Ivan Moffat Movies

The man who assembled the remarkable documentary George Stevens: A Filmaker's Journey had the benefit of knowing the subject intimately: the film was written, produced and directed by George Stevens Jr. Utilizing pristine-quality filmclips and interviews, Stevens Jr. details Stevens Sr.'s rise from silent-film cameraman to one of the top producer/directors in Hollywood. We are treated to snippets of Stevens' camerawork on the Laurel and Hardy films at Hal Roach Studios, then we are transported to his salad days as a feature director at RKO. Among the films highlighted from this first chapter of Stevens' directorial life are Alice Adams (1935), Swing Time (1936) and Gunga Din (1939) (one would like to have heard a bit more background info concerning Stevens' Wheeler and Woolsey comedies). Next we find Stevens as an autonomous entity at Columbia Pictures, producing and directing such classics as The More the Merrier (1943). The war years are thoroughly covered via Stevens' vivid color footage of the invasion of Europe. The last stages of Stevens' Hollywood career is traced through generous portions of A Place in the Sun (1951), Shane (1953), Giant (1956) and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). The many interviewees include Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Warren Beatty. As an added filip, A Filmmaker's Journey includes rare home-movie sequences showing George Stevens at home and at work--all filmed with as much care and professionalism as Stevens' "mainstream" pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Alec Guinness plays against stereotype, imbuing his Adolf Hitler with an introverted solemnity in Ennio De Concini's Hitler: The Last Ten Days. Set almost entirely inside Hitler's Berlin bunker, the film chronicles the dying days of the Third Reich as the Allied armies close in on Berlin. Guinness's Hitler is an enclosed depressive who sinks slowly into madness, depression, and ultimately suicide as his 1,000-Year Reich collapses around him. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

David O. Selznick had intended to film an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night as a vehicle for his wife Jennifer Jones. But financial difficulties compelled Selznick to sell the property (including Ms. Jones' services) to 20th Century-Fox. Jones stars as a wealthy but disturbed woman of the 1920s who marries her psychiatrist (Jason Robards Jr.). They live together at her Riviera estate, where the doctor's analytical skills atrophy. As Jones grows stronger, the doctor becomes totally dependent upon her emotionally and financially. The film's supporting characters are equally self-destructive, notably an alcoholic composer (Tom Ewell) and Jones' avaricious sister (Joan Fontaine). Perhaps if Selznick had produced Tender is the Night, the film wouldn't have wallowed in misery for its own sake; on the other hand, we still would have been stuck with Jennifer Jones, who is woefully miscast. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

John Steineck's novel The Wayward Bus was retranslated into pop-entertainment terms for the screen. Most of the story takes place on the charter bus owned by driver Rick Jason. Travelling slowly through a treacherous California mountain region, the passengers -- including Jason's spiteful, alcoholic wife Joan Collins-- undergo a variety of life-altering experiences. The journey has its most profound effects upon an iconoclastic travelling salesman (Dan Dailey) and lonely stripper (Jayne Mansfield). This is one instance in which the oblong CinemaScope lens is inappropriate to the intimacy of the story. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ava Gardner was never more alluring than as the half-caste heroine of Bhowani Junction. Set during India's battle for independence from Britain, the film begins with Gardner returning to her native land after spending several years in England. Her true loyalties, and her own sense of who she really is, are put to the test by the two men in her life: Stewart Granger, whose job it is to prevent saboteurs from destroying the trains at Bhowani Junction, and Bill Travers, another half-caste. When she kills a potential rapist in self-defense, Gardner is given comfort by Communist insurrectionist Peter Illing, further dividing her fidelities. A climactic attempt on the life of Mahatma Gandhi provides a rousing finish to this romantic melodrama. Bhowani Junction was adapted from the novel by John Masters. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

George Stevens' sprawling adaptation of Edna Ferber's best-selling novel successfully walks a fine line between potboiler and serious drama for its 210-minute running time, making it one of the few epics of its era that continues to hold up as engrossing entertainment across the decades. Giant opens circa 1922 in Maryland, where Texas rancher Jordan "Bick" Benedict (Rock Hudson) has arrived to buy a stallion called War Winds from its owner, Dr. Horace Lynnton (Paul Fix). But much as Bick loves and knows horses, he finds himself even more transfixed by the doctor's daughter, Leslie Lynnton (Elizabeth Taylor), and after some awkward moments, she has to admit that she's equally drawn to the shy, laconic Texan. They get married and Leslie spends her honeymoon traveling with Jordan to his ranch, Reata, which covers nearly a million acres of Texas. Once there, however, she finds that she has to push her way into her rightful role as mistress of the house, past Bick's sister, Luz (Mercedes McCambridge), who can't accept her brother's marriage or the changes it means in the home they share. Also working around Reata is the laconic ranch hand Jett Rink (James Dean) -- from a family as rooted in Texas as the Benedicts but not nearly as lucky (or "foxy"), Jett is dirt-poor and barely educated at all, and he fairly oozes resentment at Bick for his arrogance, although Luz likes him and for that reason alone Bick is obliged to keep him on. One thing Jett does have in common with his employer is that he is in awe of Leslie's beauty; another is his nearly total contempt for the Mexican-Americans who work for them -- Jett and Bick may have contempt for each other, but either one is just as likely to dismiss the Mexican-Americans around them as a bunch of shiftless "wetbacks." Luz feels so threatened with a loss of power and control that she decides to assert herself with War Winds, yet another "prize" that Bick brought back from Maryland that resists her authority -- then decides to ride the stallion despite being warned that no one but Leslie is wholly safe on him, and spurs him brutally in an effort to break him, which ends up destroying them both in the battle of wills she starts.

After Luz's death, Jett learns that she left him a tiny piece of land for his own, on Reata, which he refuses to sell back to Bick, preferring to keep it for his own and maybe prospect for oil on it. Meanwhile, Leslie and Bick have their own problems -- Leslie can't abide the wretched conditions in which the Mexican families who work on Reata are allowed to live, taking a special interest in Mr. and Mrs. Obregon and their baby, Angel; but Bick doesn't want his wife, or any member of his family, concerning themselves with "those people." Leslie's humanity and her independence push their marriage to the limit, but Bick comes to accept this in his wife, and in four years of marriage they have three handsome children, a boy and two girls, and a loving if occasionally awkward home life. Meanwhile, Jett strikes oil on his land -- which he's named Little Reata -- and in a couple of years he's on his way to becoming the richest man in Texas, getting drilling contracts on all of the land in the area (except Reata) and making more money than the Benedicts ever saw from raising cattle. Bick is almost oblivious to the way Jett grows in power and influence across the years and the state, mostly because he's got his own family to worry about, including a son, Jordan III (Dennis Hopper), who doesn't want to take over the ranch from him, but wants instead to be a doctor; an older daughter, Judy (Fran Bennett), who wants to study animal husbandry and marry a local rancher (Earl Holliman) and start a tiny spread of her own; and a younger daughter, Luz (Carroll Baker), who's just a bit man-crazy and star-struck by the movies.

The American entry into the Second World War and the resulting need for oil forces Bick to go into business with Jett and allow him to drill on Reata, and suddenly the Benedicts are wealthy enough to be part of Jett Rink's circle, which includes the governor of the state and at least one United States senator at his beck and call -- and Luz develops a serious crush on Jett, who likes his women young and is especially attracted to her, as Bick's and Leslie's daughter. Young Jordan marries Juana, a Mexican-American nursing student (Elsa Cardenas), and his father accepts it begrudgingly, with help from Leslie. The war kills Angel Obregon (Sal Mineo), a death that even affects Bick, but the Benedict family gets through it wealthier than ever and grows some more with the birth of Jordan IV to Jordie and Juana. When the family attends a gala opening of Jett Rink Airport, which concludes with a dinner honoring Jett's success, however, young Jordan's wife is humiliated by Jett's racist edicts, and he is beaten up by Jett's men after punching the oil baron. Seeing this, Bick challenges his old rival to the fight that's been brewing for a quarter of a century and wins by default, Jett being too drunk to defend himself or to hit; he's also too drunk to make the grand speech that was to climax the celebration, and he ends up alone in the ballroom. The Benedicts have it out with each other, young Jordan accusing his father of being as much a racist as Jett, and Leslie caught in the middle between her husband and her son. It looks like the Benedicts may lose each other, until an encounter with a racist diner owner forces Bick to stand up and get knocked down (more than once) defending his daughter-in-law and his grandson.

Seen today, Giant seems the least dated of any of James Dean's three starring films, in part because it addresses issues that remain relevant more than 50 years later, and also because it has the best all-around acting and the best script of any of the three. Taken in broader terms, it's even better, with two of the best performances that Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson ever gave, and perhaps the second best of Hudson's whole career (after Seconds) -- the only unfortunate element at modern theatrical screenings is the tendency of younger viewers, who only know him in terms of the revelations late in his life of his being gay, to laugh and snicker at elements of Hudson's characterization; but his work is so good that the titters usually fade after the first 30 minutes or so. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Previously filmed in 1931 under its original title, Theodore Dreiser's bulky but brilliant novel An American Tragedy was remade in 1951 by George Stevens as A Place in the Sun. Montgomery Clift stars as George Eastman, a handsome and charming but basically aimless young man who goes to work in a factory run by a distant, wealthy relative. Feeling lonely one evening, he has a brief rendezvous with assembly-line worker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), but he forgets all about her when he falls for dazzling socialite Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). Alice can't forget about him, though: she is pregnant with his child. Just when George's personal and professional futures seem assured, Alice demands that he marry her or she'll expose him to his society friends. This predicament sets in motion a chain of events that will ultimately include George's arrest and numerous other tragedies, including a vicious cross-examination by a D.A. played by future Perry Mason Raymond Burr. A huge improvement over the 1931 An American Tragedy, directed by Josef von Sternberg, A Place in the Sun softens some of the rough edges of Dreiser's naturalism, most notably in the passages pertaining to George's and Angela's romance. Even those 1951 bobbysoxers who wouldn't have been caught dead poring through the Dreiser original were mesmerized by the loving, near-erotic full facial closeups of Clift and Taylor as they pledge eternal devotion. A Place in the Sun won six Oscars, including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography, although it lost Best Picture to An American in Paris. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi