Richard III.  Olivier has a kind of dark magnetism and cunning strength that I find much more suited to a villainous anti-hero.  Don't worry Olivier, it's not you, it's me.

Pity-Me-Pita-Chips

While I know pita and hummus are not Jewish foods, I can't explain why I have always associated this particular snack with Judaism.  It's actually much more Middle Eastern than anything else.  Pita is a an Arabic flat bread popular in the Middle East and areas of the Mediterranean.  And lately it has become one of my favorite snacks.  So I thought I'd pick this food for this film, because honestly it seems like my food associations with these films have become tenuous at best.

The following is a simple, easy, and exceedingly yummy way to make homemade pita chips.






Pity-Me-For-Eating-Too-Many-Pita-Chips

You'll Need:
Kosher Sea Salt
Garlic Salt
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
Olive Oil Spray
At least two loaves of Pita Bread (I prefer Joseph's Whole Wheat)

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Slice the bread in half and then into small triangles, much as you would a pizza.
3. Line a baking sheet with tine foil and then arrange the triangles of pita across the sheet.
4. Lightly spray the olive oil over the pita bread so that it is evenly coated, and then drizzle the remaining oil over the bread.  Try to make sure each slice has a little oil on it, but not too much is needed.
5. Liberally sprinkle the chips with garlic salt and kosher salt.  Yes, this is a lot a salt.  But that's what makes it great!  The amount is entirely to taste.
6. Bake the chips for about 7-10 minutes, or until golden and slightly brown around the edges.  If the entire chip is browned, it will taste burned.  Feel free to rotate the pan to make sure the chips bake evenly.
7. Take the chips out of the oven and enjoy!

These chips can be eaten alone, but are also great with hummus and other dips.  They're also not horrible for you, if you get the whole wheat bread and are stingy with the oil.  I've yet to try this with cinnamon and sugar or perhaps Parmesan cheese, but I will!  Of course, every time I think about making changes, I end up going for the recipe.  It's hard to mess with perfection.