Customer Reviews

Controversial Classics Collection (Advise and Consent / The Americanization of Emily / Bad Day at Black Rock / Blackboard Jungle / A Face in the Crowd / Fury / I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932)
Controversy: The oldest movie in the controversial classics set, FUGITIVE also lays claim to the most unwieldy title. Chain gang prison labor is the controversial topic.
Strengths: Paul Muni is absolutely riveting, and his final scene is one of the more memorable in movies.
Weaknesses: The last chain gang prison system was outlawed in the 1940s. The oldest title is also the least relevant.
Bottom Line: Inspiration for other classic movies like Cool Hand Luke and O Brother, Where Art Thou? Although severely dated, FUGITIVE still delivers as top-drawer entertainment.

FURY (1936)
Controversy: German director Fritz Lang's first American film is an exposé of lynching, mob violence, and the corrosive effects of living for revenge.
Strengths: Spencer Tracy's transformation from good-natured innocent to bitter victim is breathtaking. Lang's depiction of the mob is still quite strong
Weaknesses: The first and last act tends to stall out the story. The studio imposed ending is unsatisfying.
Bottom Line: Although not quite as powerful as Lang's German film M, which it resembles, FURY still has a number of memorable moments, and Tracy's Jekyll and Hyde transformation works very well.

BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (1955)
Controversy: Xenophobia during World War II and a small southwestern town with a big, ugly secret.
Strengths: Spencer Tracy always adds value to a movie. Robert Ryan, as Tracy's chief nemesis, turns in a typically fine performance, too.
Weaknesses: Anne Francis isn't anything more than a token female and doesn't really seem to fit in the story. A little too much attention paid to the secret keeping, and not enough on what was done that must remain hidden.
Bottom Line: A good Decent Stranger Against the Mob movie that may have dealt a little more directly with the shameful incident everyone was trying to keep buried.

BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (1955)
Controversy: Rock `n roll infected juvenile delinquents are taking over the world.
Strengths: Director Richard Brooks really wades into it, and doesn't pull his punches on some issues one simply didn't talk about in the 1950s - racial tensions, rape, middle class apathy and cynicism. Glenn Ford, Sidney Poitier and especially young Vic Morrow are very good.
Weaknesses: Because it shows few if any female students, no parents and otherwise little of the students' lives away from school this one's a little exploitative.
Bottom Line: Overall an excellent and honest look at urban troubled youth. Probably Glenn Ford's best film.

A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957)
Controversy: Director Elia Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg's warning about the pernicious encroachment of mass media, especially television, in American life.
Strengths: They got it right, although they were about a decade ahead of the rest of us. Patricia Neal and Walter Matthau, as worried onlookers, are very good.
Weaknesses: I may be a minority of one, but Andy Griffith in the lead role too often goes way over the top. Kazan may have wanted to portray him as an irresistible force of nature, but at times he's simply too loud, too out-sized, too outlandish.
Bottom Line: Still fun and entertaining, especially to see how much of it Kazan on got right. After the 2004 elections, it was somewhat chilling to see a politician go geese hunting with the Griffith character in a bid to develop his `common man' credentials.

ADVISE AND CONSENT (1962)
Controversy: Director Otto Preminger's adaptation of best-selling novel and hit play deals with Washington in-fighting over a presidential cabinet nomination.
Strengths: Charles Laughton and Walter Pidgeon as savvy senators give this one backbone and keep it interesting.
Weaknesses: Episodic and ultimately more soap opera than exposé.
Bottom Line: In my opinion this is the weakest entry in the set.


AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY (1964)
Controversy: The Navy needs a hero on D-Day and this movie not only questions hero worship, it pulls it apart and blows it up, bit by bit.
Strengths: Paddy Chayefsky's script is perfect. James Garner and Julie Andrews are perfect as the mismatched lovers.
Weaknesses: Addictive.
Bottom Line: My favorite movie in the bunch, a perfect satire while treating with compassion those it satires. One of the great comedies of the twentieth century.

Warner Brothers home video department just keeps topping their previous exceptional achievments.

Here we have SEVEN magnificent, acclaimed feature films from the 1930s to the 1960s that still have the power to reach the "gut" of the viewer and be profound and provocative. Of course, each film is available individually, but the value of buying this boxed set brings the price to around $8 per film. Unreal.

Any serious cinema afficiando owes it to him or herself to buy this.

Pre-release reviews have praised the exceptional transfers (typical of WB), and I cannot imagine anyone not being blown away by this boxed set of incomparable films.

What a wonderful treat this collection is....at first I was skeptic because I am a big Film Noir fan...and did not think that this collection would suffice...how wrong I was. The commentaries are crisp, clean and full of information...the movies are some of the Best Produced...Bad Day At Black Rock...starring Tracy as in Spencer...and Ryan. Then there is The Americanization of Emily with a script by one of the best writers: Paddy C......and one of my favorite movies starring Julie Andrews fresh from Mary Poppins..thank God...and James Garner...both of them a treat. A face in the Crowd should be one of the 10 BEST Movies Ever Produced...Andy Griffith is just magnificent along with Patricia Neal...Watch This Movie! I am a Fugituve from a Chain Gang...a must see of what happened in the disgrace of the American Judicial System...Advise and Consent I really did not care for but it was worth watching just to listen to the commentary....and finally Blackboard Jungle which still pulls no punches with a very young Glenn Ford...with funny commentary by the teen-agers (I am not going to tell you who) that were in the movie.

Get this collection and give yourself a Treat that is seldom if ever seen in the Movies now days....

I purchased these films from the USA as unfortunately they are not available in Australia on DVD.
All of the films in this special edition are classics and my family have thoroughly enjoyed viewing these very special early films - especially "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" and "Bad Day at Black Rock".
I am very happy I was able to purchase these controversial classic films.

There have been a lot of these genre or theme boxed sets released in the past several years. Some of them are obvious strategic attempts to force people to buy some weak movies in order also to have some great movies--kind of like "block booking" for the 21st century.

This is NOT one of those sets. Every movie in this box is wonderfully written, acted, and filmed, and each one is thought-provoking and, as strange as it may sound, timely. To be honest, I hadn't heard of all of these movies when I bought the set (although I've heard and read about all of them since), so I was absolutely thrilled to find that each one was a thoroughly entertaining and enriching picture.

Warner Home Video has done it again. Their "Film Noir Classics"
collection was an excellent quintet of seminal noir movies, and
this collection is an equally well-considered compilation of
socially conscious movies, movies that challenged the American
conscience, and helped effect politial and social change.

This collection is also a good introduction to the work of
a number of prominent directors, including Otto Preminger,
Elia Kazan, and Fritz Lang.

I must quibble with a previous reviewer who stated that
BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK was a black-and-white movie. It
is, in fact, in color.

I bought the collection only to see Fury, by Fritz Lang, after I had seen "M" and "Metropolis". I ended up seeing all these films almost back to back over a few days! What an interesting collection of films. They all have intelligent dialogue and each deals with an important issue (eg, racism, homosexuality, injustices in the justice system, the madness of the celebrity culture, pacifism). A real treat in that we can see how these important issues were treated in the middle part of last century (not so differently to now...!).

Seven great movies about American society. To view and review from time to time.
Lázaro Silva

Terceira, Azores
Portugal

Even in the early days of film, there have always been controversial movies. While the majority of films play it reasonably safe, there is that minority of movies that take risks and generate talk. Nowadays, for better or for worse, the truly controversial movie is a little bit more of a rarity, as there are less taboos that aren't discussed or shown. The Controversial Classics boxed set collects seven older movies that deal with dicey subjects in the Production Code-enforced era that tried to keep everything safe and bland; these films are far from the only ones that could be called controversial or classic, but they are a good sampling.

First (chronologically) is I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, an early talkie with Paul Muni as a man unwittingly implicated in a robbery in the deep South. He is put on a chain gang, and though he eventually escapes and rebuilds his life, his past does catch up with him. This is a powerful but very dark film, with even the last line filled with grimness.

Fury is the first of two starring Spencer Tracy. In the first, Fury, he is a man arrested while driving through a small town. He is suspected of a kidnapping and a lynch mob destroys the jail he is in, apparently killing him. He survives, however, and - now embittered - secretly works to get those responsible tried for his murder. Bad Day at Black Rock has Tracy as a crippled World War II veteran who goes to a small desert community and stirs up memories of an old murder. This one co-stars Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and Anne Francis. Both films are decent but far from great.

Things pick up with Blackboard Jungle, which also has Anne Francis, though Glenn Ford is the star as a novice teacher at a tough school. It is one of the earliest films to highlight juvenile delinquency. Sidney Potier, Vic Morrow and Jamie Farr are some of the students, each with their own level of criminality. Although preachy at times, it is still pretty good.

A Face in the Crowd stars Andy Griffith in his earliest movie role. For those used to Griffith from his nice guy roles, particularly in The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock, this is quite a contrast as he plays an utterly amoral man who uses his homespun humor to go from a bum to an immensely powerful entertainment personality. Also starring Patricia Neal, Lee Remick and Walter Matthau, this is both a great movie and an insightful one.

Advise & Consent starts slow but picks up as it moves into its second half. Otto Preminger's adaptation of the best-selling novel presents the inner workings of the Senate in a somewhat darker light than Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The plot deals with a controversial pick by the President for Secretary of State. This is another great movie, marred only by the ending which wraps things up in a bit too conveniently. Instead of a true star, this features an ensemble cast, including Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Walter Pidgeon, Don Murray, Burgess Meredith and Charles Laughton.

If the set begins with a rather depressing movie, it at least ends with a somewhat happier film, the war satire The Americanization of Emily. James Garner is at his most James-Garner-est as the wheeler-dealer Navy Commander serving as a "dog-robber". His job is to make sure that the admiral he works for gets all the pleasures of home. Set in England in the days before D-Day, Garner is a self-admitted coward; he refuses to die just to become a hero. Julie Andrews is the war widow with whom he gets romantically involved. When his admiral decides that the first man to die on Omaha beach must be a Navy man (to help glorify the Navy), Garner is forced to take part in the invasion. As Arthur Hiller relates in the commentary, this is not so much an anti-war film as one opposing the false glorification of war. Not unlike the much more recent Flags of Our Fathers, this film is critical of the manufacturing of heroes; based on recent news stories on Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman, this lesson still needs to be taught.

With I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, A Face in the Crowd and The Americanization of Emily all meriting five stars and the rest four, this set gets five stars overall, helped by the numerous extras, most particularly the commentaries (on all films except A Face in the Crowd, which does have a mini-documentary). I don't know if this is the ideal sampling of controversial classics, but it is a set of good-to-great films.

Advice And Consent
One could argue that only a director of Otto Preminger's status and an all star cast that presciently, lacks an all star lead actor, could take on the twin taboos of American culture: communism and homosexuality. There is another bold step. The action of the film doesn't take place in a forlorn urban backwater, but in the seat of national power, Washington, D.C.

It is interesting to compare and contrast this 1962 film with its 1961 across-the-pond- equivalent Victim, staring Dirk Bogart and directed by the redoubtable Basil Dearden, known for his poignant socially aware pictures. Dirk Bogart, who in real life was gay, plays a member of the British judiciary a stone's throw from the ultimate power of his profession who is blackmailed due to his sexual orientation. He goes to the police and fights back, asking his wife to do so as well and in the film he is able to pick up the pieces and regroup. His career also continued; he made several notable pictures afterward including The Servant, and the Luchino Visconte adaptation of the Thomas Mann classic, Death In Venice.

Presented with the same moral predicament, Preminger's film and the Senator Brigham Anderson character played by Don Murray insist on evasion and denial. The consequences are devastating. Even in real life, Murray's film career was basically over.

Advice And Consent is still relevant, still reverberates, especially in light of news recently come to light that Lyndon Johnson blackmailed Washington politicos he believed were in the closet, using Bill Meyers, an LBJ staffer at the time, as the administration's point man on the exercise.

Although Advice And Consent is a bold and brazen film, I disagree with the Peter Bogdanovich assessment that it is "by far the best political movie ever made in this country." I would certainly rank it in the top five alongside the 1949 classic All the King's Men, All the President's Men and the Robert Redford thriller, Three Days of the Condor. I also give it a place at the table with the last word in political movies, Z.

Bad Day At Black Rock
In the only color film in this set, Spencer Tracey was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for his role as a World War II veteran coming to a small western town to bestow a medal to the family of another veteran killed in action. There is a secret however, regarding the dead veteran's family; the entire town conspires to suppress it. A monument to inbred small town complicity, narrow-mindedness, and xenophobia, the movie makes a universal statement about the power of being underestimated.

In the hallowed and semi sacred corridors of Fortune 500 America, the film's title became an anthem for failure; as in "Well, C.J, how'd the numbers come out." "Ah, um, bad day at black rock, A.J."

Distinctly applicable to our current plight, bullies everywhere will hate this movie, resent its premise, and the improvisational power of its has beens and washed ups who breathe fresh life into their tired routines and corrupt syllogisms.

The Americanization Of Emily
I never thought that James Garner was this good. He's the real star of the picture although James Coburn makes a failed bid to steal the show. A simple war time love story at first that morphs into a panoramic depiction of an armed services netherworld of competing egos that bid to put together the greatest invasion force in human history. We should have been on our guard early, as it is clear Garner understood this script when he delivers a blistering soliloquy that indicts Europe for 2,000 years of misinformed and misdirected alliances he believes lead to the D Day invasion. When an admiral's psychotic ramblings are accepted as direct orders, Garner is pushed, goaded and ultimately coerced into the role of the first man to give his life on the beaches of Normandy, and the film becomes a continuation of Major Clipton's "madness, madness" summation in The Bridge on the River Kwai, as well as a prelude to Yosarian's insanity in Catch-22. Throw in Apocalypse Now, and you would have the mother, father and grandparents of all war movie packages.

A Face In The Crowd
Andy Griffith spent the rest of his career playing against the boorish loudmouth Lonesome Rhodes character he created in Elia Kazan's A Face In The Crowd. Academy Award winner Patricia Neal (Hud) introduces Lonesome to radio audiences and only belatedly realizes that although the sly homespun on air persona he projects can make her wealthy, it is false to the core and she has created a monster. She is foolish enough to mix love with business and lives to regret it when Lee Remick makes her brilliant film debut as a super saccharine baton tossing cheerleader who Lonesome seduces then marries on a jaunt to Mexico. Bigger audiences await in New York, where Lonesome succeeds not only in pushing product, but parlaying his sales and marketing acumen into the packaging of political candidates. Writer Mel Miller (Walter Matthau)has landed a book contract exposing Lonesome, even the backstage television crew is in on his contempt for audiences, and it falls to Patricia Neal to hot mike one of his performances to allow the audience in on the charade.

It is no wonder at all this film is, for all intents and purposes, unknown. With the Andy Griffith show as well known and popular as it is, it wouldn't surprise anyone if studio executives were found to purposefully keep this film under wraps.

Blackboard Jungle
Samuel Goldwyn once said famously: "If you have a message, bring it to Western Union." In his mind, the motion picture industry existed solely to entertain. By 1955 when MGM made Blackboard Jungle, Mr. Goldwyn's vision had apparently run its course because Blackboard Jungle, although not strictly a "message" film, is certainly the kind of "problem film" that MGM's competitor Warner Brothers specialized in making. If you can't beat'em, join'em.

Glenn Ford (The Big Heat) plays a former Navy boxer turned teacher. Early on, its apparent that city teenagers have picked the wrong teacher to mess with. Ford's character Dadier has the combination of integrity and personal courage to withstand their assaults, especially those of Vic Morrow who is lethal as a knife wielding punk whose greatest moments consist of preying on Dadier's wife (Ann Francis). Like Paul Newman who at age 34 played a 22 year old college student, Sidney Portier is technically old for the part of a high school student but he pulls it off because his face is smooth opposite craggy faced Ford, and he exudes maximum cool knowing the school system next to the greenhorn Ford, who doesn't. Fifty five years later, this film's unyielding script gives the picture bite and authority.

I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang
Paul Muni stars in a film that exposed the brutal conditions of the chain gang prison system in which people were treated worse than animals. Based on true story in which the governor of New Jersey refused to extradite an escaped convict from the state of Georgia due to what he believed was Georgia's sub-human prison system. One of the films of social conscience that came out of the Warner Brothers studio system in the 1930's, the picture is often cited as an influence on the Paul Newman classic Cool Hand Luke. A box office sensation at the time of its release in 1932, the film sparked a nationwide movement for prison reform and is still powerful and haunting.

Fury
Director Fritz Lang turned down an offer from Nazi Director of Propaganda Josef Goebbels to head Germany's film industry, and came to the United States instead. Fury was released in 1936 to critical acclaim for its depiction for mob violence, although it was a box office failure. It's anti-lynching theme didn't sit well with audiences where lynching violence played a prominent part in Depression era justice. A unique film for MGM, and as Peter Bogdanovich explains in his excellent commentary, and probably its most socially conscious film ever. The picture is full of unique angle shots borrowed from German expressionism but rarely seen in American film. Spencer Tracey gives a powerful performance as a man imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit then through rumor mongering, is convicted without a trial and burned alive by a lynch mob attacking the county jail. A beautifully restored print with perfect contrast.