Cry, the Beloved Country (1951)

Truly one of the great films, featuring one of the great, forgotten performances.

I have to acknowledge up front that I've never read Alan Paton's novel upon which this film is based, so I'm not weighed down by the burden of comparison. As pure cinema however, this is an incredible piece of work — subtle, lyrical, and highly affecting. Cry, the Beloved Country is a film about apartheid in South Africa, but its brilliance lies in how the film masks this within a moving and perceptive story of fathers and sons. It could be suggested that this is a film of opposites, and yes, of black and white. Of a white, racist father who finds an altogether unexpected sort of redemption when his anti-apartheid activist son is murdered by native burglars; and of a devout black minister whose life is undone when he discovers that it was his own son who pulled the trigger.

This isn't a crime film or a courtroom film, nor is it a melodrama — although aspects of each of those kinds of pictures are present. Where this lingers is in metaphor, particularly that of the search. On the surface this film is about the search of the fathers for their estranged sons, yet it's through this microcosm that we come to recognize the larger struggle of a nation trying to come to grips with itself, as were are exposed to what life was like for black South Africans on the plantations and in the mines — as well as in the shanty towns.

Our companion is the reverend Stehen Kumalo, played by actor Canada Lee. Known mostly for his role in Hitchcock's Lifeboat, Lee gives an astonishing performance. Rarely ever has an actor poured such emotion into such a reserved and dignified character. If for no other reason try to see this just for his work. He's accompanied by a very young Sidney Poitier, playing a fellow priest, in a role seemingly more indicative of Poitier's later career than his beginnings. Legend has it that director Zoltan Korda was forced to tell South African officials that Lee and Poitier were his indentured servants in order to get them into the country for the on-location filming. Lee's life in the months completing this film was tragic: called before the House Un-American Activities Commission, he was blacklisted in the wake of what the committee deemed unsatisfactory testimony. Broken, he died of a stroke the following year at age 46, with only five feature films to his credit.

The film’s — and Lee’s — great moment oddly brings to mind Terms of Endearment, another film in which child and parent are forced to confront not only great pain, but the coming death of the child. It's only in this notion that the two films have anything in common, but while Shirley MacLaine tears up the set hysterically demanding her daughter's treatment, Lee keeps his back ramrod straight. MacLaine is famously, and appropriately, over the top in her scene. Her outrage comes in the face of the apathy and indifference she sees directed at her daughter's pain. Lee is denied any such entitlement. When his son finally breaks — on his knees and grasping at his father's waist as he cries over and over, "I'm afraid of the hanging!" Lee has no choice but to stiffen, keep his chin up, and maintain his dignity — as he knows his son must also learn to do. Both moments are heartbreaking, but it's easier to empathize with MacLaine. Despite the fact that Aurora Greenway and her daughter are so different, all parents know that the foibles of difference and personality are forgotten when the chips are down. Stephen Kumalo's challenge is greater: he is a man of God and his son is a murderer. Yet he must find a way to show a similar sort of strength at the crucial moment of his life. It's a shattering moment in the film.

See this one, if you love movies you owe it to Lee.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1952)

Grade: A

Directed by Zoltan Korda

Starring Canada Lee and Sidney Poitier

Released by London Films

Running time: 103 minutes

Availability: Has aired on TCM

Two for the Seesaw (1962)

If ever a poster didn’t do its film justice, this is it. The darn thing is too heavily steeped in what we (I’m a graphic design professor) have a tendency to call 101-Dalmatians-style to suggest the content of the Robert Wise’s Two for the Seesaw, which while romantic, is too tinged with melancholy and loneliness to be captured in this light-and-bright style.

Robert Mitchum stars as an attorney from Omaha who flees his failing marriage for the streets of New York, where he chances upon an unusual romance with Bohemian dreamer Shirley MacLaine. Seldom was Mitch’s signature world-weariness put to better use. He comes across beautifully here, channelling (ha!) all of the alienation and loneliness that one can feel amidst the canyons of Manhattan into his role. Though the films have nothing in common, Mitchum is almost as good here as he would be as Eddie Coyle more than a decade later. While Mitchum is thought of as a screen persona (or force of nature) more than as an actor, he holds his own quite well opposite the incredibly gifted MacLaine — she of the Best Actress Oscar and trio of Best Pictures. The clash of his repressive midwestern morality versus her Greenwich Village flightiness makes for an interesting contrast in the early scenes. The film is primarily concerned with how the pair manage to contrive a romance in spite of their differences.

Before I get any farther, I have to talk about Ted McCord’s black-and-white cinematography for Two for the Seesaw, which is among, I kid you not, the best in the history of Hollywood. I was able to watch this recently in high-definition on the MGM HD channel, and found the depiction of the streets of lower Manhattan to be nothing short of staggering. As a film noir enthusiast, this film ironically boast one or two of the most iconic representations of not only the urban landscape, but of a trench-coated protagonist among them. There is a scene in the middle of the film that finds a chain-smoking Mitchum waiting on a dark street outside MacLaine’s apartment following a bitter a quarrel. Mitchum is framed so beautifully against the deserted streets that my breath literally caught in my throat. At the conclusion of the picture, I rewound to the moment and enjoyed the frame for quite some time. McCord had a long-lasting career in Hollywood, but he isn't particularly well known to film buffs. His two biggest credits are East of Eden and The Sound of Music, as well as a three or four B-noirs. Wise however was a visually stylish director, especially when utilizing black-and-white, and the two worked together here to craft a sensuously, richly beautiful film — all the more surprising considering theatrical source material.

It has been said by some that Mitchum and MacLaine don’t have solid chemistry and the film is too long, but I disagree and would advise anyone to see this and judge for themselves. See this for the performances, for the beauty of the filming and of the city, and for the verve of Andre Previn’s great score. Just do me a favor and see it.

Although this does air on television from time to time, it isn't generally available otherwise, having never been widely released on DVD. It was recently made available from Amazon.com as a made-on-demand DVD, in much the same fashion as the Warner Archive DVD series.

Two for the Seesaw (1962)

Grade: A-

Director: Robert Wise
Starring: Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine
Released by United Artists
Running time: 119 minutes
Availability: Amazon DVD on Demand.