Sunday Cinema

Not so much cinema, as a documentary.

Making Concrete Float: Mulberry Harbors of WWII Operation Overlord

It's part of the excellent BBC/History Channel series called 'Battle Stations,' which first aired between 2000 - 2006.

"Battle Stations is a documentary series of 1 hour episodes, which uses archive footage, re-enactments and first-hand accounts from the crews, to follow the machines and technology implemented from the Second World War to the Gulf War in the land, air and sea."

Truth be told, I knew very little about these Mulberry Harbors before watching this documentary, even though I thought myself well-versed in D-Day history. It makes perfect sense, though; secure harbors were vital to a successful Allied invasion of Europe, but the Nazis controlled all necessary shipping hubs in northern Europe.

The solution? Float all the pieces for massive harbor installations with you across the channel.

Encyclopaedia Britannica explains:

"One harbour, known as Mulberry A, was constructed off Saint-Laurent at Omaha Beach in the American sector, and the other, Mulberry B, was built off Arromanches at Gold Beach in the British sector. Each harbour, when fully operational, had the capacity to move 7,000 tons of vehicles and supplies per day from ship to shore...

The various parts of the Mulberries were fabricated in secrecy in Britain and floated into position immediately after D-Day. Within 12 days of the landing (D-Day plus 12), both harbours were operational. They were intended to provide the primary means for the movement of goods from ship to shore until the port at Cherbourg was captured and opened.

Sunday Cinema

Whats Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) starring Johnny Depp, Juliette Lewis, Mary Steenburgen, Darlene Cates, John C. Reilly, Laura Harrington, and a very young Leonardo DiCaprio.

IMDB paints this thumbnail of the film:

"After his father's death, Gilbert (Johnny Depp) has to care for his mentally-disabled brother, Arnie (DiCapprio), and his morbidly obese mother (played by Darlene Cates). This situation is suddenly challenged though, when love unexpectedly walks into his life."

It's a moving, thoughtful, and thorough dive into the 'fatigue' of life - made all the more difficult for one so young as Gilbert Grape.

The late, great Roger Ebert expounds:

"Gilbert Grape is more or less equal to these challenges, but life is not easy for him. What helps is the small town itself. In a big city, we sense, the Grape family would be isolated and dysfunctional, but in Endora, where everybody knows everybody and Gilbert fits right in, life is more possible, and the family is at least quasifunctional.

"What's Eating Gilbert Grape" makes of these materials one of the most enchanting movies of the year, a story of people who aren't misfits only because they don't see themselves that way. Nor does the film take them with tragic seriousness; it is a problem, yes, to have a retarded younger brother.

And it is a problem to have a mother so fat she never leaves the house. But when kids from the neighborhood sneak around to peek at the fat lady in the living room, Gilbert sometimes gives them a boost up to the window. What the hell.

Sunday Cinema

The Flim Flam Man (1967)

"MBS.CS.DD." Master of backstabbing, corkscrewing, and dirty dealing.

Starring George C. Scott, Harry Morgan, Sue Lyon, introducing Michael Sarrazin, with a host of notable character actors, including Slim Pickens, Alice Ghostley, Jack Albertson and Strother Martin.

The Flim-Flam Man is based on the 1965 novel 'The Ballad of the Flim-Flam Man' by Guy Owen. The movie unfolds in the countryside and small towns of the American South in the mid 1960's. George C. Scott said that The Flim Flam Man was his favorite role and movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it, too, having watched it on more than one occasion as a youngster.

Mordecai C. Jones (Scott) is a grifter - a drifting confidence trickster who makes his living defrauding people using such tricks as rigged punch boards, playing cards, and found wallets. He befriends a young man named Curley (Sarrazin), a deserter from the United States Army, and the two form a team to make money. In their escapades, they wreck a town during a hair-raising chase in their stolen car, steal a truck loaded with moonshine whiskey which they sell, break out of a sheriff's office, and discover a riverboat brothel.

Tony Mastroianni of the Cleveland Press reveals the thimblerig:

"Rogues and scoundrels are not really lovable except in fiction, plays and movies, and then only in proportion to the quality of the work. I am happy to report that The Flim-Flam Man, all about a confidence man, has the necessary quality."

It's a lighthearted movie, yet with a powerful message. After all the never-do-well scams, close calls, and meager prospects, a stark difference between young Curley and ol' Mordecai becomes obvious: Curly has a conscience, and wants a more fulfilling life with the Bonnie (Sue Lyon).

Sunday Cinema

The Million Pound Note (1954) starring Gregory Peck, Ronald Squire, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Jane Griffiths, Joyce Grenfell, A. E. Matthews

The movie is based on the Mark Twain short story "The Million Pound Bank Note."

In 1903, American seaman Henry Adams (Gregory Peck) is stranded penniless in Britain and gets caught up in an unusual wager between two wealthy, eccentric brothers. They persuade the Bank of England to issue a one million pound banknote, which they present to Adams in an envelope, only telling him that it contains some money.

Without knowing it, Adams is the subject of this bet: Brother B believes that the mere possession of this £1,000,000 - in the form of a single banknote -, without any other means of support, will enable someone to survive for the month. Brother A, on the other hand, feels that the prohibition against exchanging the note for cash will render it useless.

Once Adams gets over the shock of discovering how much the note is worth, he tries to return it to the brothers, but is told that they have left for a month. He then finds a letter in the envelope, explaining the wager and promising him a job if he can avoid spending the note for the month.

Trouble brews when Henry uses the note's reputation to speculate on the stock market. When his creditors demand that he produce the note as an act of faith, Henry is unable to do so, whereupon pandemonium reigns--and the audience's laughter cascades.

If the 1983 film, Trading Places, starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd sounds vaguely similar, that's because any similarities are vague: two eccentric aristocrats and a wager.

Sunday Cinema

Stagecoach (1939) starring John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine, Louise Platt, and Chief John Big Tree

Stagecoach is an American Western film produced & directed by John Ford. It was the breakthrough role for John Wayne into movie stardom.

The story is about an Overland stagecoach that sets out across the untamed Arizona Territory in 1880 with a mixed assortment of characters. Passengers include an infamous outlaw, a drunk doctor, a prostitute, a whiskey salesman, the wife of an Army officer, a gambler, a bank manager, the local Marshall and the driver; Animosities and petty differences, and unexpected friendships, surface. The journey is complicated by the fact that Geronimo & his Apache warriors are on the warpath, and the stagecoach is not safe from their anger.

Sunday Cinema

 It's not so much cinema this Sunday as it is documentary Sunday.

From the History Channel documentary "Tales of the Gun" series: The John M. Browning story; an incredible story of an incredibly inventive man. It's been said we would all be speaking German right now, if it weren't for John Moses Browning, and his prolific engineering genius for creating some of the most reliable and accurate weapons ever produce in the 20th century.

This episode is about the many guns designed Browning, including profiles of shotguns, pistols and machine-guns. This episode originally aired in 1998 (back when the history channel actually cared to air stuff about, you know, history). Copyright to the History Channel.

Sunday Cinema

'The Stranger' (1946), staring Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Konstantin Shayne.

A Rotten Tomatoes comment declared this film to be a 'gooseflesh raiser.' It's a classic film noir who-done-it, woven with mystery and treachery through out.

An investigator named Wilson (expertly played by E.G. Robinson) from the War Crimes Commission travels to Connecticut to find an infamous Nazi (Welles). Welles plays a college professor named Charles Rankin. He lives and teaches in a quiet college town with his lovely wife Mary (Loretta Young).

But Rankin has a grisly secret from his days in Nazi Germany. After the German surrender in 1945, Rankin made his way to the USA where he thought his secret was left behind forever - until his old friend Meineke (Konstantin Shayne) arrives in town. As Wilson snoops about, Mary begins to sense something dreadful about her husband. Tick-tock says the clock. Your time is almost up.

Sunday Cinema

Operation Petticoat (1959) starring Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Joan O'Brien, Dina Merrill, Gavin MacLeod, Marion Ross, Arthur O'Connell, Dick Sargent.

Director Blake Edwards delivered an above average service comedy with this movie made during the waning, yet still virile, years of the big studio system in Hollywood. The cast and crew read like a who's who of TV and movie household names in America.

"In confusion, there is profit."

Petticoat starts off slow, but is soon up to speed. Three days after Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941), the submarine 'Sea Tiger' is damaged during an enemy air raid in the Philippines. Movie critic Leonard Maltin gives it his TCM best: "Hilarious comedy about submarine captain Grant who's determined to make his injured ship seaworthy again, and con artist Curtis who wheels and deals to reach that goal. Some truly memorable gags; Grant and Curtis are a dynamite team in this happy film. Remade for TV in 1977."

Sunday Cinema

Open Range (2003) starring Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening, and introducing Diego Luna, with a fond farewell to Michael Jeter.

Imdb does this movie a great dis-service with their paltry description: "A former gunslinger is forced to take up arms again when he and his cattle crew are threatened by a corrupt lawman."

It is far more than that. Open Range is based upon author Lauran Paine's 1990 romantic western novel 'The Open Range Men.' Yes, ladies, 'romantic western.' It has a most mesmerizing romance between the Bening and Costner characters woven throughout the story. It also has a critically acclaimed climactic shootout, masterfully staged with the shock and suddenness of a real-life, running gun battle. It's a tour de force, imho, and one of the finest examples of the classic American western movie - the likes of which will probably never be produced again. Why this film didn't win an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, Best Actor, or Best Cinematography is beyond me.

"Sounds like you got it all worked out."

"Yeah, except the part where we don't get killed."

Screen play by Craig Storper. Directed by Kevin Costner. Runtime: 139 minutes (nevermind what the youtube says)

Sunday Cinema

'Big Jake' starring John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, and Richard Boone.

"In 1909, when John Fain's gang kidnaps Jacob McCandles' grandson and holds him for ransom, Big Jake sets out to rescue the boy."

Big Jake is the epitome of BIG WESTERNS produced by the remnants of the Big Hollywood studio system in the late 1960's and 70's. It's also schmaltzy, predictable, and thoroughly entertaining; a good popcorn movie with nary a discouraging word. Produced by John Wayne's son, Patrick Wayne, and directed by George Sherman. 1 hour, 45 minutes run time.



Public domain, available on youtube.