I was prepared not to like this movie. After all, I read a few reviews here, and I’m not as dumb as I look. However, I found that in spite of all warnings to the contrary, I liked this film. I didn’t LOVE it, but I did like it. Now you may think that is hypocritical, but it isn’t. It’s just that I like all sorts of movies, including this one.

Frank Darabont is easily one of the most interesting people making films these days. He has a longer history writing for film than directing them, but two of the movies he has directed so (out of 4) far have won Academy Awards, The Shawshank Redemption, which has proved to be one of the most popular films ever made, and the Green Mile. And there are reasons for this. The stories have been outstanding, and the acting has been superlative.

The Majestic has been criticized as being sentimental, Capra-esque and formulaic. Maybe so, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It isn’t high on an ACTION profile, and it isn’t really a mystery. It won’t scare you (although perhaps it should) and it doesn’t contain any grossly bad language or graphic sex. It contains a chance for the protagonist to redeem himself, and it isn’t nihilistic. Since that eliminates 90% of today’s audiences from watching it, I guess that leaves 10%, the rest of us, to appreciate a good story, and some fine performances.


The real strength of this piece is in the realm of nostalgia, and evoking an era-that was the very early fifties in the second wave of the Communist witch hunt in Hollywood. It speaks poetically of a small town recovering from its losses from World War II, namely most of the young men that went to fight and did not return, and ties the ideology of WWII in with the central ethical issue of this movie-how to respond to the interrogators of the McCarthy Communist scare, highly publicized because it was in Hollywood.

The small town responds to this witch hunt, an aspect of this whole affair that I have never seen in movies and always wondered about. How could any American watch this happening and not respond? My historical source here at home (granniemose) said they did. They were just never heard.

Darabont’s special sensitivity as a writer shows here, and it is a crisis of conscience for the protagonist, as a writer, that ultimately makes this movie interesting. Because although the obvious issue in testifying for the Committee (HUAC) is a bill of rights issue, the writer has a subtle awakening on another level, as he realizes his artistic integrity has been compromised time and time again by the studio bosses.

This is something that bears discussion. Because the studios , since long before World War II, were running their own little dictatorships in deciding what movies could be made and what movies would be fed to the public. Case and point are some of the outstanding directors who came to America for freedom, thinking they could pursue their own artistic vision and were promptly stifled-people like Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Curtiz, Fritz Lang, and George Cukor, although everyone but Lang seemed to adjust to the studio demands-at least until they could get a solid reputation for success.
Stories were changed, actors and actresses were made stars or turned away, and you can only wonder how much talent was eliminated by the total control of the big studio machine. So when Appleton’s lawyer talks about who is “negotiating the contract”, he is not just blowing smoke. The Hollywood Community already understood the need to play the game, and wasn’t it really just a temporary change of the negotiator?

The issue of communists in Hollywood goes to a different ideology, and a paranoia that really was nation wide. And all of that boils down to the bomb, and the unsettling fear of annihilation that it engendered. I had always thought it interesting that liberals were the first accused of being commies, especially when their association with the communist chapters that did occur in this country were made when our country at the time of the Great Depression, or when our country was allied with the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler. Writers were of course the most liberal thinkers, and this writer in particular, who describes his project as his “grapes of Wrath” about a sweeping view of the human condition, automatically labeled him as a writer whose ideas were suspect. The fact that the FBI was going over his script word for word looking for communist sentiment I found to be amusing.

ABOUT THE FILM

The set design for this piece was particularly well done, and rebuilding the Majestic theater was a brilliant touch. The film-maker through this movie, also expresses a desire to return to a time when the stories mattered, the heroes were identifiable and people still went to the movies to be entertained. The theater itself was beautifully filmed and reconstructed. They don’t make movie theaters like that any more kids. Think about the big screen, the magnificent seating, the curtains, the piano and the balcony seats the next time you are crammed into the box at your local theater.

The music of the piece was a nice touch, and one that kept my mother singing, and me hushing her, to her annoyance. The original music was done by, and it works for this piece quite well.

I liked the story. There was enough ambiguity in the start of this movie to make us wonder if the protagonist really might have been the missing war hero. I admit to being disappointed when he turned out to be who we thought he was. The part that I have a hard time believing, though, is that fact that the hero could deliver a speech like that in front of the dogs of inquisition, and not pay for it-by being blacklisted, ostracized or jailed. I don’t think the committee backed down. They just went out of favor politically.

I have to say the most refreshing thing about this movie is that it isn’t a message of despair, or of betrayal. For that reason, it would not be bad for watching with the kids. I want my kids and their kids to think that anything is possible, and that their lives will be better when they are honest, and truthful, and are willing to stand up for what they believe in. You couldn’t ask for a much better message than that.

Was the romantic angle in this movie predictable? Sure it was. But again, what could be wrong with that? Are we so used to movies that leave the hero lonely and unloved , heading for a sex change operation , or transforming into a psychotic killer that we can’t appreciate it if, for once, the boy gets the girl?

THE PLOT

The year is 1951, and screenwriter Peter Appleton is about to get to get called up in the second wave of HUAC interrogations in Hollywood to root out communism. At this point , he is just about to get out of writing B-grade movies and tackle the A-movie road to fame. No matter that he is not a communist. Being named as a communist means if he doesn’t cooperate, he’ll be blacklisted. While he isn’t too upset over the moral implications, he is nevertheless upset because his girlfriend dumped him, and he has been labeled, and his life is on hold..

He gets drunk, and drives aimlessly for a while, only his stuffed monkey for company. He swerves on a bridge to miss a critter ambling along, and eventually goes off the bridge into the water , where her hits his head. When he wakes up on a beach, he has lost his memory.

As he is led back to the nearest town, a slice of small town America known as Lawston California, people start to remark that he reminds them of somebody. A man comes up to him and identifies him as Luke Trimble, his heroic son whose body was never found, missing in action in World War II. And soon the rest of the town, bereft for years at the loss of most of their best young men, embrace the amnesiac as the long lost son. This includes the old girlfriend, Adele, who has been to law school in the interim. At first, we don’t see anything of the almost god-like Luke in the personality of the amnesiac, he is still the same personality, but without any memory of recent events. But it isn’t long before the generous hearts of the people in the town start to change him as well. The town’s project that wreaks the change, is helping his “Dad” restore an old movie theater.

Will he wake up to reality? Will the dogs of McCarthyism sniff him out? Is he really Luke? I don’t know about you, but I want to know how the movie inside the movie ends. It seemed pretty interesting.

THE CAST

Note. The credits are given in order off appearance, and for the sake of my sanity, I am only going to pick out some high points.

I know you are dying to know who the “voices are that keep changing the story, both in the early and the late scene. They are Garry Marshall, Paul Mazursky, Sydney Pollack, Carl Reiner and Rob Reiner.

The actors of the movie within the movie are Bruce Campbell (of EVIL DEAD fame) as Roland, the hero, and Clifford Curtis, (Escobar in BLOW) as the evil prince. Of the two, the evil prince is the one that makes my little heart pound, The girl is the same as Sandy, the hollywood girlfriend, Amanda Detmar.


Jim Carrey as Peter Appleton-I am not normally a big Jim Carrey Fan...he lost me with all the gross-out movies and the big teeth, but he was outstanding in this serious role. He manages to make this character interesting and sympathetic, and never goes over the line to make the character pitiful. It would have been easy. A serious Carrey is not a bad actor.

Bob Balaban as Elvin Clyde-he takes the role of evil inquisitor in this movie and does it well.

Jeffrey DeMunn as Ernie Cole, the realistic advisor, and friend, maybe agent is the word. He is the rational voice, the voice that represents the easy way out, that is, to name names to the committee, that many Hollywood people took to keep their careers.

Hal Holbrook-As Congressman Doyle-it is not often you see this guy as a quasi bad guy, so it was interesting but brief.

Laurie Holden as Adele Stanton-The girlfriend of Luke and the Jiminy Crickets of this semi-fantasy tale. She is very stable, and her character manages to be believable, and well outside any parody or cliche.

Martin Landau-as Harry Trimble-This actor is the most underrated in the his lifetime of any that I have ever watched. He has had some lousy roles to keep working, but he is outstanding here as the father who so loved his son, he saw him return in a complete stranger. Yes, a hopelessly sentimental role, and a believable death as well. If this character does not make you cry, you are made of stone.

Ron Rifkin as Kevin Bannerman the studio’s lawyer. Rifkin is too good an actor for this role.

David Ogden Stiers as Doc Stanton the old family doctor, who sees a complete stranger in his office, and instead of handing him a bill for his services, gives him the shirt off his back. If you had any doubts about this being a fantasy, this action clinches it. I liked him better as Winchester in the MASH TV series, where he could be properly haughty. Here he was kind of pitiful.

James Whitmore as Stan Keller the old guy that finds Appleton on the beach. Did anyone find it funny that he keeps telling the much younger man to' go slow now'? Whitmore was doing his first known movie work in the period this depicts, so this should be a nostalgic return for him. I have always liked his acting, and I liked it here.

Gerry Black as Emmett Smith-the usher and friend of the family in Lawston. Very likable character.

Susan Willis as Irene Terwilliger-the candy lady, piano teacher? Another nice little performance as well.

The other actor who impressed me was the sullen guy who does not for a moment believe that Appleton is Luke. There was something really satisfying in the punch he delivers.


FINAL RECOMMENDATION

If you want a nice feel good movie with a good message, this movie will fit the bill. So what if it is a little sentimental? I sure don’t mind, once in a while.





Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8