The 100 Best Movies You've Never Seen (10 page)

This Dutch film is the kind of thing that is becoming harder and harder to find — a movie that the whole family can enjoy. Set in the 1930s, the story revolves around 11-year-old Emma (Line Kruse), the only child of wealthy Danish parents. Her father is a businessman who has very little time for his daughter, while the mother is self-centered and barely acknowledges her offspring. When little Emma overhears a conversation about the Lindbergh baby kidnapping she hatches a plot to earn some attention from her parents — she stages her own abduction and runs away.

While her chauffeur is distracted, Emma bolts, disappearing into a poor section of Copenhagen. She meets a crude but kind sewer worker, Malthe (Borje Ahlstedt), an ex-convict who agrees to hide her after she tells him a ridiculous story about how she is on the run from Russian Bolsheviks who shot her nanny. “Actually, they shot my whole family,” she fibs. She concocts a scheme to squeeze money out of her parents, who believe that they are paying evil kidnappers. Instead Emma uses the money to improve her and Malthe's living situation, getting a room and decent food for her gullible new friend and two young neighborhood boys.

The dirty sewer worker and the upper class little girl form a bond based on respect — a new experience for both of them. Emma teaches Malthe about self-assertiveness, while he showers her with affection. Tension mounts as the simple-minded Malthe mistakes the detectives who are searching for Emma for Bolsheviks. The final, wordless scene is a triumph of emotion without slipping into manipulative sentiment.

At the soul of the film is Line Kruse's wonderfully intelligent performance as Emma. Her loyalty to Malthe tugs at the heartstrings because their brief relationship contains more love than her parents could muster in a whole lifetime. Veteran actor Ahlstedt, best known as the uncle from
Fanny and Alexander
, is masterfully understated as the slow-witted Malthe, a man who is capable of much more than the hand life has dealt him.

Emma's Shadow
was an international critical success, earning a Bodil Award — the Danish Oscar — for Best Film in 1989, and a Best Actress award for Kruse and a Special Jury Prize at the 1989 Paris Film Festival. Presented in Danish with English subtitles.

This German film is based on
Black Box
, a novel by Mario Giordano, which drew on the famous Stanford Prison Experiment for inspiration. In 1971 the university began a planned two-week experiment into the psychology of prison life by dividing a group of students into prisoners and guards. The whole thing had to be scuttled after only six days when the guards became sadistic and the prisoners showed signs of extreme depression and anxiety.

Director Oliver Hirschbiegel effectively translates the psychological horror of the experiment, skillfully peeling away the layers of acceptable behavior until the grisly third act of the film. “Every good story tells us something about people,” says the director. “In all my films, it's been important that in the development of the characters, people go through learning processes and apply what they've learned and that they're in a situation that forces them to take a stand. This is required of many of the people in the novel.”

A study in what happens when you strip away the power from one group and give it to another,
The Experiment
casts stereotypes — the rebel, the submissive, and the sadist — in easily definable roles. It's no surprise that Tarek Fahed, Prisoner Number 77 (Moritz Bleibtreu, the Tom Cruise of Germany) is the rebel: he has the look of a troublemaker. What is surprising is the idea that by simply changing their clothes to shapeless prison smocks or dark blue guard uniforms you can change the personality of the characters. The prisoners' dress-like smocks strip away their masculinity, making them subservient to the sharply dressed authority figures.

The Experiment
packs many ideas into its 114-minute running time, and by the end you'll be questioning the nature of all relationships, not just institutionalized ones. German with English subtitles.

Three years before he would charm television audiences with his gentle portrayal of corn-pone sheriff Andy Taylor, Andy Griffith made his big-screen debut in a very different kind of role. Although he had no training as an actor, he had earned a reputation as a stand-up comedian, and was nominated for a Tony award for his role in the Broadway comedy hit
No Time for Sergeants
. Elia Kazan, the director of such hard-hitting dramas as
A Streetcar Named Desire
(1951),
Viva Zapata!
(1952),
Man on a Tightrope
(1953),
On the Waterfront
(1954), and
East of Eden
(1955), saw something in Griffith that made him the perfect choice to head up
A Face in the Crowd
, a brutal indictment of television.

Lonesome Rhodes was a role that required Griffith to put aside his likeable persona and become a ruthless egomaniac. “In the character of Lonesome Rhodes I wanted to show the ambivalence in someone who was almost evil, but who said and believed many things that were right at the same time,” said Kazan. “I wanted him to be seductive and say out loud things that other people didn't.” Allegedly inspired by the spectacular rise to fame of Arthur Godfrey,
A Face in the Crowd
tells the story of Lonesome Rhodes (Griffith), a philosophical country and western singer discovered in a small town drunk tank by radio reporter Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal). In Rhodes, she sees a good human interest story. In Jeffries' microphone, Rhodes sees a possible meal ticket. Soon his songs, homespun stories, and country wisdom land him a television spot and instant celebrity. His aw-shucks on-stage personality make him a modern day Will Rogers, attracting millions of fans and dozens of endorsements. Although loved by his public, off-stage Lonesome isn't so loveable. As his fame grows, so do his political aspirations, turning him into a power-hungry schemer, who discards people who get in his way. Morally corrupt, it seems that there is no stopping his megalomania, until Marcia engineers his comeuppance.

The pre-Mayberry Griffith is remarkable as the Machiavellian television host, displaying an acting range — from pathetic to frightening — that he would never again draw upon in his long career. Many familiar faces turn up in supporting roles. Lee Remick makes a strong debut as Lonesome's baton-twirling child bride. As the socially-conscious writer Mel Miller, Walter Matthau becomes the movie's voice of reason, lecturing Rhodes on the evil of his ways. Patricia Neal makes the best of
On the Waterfront
writer Budd Schulberg's stinging script, giving a touching, layered performance.

Despite a good cast and a compelling story,
A Face in the Crowd
didn't do well in the theaters. Audiences, relatively new to the medium of television, weren't ready for a harsh exposé of their small-screen idols. Viewed through today's eyes, however, the movie's message of never accepting anyone at face value is as timely today as it was in 1957.

This sadly neglected gem sprang from the delightfully twisted mind of Theodore Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) in 1953. During his long and distinguished career he wrote 44 books, created several classic television specials, and won three Academy Awards for writing short wartime documentaries, but
The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T
is the only feature film Dr. Seuss was ever directly involved in.

Set in suburban America, the fanciful story begins with young Bart Collins (Tommy Rettig — remember him from
Lassie
?) asleep at the piano. His dreams take us to a castle ruled by an evil piano teacher, the peculiar Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried), who is hatching a nefarious plot to establish his “Happy Fingers Method” of teaching piano as the best in the world. To this end, the evil Dr. T has banished all other instruments to the dungeon and enslaved 500 boys (with their 5000 nimble fingers) to perform in unison on a colossal piano. It is his wicked plan to make them rehearse “24 hours a day until they are perfect.”

Shot in Technicolor,
The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T
features mind-blowing production design — huge colorful sets dominate the dream sequences, while the Dali-esque dungeon for non-piano-playing musicians is a frenetic set piece that clearly shows Seuss's influence.

This kid's movie didn't do much business in its first run, but it found another, unexpected life when it was rereleased in the '60s as
Crazy Music
and was embraced by hippies who better understood the stream of consciousness storyline and psychedelic undertones. Fans of
The Simpsons
will note some similarities — the television show's adolescent hero is named Bart and his sworn enemy is Robert “Sideshow Bob” Terwilliger. Coincidence? I think not.

Alfred Hitchcock's name has become synonymous with suspense, his famous pudgy profile a screen icon almost as recognizable as that of Mickey Mouse. He began making films in Britain in 1920, first working as a title-card illustrator on a dozen films before working his way through the ranks as an art director, assistant director, editor, writer, and director. As early as 1926 he was a name director in Europe, and had begun his lifelong habit of making a cameo appearance in his films.

In 1939, with a string of hits under his belt, he answered Hollywood's beckoning call, winning respect and an Academy Award for Best Picture with
Rebecca
, his first American film. Next up was
Foreign Correspon-dent
, a story of global intrigue that was nominated but failed to win any Academy gold. It's one of the lesser-known films on Hitchcock's resumé, but ranks with the best of his British work.

Set in Europe in 1939 just before the outbreak of World War II, the story involves Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea), a hard-nosed but inexperienced crime reporter who witnesses a fake political assassination on a rainy Amsterdam street and becomes embroiled in an international spy ring. Billed at the time as the “Thrill Spectacle of the Year,”
Foreign Correspondent
still packs a wallop, and Hitchcock's visual flair is abundantly clear in several set pieces that are pure eye candy. In the aftermath of the assassination Jones trails the shooter through the streets, pushing his way through a sea of bobbing black umbrellas in a suspenseful dance that is both eye-catching and intense. Brian De Palma was so taken with the shot he recreated it in 1990's
Bonfire of the Vanities
for a scene where the main character Sherman fights his way through a group of savage reporters.

Foreign Correspondent
's best sequence takes place during a trans-Atlantic flight on a plane that is about to crash. Hitchcock shoots the scene over the shoulders of the pilots as the plane plummets towards the water. On impact, water floods the cockpit as passengers tussle to escape the sinking aircraft. Only six survive, finding refuge on the plane's wing. Hitchcock is pitch perfect in this scene, building incredible suspense amid the terror of the inevitable destruction of the airplane. It is snippets of film like this that explain what the director meant when he flippantly said, “I enjoy playing the audience like a piano.” He toys with the viewer in this scene, delaying the expected collision until the audience is literally on the edge of their seats wondering who will survive and who will perish.

Even at this early juncture in his career Hitchcock was making films that pleased audiences and stand the test of time.
Foreign Correspondent
came out in 1940, the same year as
Rebecca
, and the two films earned a combined 17 Academy Award nominations (six for
Foreign Correspondent
, 11 for
Rebecca
). While
Rebecca
has gone on to become a classic,
Foreign Correspondent
has been largely forgotten. It's a shame; this is classic Hitchcock with fine performances from George Sanders in a heroic role, and a nominated turn from German actor Albert Basserman, who spoke no English and learned his lines phonetically.