Seeing Double: “Cat Ballou”

I loved running across the factoid that Michael B. Jordan’s performance(s) in Sinners marked the second time that a Best Actor Oscar went to someone playing twins. (The  most famous literary work featuring two lookalikes is Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, in which Sydney Carton nobly sacrifices himself to the bloodthirsty mob because of his close physical resemblance to French aristocrat Charles Darnay. Several film adaptations have been made, notably the 1935 epic starring Ronald Colman, but I gather no actor has ever played both roles.)

 Once I read that the only previous Oscar-winner playing twins was Lee Marvin in 1965’s Cat Ballou, I felt obliged to check it out. A huge hit, it racked up five Oscar nominations. Several of them related to the film’s rollicking score and to the comic ballad used to narrate the proceedings. (It was sung on-screen by the delightful duo of Stubby Kaye and Nat “King” Cole, the latter of whom died of lung cancer shortly before the film’s release.) There was also recognition for the adapted screenplay and film editing. But the only win on Oscar night belonged to Lee Marvin, who took on the wacky dual roles of Tim Strawn, the tin-nosed hired assassin who threatens Cat and her gang, and Kid Shelleen, the legendary gunslinger who’s only effective when he’s drunk. The two men are eventually revealed to be brothers, though not necessarily twins, and its’ clear that Marvin relished every moment of his time on-screen.

 The film’s story is something of a masterpiece of silliness. The title role is played by Jane Fonda. Though she was still in her twenties back then, it was her ninth film, and she was firmly in the ingenue phase of her career, making movies like Barefoot in the Park and Barbarella in which she showed emotion by opening her eyes very wide. (For me her true acting breakthrough was in 1969’s grim They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?) In Cat Ballou, Fonda starts out as an innocent finishing-school grad traveling west. Through a series of mishaps she discovers love and bad behavior, ending up as the leader of an outlaw gang which of course is a good deal more virtuous than the honchos of the little prairie town in which the action mostly unfolds. Other actors along for the ride include the agreeable Michael Callan and impish Dwayne Hickman (much loved by young folk for his goofy TV role as perennial teenager Dobie Gillis, and here having fun as a pretend preacher). 

 But how did Marvin, whose dual roles are not particularly large or challenging, ever manage to win that Oscar? I can only conjecture. First of all, at the ceremony held in 1966, the big winner was The Sound of Music. The Sixties were difficult years, politically speaking, and I think voters liked supporting something that was musical and upbeat, despite its inclusion of Nazis threatening Austria. (Other Best Picture nominees included Doctor Zhivago, Ship of Fools, Darling, and one wry comedy, A Thousand Clowns.) Among that year’s Best Actor candidates were two Serious Thespians from Britain, Richard Burton (The Spy Who Came in From the Cold) and Laurence Olivier (Othello). Also nominated were towering dramatic performances by Oskar Werner (Ship of Fools) and Rod Steiger (The Pawnbroker). I think audiences in that era needed a laugh, and only Lee Marvin supplied one. It didn’t hurt that he was in Ship of Fools too, as an over-the-hill baseball player.

 Disappointingly, in Cat Ballou Marvin’s two outrageous characters are never on screen at the same time. Kudos to Sinners for seamlessly accomplishing that feat. 

 

"80 For Brady”: Before Time Passes Us By

On a flight back to L.A. following a trip that was alternatively inspiring and stressful, I was looking for light-weight entertainment on my seatback system. That’s why I turned to 80 for Brady, a comedy I knew would distract me from the cares of my everyday world. How could it fail to amuse, given that its cast was headed by some of Hollywood’s most reliable veterans? The combined star power of Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Rita Moreno, and Sally Field (not to mention their combined Oscars, Emmys, and other accolades) was sure to divert me from my own anxieties. And so it (mostly) did.

 Very loosely based on an actual group of octogenarians with super-sized crushes on New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, the plot features four lifelong friends of a certain age who stake everything on a trip to Houston to cheer on their hero in Super Bowl LI.  Of course the differences between the four women are sharply delineated. Trish (Jane Fonda) is a still-glamorous former beauty queen with a record number of failed romances. Maura (Rita Moreno) is a recent widow whose life in a dead-end retirement home is stifling her competitive spirit. The youngster of the group is Betty (Sally Field), who keeps reminding everyone that she’s personally not yet 80. She’s (theoretically) the responsible one: a mathematics whiz whose fellow-professor spouse (Bob Balaban) is a bit too clingy for the good of their marriage. Finally there’s Lou (Lily Tomlin), whose need for a big adventure at this point in her life clouds her judgment, and is the axis around which this story turns.

 I always dread movies that demean “cute” senior citizens by showing them trying to emulate younger, hipper folks. And of course there’s some of that here, including the inevitable (sigh!) sequence in which they accidentally trip out on cannabis gummies. And I winced when so much of the plot hinges on the search for an essential lost item (yes, I too had just lost something important, which is why this plane trip was so fraught for me.) Still, there’s fun to be had when the four overcome the world’s easy stereotypes about the elderly by showing they can dance like champions, play a killer hand of cards, and emerge victorious from a spicy food competition hosted by TV’s Guy Fieri.

 What startled me, in retrospect, was the weird parallel between 80 For Brady and the kind of movie my peers and I enjoyed when we were teenagers. One big hit in my junior highs school crowd was 1960’s Where The Boys Are. It’s the story of four college co-eds (back then the term was still used) who head south to Florida for spring break. Of course their #1 goal is romance, and they mostly find it, with very mixed results. The natural leader of the group (Dolores Hart) discovers the kind of love that may last a lifetime. The joker (Paula Prentiss in her film debut) finds an equally tall, equally goofy opposite number (Jim Hutton), and they briefly enjoy a romantic romp. Poor Angie (recording star Connie Francis) never succeeds at love, but she gets to sing the plaintive title song, which was soon blasting from radios throughout the country. And the most serious of the plotlines features lovely Yvette Mimieux whose trusting nature leads her into a genuine crisis.

 The ladies of 80 for Brady are mostly not looking for love, or even sex. Their problems are darker: widowhood, the diminishing of personal autonomy, life-threatening illness. Which doesn’t stop them from having fun wherever they can find it.

Sisters in Arms: Remembering the League of Wives

We’ve all seen our share of Vietnam movies. Once the war was finally over, Hollywood released a flood of them. There were ambitious ones that dropped us into the middle of the fighting—The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Platoon—and tried to convey the physical and emotional realities of that faraway war. There were films like Born on the Fourth of July (based on the true story of Sgt. Ron Kovic) that highlighted revolts against the war by young men furious at what their own government was asking of them. The poignant Coming Home focused on the home front, where the wife of a Marine captain evolved during his tour of duty into a more independent woman. In finding her own path, she fell in love with a young vet who’d left Vietnam a paraplegic. This heartfelt 1978 drama won Oscars for stars Jane Fonda and Jon Voigt.

The physical and emotional costs of Vietnam are also underscored in a new book by my friend and colleague, Heath Hardage Lee. She’s currently rocking the media with The League of Wives, a well-researched history of the loyal military spouses who waited—as much as six years—for their husbands to come marching home from captivity by the Viet Cong. Here’s the book’s subtitle: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home from Vietnam. As this suggests, these women (over a hundred in all) turned to activism as a way to alert the world to their husbands’ plight. Their men, most of them Navy and Air Force pilots, had been shot down and incarcerated, often in the notorious Hanoi Hilton, where torture was rampant, medical services were few, and (in violation of the Geneva Convention) oversight by the International Red Cross was not allowed. Even a basic accounting of prisoners’ whereabouts was denied the worried wives and family members back home.

What makes The League of Wives so striking is that it’s about women well accustomed to following the rules. Politically and socially conservative, they had been carefully taught that the best way to support their spouses was to dress nicely, respect military rank, and steer clear of politics. Once their husbands were shot out of the sky, these women—still unclear as to whether they were wives or widows—were instructed by the top brass to remain tight-lipped and allow politicians to sort out the problem. But, as months and years passed, staying quiet seemed like the wrong strategy. Presidential administrations largely paid lip-service to their concerns, and the military actually toyed with the idea of denying them access to their husbands’ accumulating paychecks. That’s when the women, many of whom had young children to raise, banded together and began making noise.

The wives quickly discovered the value of the mass media in putting their husbands’ plight before the world. Soon they were sending delegations overseas to make their case to diplomats meeting in Paris and Stockholm. And, much as they shrank from affiliating with the anti-war movement, they took advantage of its connections with Hanoi in order to ensure a flow of mail to and from their captive spouses. When the men finally returned in 1973, they found their wives had developed strong new capabilities. Even the once-shyest was now comfortable in the corridors of power.

The evolution of these women would make, of course, for a fascinating movie. That’s why the very enterprising Reese Witherspoon has just optioned Heath’s book for a cinematic adaptation. Which should make for a “hidden figures” type movie I look forward to seeing.

 

On Memorial Day—Monday, May 27—Heath Hardage Lee will be speaking at the Richard Nixon Library as part of a program honoring the wives and mothers of American POWs. Here’s more info: https://mailchi.mp/nixonfoundation/b860feer3l-1299905?e=f5e67dc507 

Jane Fonda Joins a Book Club

Of course, as a woman of a certain age, I belong to a book club. So, while on a recent plane flight, I couldn’t resist checking out Book Club, a film featuring some rather spectacular women of a certain age: Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen. This movie—basically a romantic comedy for the AARP set—touches on the very real challenges of getting older. Like: facing the dwindling of sexual opportunities. And coping with grown children who insist on denying you any fun, just in case you might fall and break a hip. Sometimes Book Club is endearing, sometimes merely embarrassing. But it’s a hoot watching four lovely ladies (who among them have earned four Oscars and six Emmys) hold the screen.

The writers of Book Club surely tailored each role to the actress who would be bringing it to life. The part of a ditsy widow too intimidated to pursue romance is perfectly suited to the talents of fluttery Diane Keaton. Mary Steenburgen shines as a still-cute housewife trying desperately to coax her husband into bed. (Her story contains the largest amount of slapstick and has the least convincing outcome, but I have always been susceptible to her sunny charm.) Wry Candice Bergen owns some lively moments as a federal judge thrown into a tailspin by her ex-husband’s engagement to a Barbie Doll type. Exploring on-line dating, she finds herself encountering some much shorter men, including balding tax accountant Richard Dreyfuss. Finally there is Jane Fonda, as a brittle but very successful entrepreneur who oozes sex appeal but has always dodged marriage.

Fonda looks slim and gorgeous, though (at 81) she’s much the oldest of the four women. She’s also totally convincing, though in the distant past I have tended to find her comedy roles (in films like Barefoot in the Park and Fun With Dick and Jane) rather belabored.  That plane flight gave me the opportunity to explore her life (Thanks, Delta!), because one of the other onboard offerings was a fascinating 2018 documentary, Jane Fonda in Five Acts. This film, made with Fonda’s full cooperation, walks the viewer through her remarkable career as an actress, activist, and fitness guru. The first four acts of the title represent the eras in which Fonda’s life was shaped by men: by her father, actor Henry Fonda; by first husband, filmmaker Roger Vadim; by second husband, activist/politician Tom Hayden; and by third husband, media tycoon Ted Turner. In on-camera interviews, Jane Fonda freely admits that her low self-esteem has long made her susceptible to the influence of attractive males.  With her glamorous but chilly father and with each of her husbands, she strove to remake herself in order to win approval. It was only after divorcing Turner in 2001 that she feels she has come into her own as a woman with her own beliefs, goals, and enthusiasms. It’s ironic, therefore, that Book Club casts her as the gal who has chosen never to marry, until an attractive and persistent man convinces her he can love her just the way she is.

I was struck in particular by two of the documentary’s revelations. First, that although she admires the wrinkled face of her good friend, Vanessa Redgrave, Fonda lacks the courage to allow herself to age naturally. Yes, she’s had some work done. Second, the disapproval she sensed from her own mother (who later committed suicide in a mental institution) stunted her own ability to show motherly warmth. That’s why it’s largely on her own daughter’s behalf that she has made this film.