For The Love of Peter O'Toole: Intro & Lawrence of Arabia

Thanks to Netflix, my movie watching habits are more organized than ever. I have entire runs of TV series' in there, as well as spats of silent horror films, and some of those 'recommended for you in the Dark, Foreign category' (am I so predictable?). But, those films always seem to get knocked down the queue by my favorite type of viewing experience: the actor's filmography.

This is when a new obsession comes around and I watch all of his or her (oh, who am I kidding--his) films in a row. I've had several of these film binges, each quite enjoyable and enlightening, but none more so than my self-dubbed Peter O'Toole-a-Thon a few months ago. I can't quite recall what prompted choosing O'Toole. I had seen Lawrence of Arabia, of course, and adored it, but I wanted to really dig deep into an actor's filmography. I knew that nearly any film next to Lawrence was bound to be a let-down, but I persisted. Netflix has a feature where an entire actor's filmography is listed and you can add them all into your queue nearly instantly. The desire was much too strong. And that's how I came to brink of O'Toole insanity this past winter.

Every day was a new adventure. One evening I'm indulging in the adventures of Henry II with a Becket/Lion In Winter double-header (no mean feat considering their combined running time is nearly five hours), the next I'm witnessing a musical O'Toole in the rather regrettable Man of La Mancha and the rather delightful Goodbye Mr. Chips.

One of my favorite benefits of the actor's filmography marathon vs. any other type of film binge is the sense of career and time you get. A director may make a new film every six years, so you cannot really trace his development in any single decade; an early film might be dynamite and a later film might be, well, rubbish. Watching films across genres is satisfying but occasionally frustrating, as a marathon in classic Westerns, revisionist Westerns and modern Westerns reveals. O'Toole did his best work in the 1960s, which just happens to be my favorite decade in film. Since he is a British actor, his filmography reveals dabbling in European and American sensibilities that mingle very pleasingly. There are also many tensions in O'Toole's filmography that make for interesting viewing. Theater vs. film, matinee idol vs. character actor roles, intense drama vs. ribald comedy are all dichotomies I confronted during my O'Toole-a-Thon.

I've divided the rest of the entry up among the O'Toole films I viewed. Unfortunately, many of his films aren't available on DVD and even more unfortunately, much of his best stage work was never filmed. However, you can listen to a segment of Peter in The Taming of the Shrew here. O'Toole has also done some great work on television which I won't be covering here.

The first group will be Peter's Academy-Award nominated roles (eight in all), a movie a day. Enjoy!

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

Role: T.E. Lawrence

I've already talked a bit about Lawrence in the context of my Perfect Films. But consider O'Toole pre-Lawrence. Before starting filming in 1961, Peter O'Toole had two films under his belt, the Disney adaptation of Kidnapped and The Day They Robbed the Bank of England, the part which caught Lean's eye got him the role of Lawrence. Many more famous actors had been considered for Lawrence, including Marlon Brando, Albert Finney (O'Toole's compatriot at the RADA), Anthony Perkins, and Monty Clift. French actor Alain Delon (later Jean-Pierre Melville's gangster muse), actually won the part but was replaced by O'Toole after negative screen tests. LoA's production history is notorious; Lean and company filmed for over a year, in Jordan and later, Spain and Morocco.

The story, if you don't already know, is about T.E. Lawrence, an officer in the British Army during WWI. Instead of fighting in Europe, he helps lead the Arabs in a revolution against the Turks. The films opens with Lawrence's death in a motorcycle accident and the rest of the story is shown in flashback. Instead of undercutting the suspense during Lawrence's dangerous adventures, the knowledge of his rather pedestrian death serves only to heighten his legend. We witness the intense trials Lawrence survives, including the incredible sequences of crossing the Devil's Anvil and the taking of the Turkish fort at Aqaba, a decisive English/Bedouin victory.

Although the film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director David Lean, O'Toole did not. It's understandable in the context of his youth and inexperience in movie acting. Even still, looking back on the undisputed classic Lawrence of Arabia is today, and the legendary iconic status of O'Toole's performance as Lawrence, it's amazing to think he didn't win. In fact, O'Toole's Lawrence is #10 on the AFI's 100 Heroes list; #1 is Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, the performance that beat O'Toole at the 1963 Academy Awards.

Perfect Films: Vol. 1

What makes a film perfect? Well, number one, the absence of badness. Seems rational enough. But when was the last time you saw a movie with nothing wrong with it? There were no performances that bugged you, no groan-inducing line of dialogue, no look-at-your-watch moment. Probably not lately. Even the greatest films, the ones with artistry and ambition, are rarely perfect. A perfect film is a once-in-a-blue-moon, beautifully crystalline occurrence. The heavens open and you breathe a sigh of relief, Now, that was a perfect film.

Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)

Casablanca is the textbook example of a perfect film. It has everything: romance, humor, political intrigue, really good looking people in trouble, Nazis, a theme song, Peter Lorre and an unimpeachably perfect script. Really. Screenwriting dialogue has never been better and if you can find a script that improves on the Epstein brothers', I will eat my hat. I'll even eat Rick and Isla's hats. Casablanca is just one of those films that appeals to everyone, everytime. When you analyze the individual elements, it doesn't seem like much. It's an average love story with an international cast, not unusual for films of the time. But it's how each element joins together that makes Casablanca into the perfect film it is. 

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

A film has to be more than technically perfect to qualify for 'perfect film' status, so some may argue with my inclusion of Lawrence of Arabia on this list. Certainly, Lean's masterpiece is technically perfect, a staggering, towering achievement in epic filmmaking. But many viewers find it too long, too boring, too white, and too male. Those viewers, of course, are what critical film scholars have termed, "stupid." Actually, in all seriousness, a 'perfect film' does not need to cross-over into 'favorite film' categories, it merely needs to be perfect. In all aspects, Lawrence fits the bill. The storytelling is flawless with a script by Robert Bolt that blends elements of the war film and the biopic, managing to surpass both genres. Lean's meticulous direction is at alternate points gripping and hypnotic. And then there's Peter O'Toole. Dear, dear Peter, Lawrence of Arabia himself, giving the performance, not only of his life, but of several mens' lives. Onscreen for almost all of the film's 216 minute run-time (more or less depending on which cut of the film you watch), for sheer presence, O'Toole out-performs most of the actors who are ever nominated for Oscars. He lost of Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird, which gives you an indiction of the incredible talent represented in the Best Actor race that year. 

Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984)

Like Lawrence of Arabia, I expect a bit of resistance at this choice, although for different reasons. Ghostbusters?, I hear you scoffing. Oh, yes, Ghostbusters. I justify my choice slightly by distancing myself from the candy-coated nostalgia haze clouding so many '80s "classics" that have become canonically vaunted with the rise of the 30-something fanboy bloggerstocracy. I didn't see Ghostbusters as a child; I saw it recently in reaction to the Ghostbusters III rumors floating around. Why was everyone so danged excited? Short answer: because Ghostbusters is freaking awesome, that's why. First of all, it's perfectly paced. It's a rare quality in comedies these days, but Ghostbusters knows where to place a montage, when to initiate a climax and how long it takes to vanquish a monster, and it's ain't very long. Bloated effects-laden pictures should look to Ghostbusters for a lesson in balancing action and humor perfectly. Secondly, the cast is perfect. This is mainly the result of comedians writing material for themselves and their talented friends. The result is the natural feeling of camaraderie and good-humor that infuses the film. Drs. Venkman, Stantz, and Spengler seem more like old familiar friends than characters hatched at a studio pitch meeting. 

City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)

Charlie Chaplin is one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of cinema. City Lights is his most perfect film. This may be an opinion piece, but the two preceding sentences are fact. Here's the synopsis: Charlie has fallen in love with a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) who has mistaken him for a wealthy man. They begin a courtship in earnest. Through a series of misunderstandings, Charlie is accused of stealing $1000 from a wealthy friend, which he gives to the flower girl for an operation to regain her sight. Charlie is picked up for theft and jailed. The final scene:

North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)

Another great movie with a near-perfect screenplay, North By Northwest is Hitchcock's most shamelessly populist entertainment. Like Chaplin, almost any Hitchcock film could be eligible for this list (I mean canonical Hitchcock, of course, which excludes most of his early work in Britain and his comedies). But I think North by Northwest is Hitch's most iconic, most pleasurable and precise film. If Psycho is my favorite Hitchcock and Vertigo is the best Hitchcock, then North by Northwest is definitely the most perfect Hitchcock. It blends everything that typifies the director's suspense thrillers without being too heavy or too light. Vivid Technicolor, attractive and charming leads, political intrigue and sexual innuendo abound. Although a long film, the pacing achieved by Hitch and screenwriter Ernest Lehman is superb, engaging and spritely when necessary but never too slow to bore or too fast to confuse. Hitch's control of the cinematic space and expert editing in the crop duster scene is legendary. To be able to halt a chase movie in the middle of the action, strand Cary Grant in the middle of nowhere, elicit gasps from his audience instead of the chuckles you might expect when you ponder the absurdity of trying to kill a man with a biplane, and then re-adjust the film to an espionage thriller is beyond skill. It's perfection. 

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969)

The structure of this screenplay by William Goldman is so perfect, it's used as a model for screenwriting students. Goldman's 1982 book about writing in Hollywood, Adventures in the Screen Trade is still considered an industry Bible for wannabe filmmakers. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is one of a number of screenplays reproduced and analyzed in the book, and having read the full text I can tell you it's just as entertaining to read the script as it is to watch the film. Although technically a revisionist Western, about as far as you can get from John Wayne, the timeless qualities of BCATSK has launched it into the Western film canon. It has a pleasing buddy comedy structure that's still popular today, so instead of a more traditional film like Stagecoach informing the popular conception of a Western, it's Butch and Sundance (along with the ever-popular spaghetti Westerns of Leone and others). Not that I'm complaining. It wouldn't be on the list if it wasn't perfect. From the incongruously charming Burt Bacharach score to Goldman's endlessly quotable script and note-perfect performances by Paul Newman and Robert Redford as the world's most handsome outlaws, BCATSK is a pleasure and a great film I never tire of revisiting. 

Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)

If you held a gun to my head and asked me to name the funniest and most romantic romantic comedy, I'd probably start crying and then say Annie Hall. To me, Annie Hall is perfection, pure and simple. It works its magic on you subtly and eternally. As Alvy (Woody Allen) and Annie (Diane Keaton) fall in love with each other, you fall in love with them. And even though they don't stay together, it doesn't ruin your appreciation of the movie--it deepens it. There are plenty of classic moments, including the lobster scene, which I'm convinced inspired this equally classic bit from Friends. Well, anyway, what're you listening to me for? Just watch this: 

Well, that's it for Vol. One. Thanks to everyone on Facebook who contributed their Perfect Films!